# Error 51 on Linux

**URL:** <https://qa.fmod.com/t/error-51-on-linux/16184>\
**Category:** FMOD Engine\
**Created:** [September 17, 2020, 12:11am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/error-51-on-linux/16184 "2020-09-17T00:11:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rontt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@rontt](https://qa.fmod.com/u/rontt)\
**Post date:** [September 17, 2020, 12:11am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/error-51-on-linux/16184/1 "2020-09-17T00:11:24Z")

</div>

I have a Linux player that is getting error (51) “Error initializing output device.” He says audio is working on his machine and he’s tried speakers, headphones, etc, all with the same error. Audio works fine for most of my Linux players.

Is there a way to turn on better error messages without using the logging FMOD?

Any idea what to suggest he try?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mathew](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/mathew/32/431_2.png) [@mathew](https://qa.fmod.com/u/mathew)\
**Post date:** [September 17, 2020, 3:25am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/error-51-on-linux/16184/2 "2020-09-17T03:25:53Z")

</div>

The logging version of FMOD is the main way to get more information about what’s going wrong. As for things to try, FMOD will make a choice between using PulseAudio or ALSA as the audio interface based on the response from `pulseaudio --check`. If PulseAudio is available it will use it otherwise it will fallback to using ALSA.

You can influence this choice (as a user) if PulseAudio is misbehaving. Use of the environment variable `FMOD_ALSA_DEVICE` allows you to specify an ALSA device to use instead of the default. Setting `FMOD_ALSA_DEVICE = default` should force the game to use the ALSA default device or any valid ALSA device name if that’s your preference.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rontt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@rontt](https://qa.fmod.com/u/rontt)\
**Post date:** [September 17, 2020, 2:01pm UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/error-51-on-linux/16184/3 "2020-09-17T14:01:56Z")

</div>

Thanks, I’ll have them try this. If the run the game from the command line, it works fine. If they run it from Steam it fails.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mathew](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/mathew/32/431_2.png) [@mathew](https://qa.fmod.com/u/mathew)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2020, 3:47am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/error-51-on-linux/16184/4 "2020-09-21T03:47:22Z")

</div>

I’ve seen some comments on the Linux Steam forums solving audio issues for other games by forcing ALSA so I hope that will help.