ALSA not found - github actions unit testing, setting env/envvars correctly

Question

I have the following yaml in my .github/workflows folder.

name: Run Python Tests
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

  pull_request:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    strategy:
      matrix:
        python-version: ["2.7", "3.6", "3.7", "3.8", "3.9"]
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - name: Install Python ${{ matrix.python-version }}
        uses: actions/setup-python@v3
        with:
          python-version: ${{ matrix.python-version }}
      - name: Install dependencies
        run: |
          python -m pip install --upgrade pip
          pip install -r requirements.txt
      - name: Run tests with unittest 
        run: python -m unittest test.py 

when I make a PR, it runs the tests... however they fail in github and not on my local machine.

the error is as follows:

0s
Run python -m unittest test.py
ALSA lib confmisc.c:767:(parse_card) cannot find card '0'
ALSA lib conf.c:4732:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_card_driver returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib confmisc.c:392:(snd_func_concat) error evaluating strings
ALSA lib conf.c:4732:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_concat returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib confmisc.c:1246:(snd_func_refer) error evaluating name
ALSA lib conf.c:4732:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib conf.c:5220:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib pcm.c:2642:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default
ALSA lib confmisc.c:767:(parse_card) cannot find card '0'
ALSA lib conf.c:4732:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_card_driver returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib confmisc.c:392:(snd_func_concat) error evaluating strings
ALSA lib conf.c:4732:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_concat returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib confmisc.c:1246:(snd_func_refer) error evaluating name
ALSA lib conf.c:4732:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib conf.c:5220:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such file or directory
ALSA lib pcm.c:2642:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/opt/hostedtoolcache/Python/3.8.12/x64/lib/python3.8/runpy.py", line 194, in _run_module_as_main
    return _run_code(code, main_globals, None,
  File "/opt/hostedtoolcache/Python/3.8.12/x64/lib/python3.8/runpy.py", line 87, in _run_code
    exec(code, run_globals)
  File "/opt/hostedtoolcache/Python/3.8.12/x64/lib/python3.8/unittest/__main__.py", line 18, in <module>
    main(module=None)
  File "/opt/hostedtoolcache/Python/3.8.12/x64/lib/python3.8/unittest/main.py", line 100, in __init__
    self.parseArgs(argv)
  File "/opt/hostedtoolcache/Python/3.8.12/x64/lib/python3.8/unittest/main.py", line 147, in parseArgs
    self.createTests()
  File "/opt/hostedtoolcache/Python/3.8.12/x64/lib/python3.8/unittest/main.py", line 158, in createTests
    self.test = self.testLoader.loadTestsFromNames(self.testNames,
  File "/opt/hostedtoolcache/Python/3.8.12/x64/lib/python3.8/unittest/loader.py", line 220, in loadTestsFromNames
    suites = [self.loadTestsFromName(name, module) for name in names]
  File "/opt/hostedtoolcache/Python/3.8.12/x64/lib/python3.8/unittest/loader.py", line 220, in <listcomp>
    suites = [self.loadTestsFromName(name, module) for name in names]
  File "/opt/hostedtoolcache/Python/3.8.12/x64/lib/python3.8/unittest/loader.py", line 154, in loadTestsFromName
    module = __import__(module_name)
  File "/home/runner/work/2dshooter/2dshooter/test.py", line 5, in <module>
    from test_func import *
  File "/home/runner/work/2dshooter/2dshooter/test/test_func.py", line 2, in <module>
    from func import *
  File "/home/runner/work/2dshooter/2dshooter/func.py", line 6, in <module>
    from values import *
  File "/home/runner/work/2dshooter/2dshooter/values.py", line 10, in <module>
    pygame.mixer.init()
pygame.error: ALSA: Couldn't open audio device: No such file or directory
pygame 2.1.2 (SDL 2.0.16, Python 3.8.12)
Hello from the pygame community. https://www.pygame.org/contribute.html
VALUE INIT
Error: Process completed with exit code 1.

reading through that - it looks like the culprit is the audio driver not actually existing when we

    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

does not include the audio driver?

I have tried adding the following to the yaml file (directly below that runs-on)

    env:
      SDL_AUDIODRIVER: 'ALSA'

that also did not work - and produces the same error.

so how Do I get the container in GitHub to have the correct audio driver?

Answer 1

A github actions computer doesn't have any speakers to output audio to, and no display to output video to. It's an headless system.

The solution is to set

    env:
      SDL_VIDEODRIVER: "dummy"
      SDL_AUDIODRIVER: "disk"

See https://github.com/pygame/pygame/issues/2985