widespread audio malfunction

since the switch from the 2.1 branch, i have not been able to get reliable audio from the embedded player using vlckit. am i missing something in the way the player should be called in he post 2.1-tree?

here is a trace (with lots of repetitive test cut out for size). in this case, there is zero audio coming out of the speakers http://paste.fedoraproject.org/74502/91558362

this is on VLCKit using at commit 32ba66e77.

just to be sure, I converted the media to m4v with handbrake and played it with the native player and it played ok, including audio.

in recent weeks i have compiled VLCKit and even though today I cannot get any audio at all, i have had the following issues with this new branch previously:

• lots of crashes in audio-land. we released it to testers and we were getting bombarded with crashes https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/364883/Screenshots/vlc-audio-crashes.png
• extremely annoying noise (like that of a modem), in a few media files where we actually got any audio at all
• system audio breakdowns. the system audio would stop working for all apps. a work-around would be to reboot the device or go to settings and try different sounds.