alsa problems?

[Jelena i Zoran]

Xmms used to be my default audio player but now I can not use it with FC8.
When I start xmms I get

** WARNING **: alsa_setup_mixer(): Failed to find mixer element: PCM


I also use snd (http://ccrma.stanford.edu/software/snd/)
for recording/editing/ playing audio files.
When I try to play a wave file with snd I get

can't play : Invalid argument: cannot set hardware parameters for default

I think both of these are caused by alsa problems but I do not know how 
to fix  them.
I searched the web, others seem to have the same issue with xmms but no 
answers were provided.
I will be grateful for any suggestions.
Thanks,
Zoran