SoundPool: Error creating AudioTrack

https://stackoverflow.com//questions/9599059

08-12-2019
|

Question

I am having a problem With SoundPool as it refuses to work with my .ogg files. I am getting this error:

AudioFlinger could not create track, status: -12
Error creating AudioTrack

I've found a thread concerning this and the (possible) answer is:

Make sure you use .ogg media files with constant bitrate!

Is this the case? (someone please confirm or cancel)
If yes - which application to use (Audacity doesn't support .ogg custom export settings).
If not - what else could be wrong?

As a side note - before I used MediaPlayer but now I want to play a few sounds parallel.

Solution

MAJOR EDIT: FOUND A WAY TO FIX YOUR DAY!! SCROLL DOWN BELOW!!

I'm in the same boat with you. Before reading, I must let you know that I failed to provide an answer that can fix this problem.

I have seen many, many Stack Overflow topics regarding SoundPool, but I haven't seen a lot of SoundPool problems with this in regard with Java code from an Android book:

AudioTrack: AudioFlinger could not create track, status -12.
SoundPool: Error creating AudioTrack.

Here's the code snipped from Beginning Android 4 Game Development source code provided here (see below). You get the explosion.ogg file there (in the trunk, find the /asset folder of Chapter 4 - Android Basics). You have to click on "View raw file" on your right to obtain the file.

All I did was I copied the source code directly into Eclipse, and added the explosion.ogg file provided from the trunk, into my project. I executed Android emulator, tried playing the file, and I can tell you I still get the same Logcat errors quoted above.

A person provided a video on Youtube stating that SoundPool works normally. Video link is given below. I did what the video instructed me to code, I grabbed the same explosion.ogg file I got from the second link provided above. I still get these errors:

03-13 05:17:10.143: E/AudioTrack(3370): AudioFlinger could not create track, status: -12
03-13 05:17:10.143: E/SoundPool(3370): Error creating AudioTrack

I do know that SoundPool exists since Android 1.0, at API level 1. There shouldn't be any reason for SoundPool to fail to work, even when I have proof that SoundPool works (the video link, 2nd one).

These are my findings and may or may not help others in a good way. In short, you're not alone here.

Source:

EDIT: I am able to play sounds from SoundPool.

Here's my code:

package nttu.edu.test;

import nttu.edu.R;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.media.AudioManager;
import android.media.SoundPool;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.View.OnClickListener;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class SoundPoolTest extends Activity implements OnClickListener {
    SoundPool soundPool = null;
    int explosionId = 0;

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        TextView v = new TextView(this);
        v.setOnClickListener(this);
        setContentView(v);
        this.setVolumeControlStream(AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC);
        v.setText("Click anywhere to play the sound.");
    }

    protected void onResume() {
        super.onResume();
        if (soundPool == null) {
            soundPool = new SoundPool(5, AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC, 0);
            explosionId = soundPool.load(this, R.raw.explosion, 1);
        }
    }

    protected void onPause() {
        super.onPause();
        if (soundPool != null) {
            soundPool.release();
            soundPool = null;
        }
    }

    public void onClick(View v) {
        if (explosionId != 0)
            soundPool.play(explosionId, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1);
    }
}

What I did was refactor my code around. I learned this tip from one of the comments in the Youtube video link, where the author of the comment goes by the name of "ErichLancaster". All credits go to him. I hoped this helped you out.

I also set the Android emulator resolution size to QVGA, if it really matters or not.

OTHER TIPS

For me status -12 was caused by specifying too many channels when I instantiate SoundPool. So it was probably just running out of memory trying to keep too many channels around.

In my code I had to play about 10 Sounds parallel (Drumkit-Simulation). What I did is, i put every sound in a own soundpool and used to stop the same already played sound, when a new one was started. That solved it.

        int newStreamID = soundPool.play(soundIDs.get(0), volume, volume, 1, 0, randomFloatRate);
        if (StreamID != null) {
            soundPool.stop(StreamID);
        }
        StreamID = newStreamID;

As far as I know Soundpool decompresses the audiofiles, so you can save CPU-Usage with .wav. I think on this wise you maybe could overlie the same sound for several times.

For changing Audio formats I use FormatFactory

I was facing this error too recently. Mine was a collision actually taking place multiple times in a loop so it would actually stack the sounds until they dropped out, this causing the error, yet it would keep playing. I fixed this by registering a bounce as 1 when it occurs.

 // bouncecount=
 // 0=no bounce
 // 1=set when bounce occurs and plays the sound
 // 21=reset

Since the game runs at roughly 60fps, this only allows one instance of the sound 3 times a second and could be adjusted easily by changing the 20. Not only did this reduce jitter in the game, it isn't the least bit noticeable.

if(bouncecount==1){
   sounds.play(sbump,1,1, 0, 0, 1);bouncecount++;}
else{if(bouncecount<20&&bouncecount!=0){bouncecount++;}
     else{bouncecount=0;}}

Hope this helps someone.

There is a problem with looping: when I set repeat to -1 I get this error, but with 0 everything is working properly. I've noticed that some sounds give this error when I'm trying to play them one by one. For example:

mSoundPool.stop(mStreamID);
mStreamID = mSoundPool.play(mRandID, mVolume, mVolume, 1, -1, 1f);

In such case, first track is played ok, but when I switch sounds, next track gives this error. It seems that using looping, a buffer is somehow overloaded, and mSoundPool.stop cannot release resources immediately.

Solution:

final Handler handler = new Handler();
handler.postDelayed(new Runnable() {
   @Override
   public void run() {
      mStreamID = mSoundPool.play(mRandID, mVolume, mVolume, 1, -1, 1f);
}, 350);

And it's working, but delay is different for different devices.

I follow this answer: http://www.andengine.org/forums/gles2/sound-not-playing-t10820.html

The main idea is that SoundManager class has a SoundPool with little memory allowed (in contradistinction to MusicManager), so in "all messages" in logcat "out of memory" can be seen.

I suppose, every ".play()" called for every sound (don't know what about music) - allocates new memory space in the pool, and to avoid that you can do the following:

- use .play() only once, then .seekTo(0), then .resume() (to play from the begining)

- or use .play() only once, then .pause(), then .resume() (for looping, for example)

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