[LAU] hdspmixer: HwDep ioctl failed. Metering stopped

[Alex Norman]

Hello, I'm trying to help my friend with his RME multiface and ubuntu linux.
When we run hdspmixer we get this output:

HDSPMixer 1.6 - Copyright (C) 2003 Thomas Charbonnel <thomas at undata.org>
This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
HDSPMixer is free software, see the file COPYING for details

Looking for HDSP cards :
Card 0 : RME Hammerfall DSP + Multiface at 0xfdde0000, irq 17
Multiface found !
1 Hammerfall DSP card found.
Initializing default presets
HwDep ioctl failed. Metering stopped

We can still use the mixer, route, etc. but metering doesn't work [we don't see
any graphical representation of the audio].   hdspconf repeatedly gives us this
output:
Hwdep ioctl error on card hw:0.

We can route audio with jack, output audio with jack, and also output audio with
oss, but apps using alsa don't seem to be working.. when I run aplay on a file I
get this output:

jesse at ubuntu:/lib/firmware$ aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Side_Right.wav
Playing WAVE '/usr/share/sounds/alsa/Side_Right.wav' : Signed 16 bit Little
Endian, Rate 48000 Hz, Mono
ALSA lib pcm_pulse.c:625:(pulse_prepare) PulseAudio: Unable to create stream:
Invalid argument

aplay: set_params:1015: Unable to install hw params:
ACCESS:  RW_INTERLEAVED
FORMAT:  S16_LE
SUBFORMAT:  STD
SAMPLE_BITS: 16
FRAME_BITS: 16
CHANNELS: 1
RATE: 48000
PERIOD_TIME: 125000
PERIOD_SIZE: 6000
PERIOD_BYTES: 12000
PERIODS: 4
BUFFER_TIME: 500000
BUFFER_SIZE: 24000
BUFFER_BYTES: 48000
TICK_TIME: [0 0]

We've found some open threads in some bug trackers about this problem but no
resolutions for this problem.  Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,
Alex