speech dispatcher not connecting to alsa

[Hynek Hanke]

Rob Hill wrote:
> /var/log/speech-dispatcher/espeak.log below.  Basically, the result is
> the same as when I start orca with speech-dispatcher.
>  Tue Jan 13 20:59:04 2009 [84768] ALSA ERROR: Cannot initialize Alsa device 
> 'pcm.dmixer': Can't open.
>   

I see you are running Speech Dispatcher as a system service,
perhaps under the user speech-dispatcher, not under your
user account. This is the reason why you can test sound
with other apps but Speech Dispatcher doesn't seem to be able
to access it.

You need to test ALSA from the user who is running Speech Dispatcher.
Check your /etc/init.d/speech-dispatcher. In Debian/Ubuntu its 
"speech-dispatcher".
Su to this user and try aplay.

Now, is speech-dispatcher in the group "audio" in /etc/groups ?

Also, are you totally sure Pulse Audio is not running? In some 
distributions,
it starts automatically on-demand even if you kill it before. There is 
always
a possibility, that your ALSA actually uses Pulse Audio for sound output
and in such a case, mixing of audio from two different users won't work
due to Pulse Audio design.

With regards,
Hynek