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

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
 Erro         


        

Answer 1

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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:

1. http://code.google.com/p/beginning-android-games/source/browse/trunk/ch04-android-basics/src/com/badlogic/androidgames/SoundPoolTest.java
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioGWpu8Ud7A

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.

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

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)

Answer 4

i just had this issue working on my game. I am building it in android native using java. My problem was 2 fold. 1st I used too many channels when creating my soundpool, then I never released the soundpool when the game ended and went to the game over screen. I used onStop method to release both soundpool and audiomanager when the game ended and that fixed the problem for me.

// in GameActivity
    @Override
    protected void onStop() {
        gameView.audioHandler.release();
        super.onStop();
    }

// in AudioHandler class
    public void release() {
        soundPool.release(); // this is my SoundPool
        battleMusic.release(); // this is my AudioManager
    }

Update: The issue still reoccurred after some more testing. However, what finally ended up eliminating the issue completely ended up being a combination of the previous code and then limiting the sound pool to a max stream of 10 and lowering the quality of the sound MP3s used. The issue was primarily occurring when I had 10+ enemies on the screen all firing lasers using the same sound. Per the SoundPool documentation, when the max stream is reached it logically will eliminate old streams. Given that the -12 code signifies that the 1 MB limit of soundpool has been reached, the conclusion I came to was that it was overburdened with sound and thus by setting it to a stream limit of 10 it could never reach that 1 mb limit and have to begin cycling out old streams. It is odd since my sound effects are not that long in duration, but still it reached the limit. I hope this helps someone!I have not had this issue again since reducing the streams.

Answer 5

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.

Answer 6

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.