View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | View Status | Date Submitted | Last Update |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0010410 | ardour | features | public | 2026-06-17 16:00 | 2026-06-17 16:00 |
| Reporter | houndofulster | Assigned To | |||
| Priority | normal | Severity | crash | Reproducibility | unable to reproduce |
| Status | new | Resolution | open | ||
| Platform | Ubuntu | OS | Linux | OS Version | (any) |
| Summary | 0010410: Feature Request: Graceful handling of SIGABRT / "Device or Resource Busy" on backend initialization | ||||
| Description | Following a system upgrade to Ubuntu Studio (utilizing Ardour 9.0.0~ds), I encountered a transient startup crash (SIGABRT) when Ardour attempted to initialize the audio backend over a system utilizing PipeWire/WirePlumber. While the root cause was a temporary system-level device lock that has since resolved itself, the terminal logs captured the exact moment of failure: Plaintext ardour-request-device: Failed to acquire device: 'Audio0' Device or resource busy Followed by the system log confirming the ALSA stream was broken: Plaintext spa.alsa: front:0c: snd_pcm_mmap_commit error 1028 1026 1028: Broken pipe The Suggestion: Currently, when Ardour encounters a Device or resource busy error during backend switching or first-run initialization, it terminates abruptly. Could a catch block be implemented for this specific hardware lock error? Instead of a hard crash, Ardour could present a user-facing dialogue box letting the user know the device is locked by another process (or a system audio server like PipeWire), and offer a graceful exit or an automated retry/restart prompt. This would greatly improve the user experience during major system or distribution upgrades where audio states are temporarily volatile. | ||||
| Steps To Reproduce | In theory (I have not tried this) you could attempt to create the type of broken pipe that my system upgrade caused, and observe Ardour's behavior when trying to connect to JACK/Pipewre from the default, ALSA-connected state. | ||||
| Additional Information | Ardour version 9.0.0~ds on Ubuntu Studio 26.04 | ||||
| Tags | 9.0, Ardour, crash, Upgrade | ||||
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-17 16:00 | houndofulster | New Issue | |
| 2026-06-17 16:00 | houndofulster | Tag Attached: 9.0 | |
| 2026-06-17 16:00 | houndofulster | Tag Attached: Ardour | |
| 2026-06-17 16:00 | houndofulster | Tag Attached: crash | |
| 2026-06-17 16:00 | houndofulster | Tag Attached: Upgrade |
