http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11091
--- Comment #14 from James Jurack jorenko+wine@gmail.com 2008-06-16 06:50:24 --- (In reply to comment #13)
(In reply to comment #12)
I am 100% sure that exiting steam causes the problem to go away -- in fact I never see it completely go away until I have culled all related wine processes as well.
Can you repeat that again? Are you saying that exiting all windows programs (which exits Wine) _fixes_ the problem?
Not necessarily all windows programs, but definitely Steam. The core of the problem seems to be that Steam is grabbing my audio hardware and not letting go until I close it.
Actually, yesterday I found a work-around on a forum somewhere that confirms this: If I disable all sound options in winecfg, then start Steam, then re-enable what I had before, the problem does not occur and I can use my sound normally, even for Steam games.