old problem: alsa device or resource busy

["Rich E" <reakinator@xxxxxxxxx>]

I know I have seen this hased a few times... but never seen an answer.  Occasionally something grabs the ALSA sound driver and doesn't let go;  I don't appear to have any applications that are using audio open, yet I still get this message:

r@pal: ~$ aplay flugel.wav 
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:864:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) unable to open slave
aplay: main:545: audio open error: Device or resource busy

So why isn't there a way to find what has tied up the audio device?  If there is, great, now I can move on.  

I know multiple devices are supposed to be able to use the ALSA device at the same time, but I assume that older applications weren't implemented to take advantage of this feature, which is why I am receiving this error, no?  I have always wondered about this; wikipedia says one of ALSA's main goals is "graceful handling of multiple sound devices in a system", but I have never known this to be the case.

Time to restart my computer so I can use audio again..

regards,
Rich
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