"Failed to open sound channels" crash

[Silb Aran]

When I open any of the three Geneforges, The game immediately quits with a "failed to open sound channels" error message. This did not happen in the past. Reinstalling doesn't work.

I think something is corrupted in my OS X sound library (or whatever handles sound in OS X), and I realize Geneforge's crashing may not be the cause, and only an annoying side-effect.

 

However, if someone could tell me what library (or other) Geneforge uses to handle sound, so I would know what to fix/reinstall, I would really appreciate it

[Spidweb]

Hmm .. this is from the Avernum 4 support page, but it might be a general issue. Try this ...

 

MPlayer Incompatability

 

It has been reported that installing MPlayer can interfere with Avernum 4's ability to run. The program will return the error "Unable to open sound channels" and quit.

 

Going into the "Audio MIDI Setup" and set the Audio Output

format to 44100.0 Hz should fix the problem.

 

(We only use plain, vanilla Mac system calls for sound, which makes these problems frustrating.)

 

- Jeff Vogel

[Silb Aran]

I haven't installed MPlayer, but what you say makes it plain that Geneforge is not responsible for the problem.

Thanks for the help!

 

EDIT: sorry, I misunderstood your post.

I thought "Audio MIDI Setup" was some MPlayer preference panel. I've just realized it's actually a Mac OS X utility. Setting the output rate to 44 MHz did fix the problem.

Thank you so much

[Spidweb]

Thank you VERY much for this information. The MPlayer thing was my mistake. I will fix the support info and spread it to the other support pages for our games.

 

- Jeff Vogel

 

Later edit ... this is the new support page message:

 

"Unable to open sound channels" Error

 

If you get the error "Unable to open sound channels" when you launch the game, carry out these steps to fix the problem:

 

i. Open the Applications folder.

ii. Open the Utilities folder.

iii. In this folder, run "Audio MIDI Setup"

iv. Under Audio Output, change the Format to 44100.0 Hz.

 

This should correct the problem.

 

###

 

Now I have to dig into the code and try to figure out a gentler way around this problem.

[MagmaDragoon]

You have helped Jeff Vogel. Whoa! You need a four-star rating for this.

 

Hey, 250 posts! Adept! Yeehaw!

[spidersilk]

Sorry to reopen such an old thread, but I just tried to play one of the Geneforge games for the first time in a long time, and I got this same error. I came to the forums and found this thread, and found the Audio MIDI Setup program on my Mac, but under Audio Output, it just says "Output is not supported". Is there some kind of additional software I have to install?

 

I know I used to be able to play Geneforge, but that may have been one or two versions of OS X ago... I'm on 10.4.11 right now if that makes a difference. I don't think there's anything unusual about my audio setup - no other program's ever given me this error, and I listen to music all the time with iTunes.

 

Any idea what I might need to do to get things working?

[Lilith]

You have GarageBand on your computer, right? Open it up, let it initialise and then quit. This is surprisingly effective at fixing all kinds of Mac audio problems.

[spidersilk]

Never mind, found the problem. You have to select "Built-in Output" from the little pop-up menu that says "Properties for" first. I did find, however, that it was already set to 44100.0 kHz. So I change the other settings to the ones shown on this page: http://mactip.blogspot.com/2006/11/my-audio-applications-have-stopped.html - that is, the little menu after the format to 2ch-24 bit and the sliders below to 16.56 - and then it worked.

 

So all is good now. I just thought I'd post what I did in case anyone else has the same problem.