[LAU] old problem: alsa device or resource busy

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