From: Markus Kuhn <Markus.Kuhn@cl.cam.ac.uk>
To: whoever_is_in_charge at microsoft.com
Subject: Bug report: Can't select audio device with wmplayer 6.3 for Solaris
Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2001 20:01:33 +0000

BUG REPORT

PRODUCT:

  Windows Media Player 6.3 for Solaris
  http://download.microsoft.com/download/winmediaplayer/Install/6.3/SOL/EN-US/wmp6.3.tar.Z

PLATFORM:

  Solaris (SunOS 5.8)

SUMMARY: 

  Wmplayer command ignores the $AUDIODEV environment variable and
  cannot be used with any other audio device then /dev/audio.

DETAILS:

  The notion of having a single system-wide /dev/audio device works
  only with single-user workstations. When several users of X11-terminals
  or SunRay network appliances are connected to a Solaris server, each
  user will have its own audio device, which can have a file name such
  as for example /tmp/SUNWut/dev/utaudio/5. Applications have to check under
  Solaris the environment variable AUDIODEV, which can contain the path name
  of the audio device to be used. Only when AUDIODEV is not defined, /dev/audio
  can be used as a default value.

FIX:

  The fact that the wmplayer binary lacks the string AUDIODEV suggests that
  the developers were unaware of that important Solaris convention. It is
  explained for instance on the "audioplay" manual page:

     AUDIODEV
           The full path name of the audio device to write to, if
           no  -d argument is supplied.  If the AUDIODEV variable
           is not set, /dev/audio is used.

  This problem should be trivial to fix for anyone with access to the
  source code.

WORKAROUND:

  The hardwired audio device name "/dev/audio" appears in the
  wmplayer.exe binary at positions 0x20c518 and 20c570. You can easily
  use emacs, sed or perl to replace these occurences with something
  like "/tmp/a1234" and then use

     ln -s $AUDIODEV /tmp/a1234

  to create a link to the proper audio device. Here "/tmp/a1234" is
  just an arbitrary pathname with 10 characters that you write to. For
  each audio device, you will have to generate a separate wmplayer.exe
  binary this way.

This problem is not yet mentioned in the Microsoft Knowledge Base.

Best regards,

Markus

-- 
Markus Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ || CB3 0FD, Great Britain