No sound for non-root users

[john_h]

I'm running Debian Etch on a Dell PC with integrated Intel audio chipset, and the sound has stopped working today for some reason.

Running alsaconf appears to set up the sound successfully, and sound works for root, but then when I try to run a sound application as an ordinary user no device is detected. Here's an error message from running mplayer on the command line:
================================================== ========================
Opening audio decoder: [mp3lib] MPEG layer-2, layer-3
AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 128.0 kbit/9.07% (ratio: 16000->176400)
Selected audio codec: [mp3] afm: mp3lib (mp3lib MPEG layer-2, layer-3)
================================================== ========================
alsa-init: using device default
alsa-lib: confmisc.c:670:(snd_func_card_driver) cannot find card '0'
alsa-lib: conf.c:3479:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_card_driver returned error: No such device
alsa-lib: confmisc.c:391:(snd_func_concat) error evaluating strings
alsa-lib: conf.c:3479:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_concat returned error: No such device
alsa-lib: confmisc.c:1070:(snd_func_refer) error evaluating name
alsa-lib: conf.c:3479:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer returned error: No such device
alsa-lib: conf.c:3947:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such device
alsa-lib: pcm.c:2146:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default
alsa-init: playback open error: No such device
Could not open/initialize audio device -> no sound.
Audio: no sound
Video: no videoAttempting to run alsamixer gets the following message:
alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such device
I've checked, and I and the other users on the system are all in the "audio" group.

Any thoughts?

[bluesdog]

Are the sound device drivers in the audio group?

Example: ls -l /dev/snd/seq
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 116, 1 Sep 9 09:49 /dev/snd/seq