Java Media Player Cannot Play Audio File With User Role

[gregst]

The Java Media Player will play an audio file when executing as my user. But, when I "su <role>" and try the same thing, the Java Media Player reports, "...unsupported or invalid media file...Failed to prefetch: Cannot open the audio device."

Anyone know why the user role would prevent playing the audio?

[gregst]

I'm still looking for a resolution. But, it turns out that this is not unique to a user role type. The Java media player will not play when I su to a normal user because it fails to "open the audio device". This seems to be a problem with Java because there's no problem when running a native application such as ossplay.

[gregst]

I don't know how this happens, but it seems that when a user logs into the Solaris/Java Desktop that a virtual device for the sound is created for the user and only this user has permissions to use it. So, when I "su <user>" and run my application the process running as this other user will not have permission to access the device. When I change the permissions to the device, then it works as expected.