[solved]: PulseAudio Connect Fails - jack migration

phobos13013 · Apprentice Joined: 22 Sep 2004 Posts: 277 Location: PNW

I am migrating my system from jack to pulse and it is not going smoothly, who would have thought!

I cannot seem to get a connection to the server.

Here is the output when I try to run pulseaudio:

eccerr0r · Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2017 12:54 am Post subject:

Do you have USE=dbus, and if so, is system dbus running?
I assume you have an openrc system and may not have dbus added unless you're also using something else that uses dbus like consolekit?
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phobos13013 · Apprentice Joined: 22 Sep 2004 Posts: 277 Location: PNW

So, I do have dbus in make.conf as well as consolekit, but dbus is not installed nonetheless!

I do use openrc so maybe why its not pulled in, but why is pulseaudio itself not enough to pull in dbus with make.conf listed as dbus?!

I install dbus, add to runtime, reboot, but to no avail.
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eccerr0r · Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2017 2:38 am Post subject:

At least it's installed now, but is dbus running?

Pulseaudio is run as needed... but the dbus system service needs to be started.
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phobos13013 · Apprentice Joined: 22 Sep 2004 Posts: 277 Location: PNW

So I added dbus to runtime, its active AFAIK. When I run pulseaudio now, just the latter part about alsa-sink and the failed module is my response.

Is this saying my kernel settings are wrong/absent?
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eccerr0r · Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2017 2:55 am Post subject:

Okay, now it looks like it's having trouble with the alsa backend, did you have your kernel working with alsa before mucking with pulseaudio (if so, now that would be weird...) or is this a new kernel?
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phobos13013 · Apprentice Joined: 22 Sep 2004 Posts: 277 Location: PNW

This is a very old setup, it is a rehash of a rehash, etc. My current predicament arises from having used jack for about the last three years and migrating away because recent qt updates caused breakage of my jack server. So I switched use flags to pulseaudio and have been going about updating and migrating to this new setup. I used pulse prior to jack for a good number of years, but it is a vague memory at this point.
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eccerr0r · Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2017 4:15 am Post subject:

Were you using jack with OSS or ALSA? If you were using the OSS backend, you'll need to migrate to the ALSA backend as well, as pulseaudio assumes alsa.

If you haven't done a --newuse merge of @world yet, pulseaudio doesn't play kindly with other software that tries to use the backend directly.
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phobos13013 · Apprentice Joined: 22 Sep 2004 Posts: 277 Location: PNW

Apologies for not making it explicit, but I am using alsa, (does anybody still use OSS...?)

I have emerge world even not just newuse, so all up to date there.

I get audio in one program, VLC, but all the rest cannot connect (browser, audio player, games, etc.)
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eccerr0r · Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2017 6:47 am Post subject:

I'm not sure what you mean when you 'run' pulseaudio, you shouldn't need to run it explicitly. Is vlc actually using pulseaudio?

One of the most useful apps I found for PA is media-sound/pavucontrol, if you have that you should be able to see all applications using pulseaudio and change behavior of each application.

Do you have other alsa devices like on video or capture cards?

Was anything changed in /etc/pulse/default.pa for some reason?
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phobos13013 · Apprentice Joined: 22 Sep 2004 Posts: 277 Location: PNW

I guess I am a bit confused about it all but when I run pulseaudio in console I get the error described in the initial post. At this point dbus is solved but the module and sink are not connecting.

As for vlc, it appears to just be using alsa so that is why thats the only one that works. I guess the real question is can I just remove pulse completely and just run off alsa? I guess I thought I needed a soundserver to work but can I just remove it completely?

I do have pavucontrol as well and it does not connect when I run it. I assume it has something to do with the alsa sink failing.

No other hardware on system, this is just an onboard audio card and thats it.

I did modify default.pa according to the online wiki but I went and recomment all that.
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eccerr0r · Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2017 8:57 pm Post subject:

Ah... But true, you should not need to run "pulseaudio" directly ... Dbus should run pulseaudio for you on demand if you got it set up correctly.

Are you sure you do not have anything accessing sound via alsa when pulseaudio starts? Is hw0,0 your expected sound card?

phobos13013 · Apprentice Joined: 22 Sep 2004 Posts: 277 Location: PNW

OK, so it appears something is grabbing the soundcard but I am clueless as to what it could be!

I do expect hw0:0 to be the proper, but just to confirm here is the code:

cards:

eccerr0r · Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2017 11:09 pm Post subject:

Strange, it should pick up all possible sinks. HW0:0 is your HDMI video card sound, which I'm not sure what port you're using though it should be fine like that (you can select outputs with pavucontrol.)

What does

$ fuser /dev/snd/*

report?

Each of the numbers is a process id. In an idle state on a pulseaudio system, either nothing is open (when fresh booted) or pulseaudio (when something accesses audio through udev/dbus) is controlling these devices...incidentally, is udev built with dbus support too?
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phobos13013 · Apprentice Joined: 22 Sep 2004 Posts: 277 Location: PNW

Well, wait, I am looking for my analog out actually, is that hw1:0?! Is this my issue?!

Note, pavucontrol does NOT work. When I run it I get a box saying:

eccerr0r · Posted: Wed Nov 22, 2017 7:26 am Post subject:

What are your USE flags on pulseaudio?

My openrc-pulseaudio box has:

X alsa alsa-plugin asyncns bluetooth caps dbus gdbm glib gtk ipv6 lirc orc qt4 ssl tcpd udev webrtc-aec -doc -equalizer -gnome -jack -libressl -libsamplerate -native-headset (-neon) -ofono-headset (-oss) -realtime (-selinux) -sox (-system-wide) -systemd {-test} -zeroconf
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phobos13013 · Apprentice Joined: 22 Sep 2004 Posts: 277 Location: PNW

When I try to emerge pulseaudio i get the following use default:

X alsa alsa-plugin asyncs caps dbus gdm glib ipv6 orc qt4 ssl tcpd udev webrtc-aec -bluetooth -doc -equalizer -gnome -gtk -jack -libressl -libsamplerate -lirc -native-headset (-neon) -ofono-headset (-oss) -realtime (-selinux) -sox (-system-wide) -systemd (-test) -zeroconf

Not sure if this helps any. I do still have realtime active in my kernel i realize from jack, is that hindering the process in anyway?[/code]
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eccerr0r · Posted: Wed Nov 22, 2017 11:58 pm Post subject:

Which document suggested to use

load-module module-alsa-sink device=hw:0,0

in default.pa? Was it from the arch documentation?

Does it do the same thing with and without this?

Also do you still have jack installed? Hmm...supposedly PA will work(or break) with jack too...
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phobos13013 · Apprentice Joined: 22 Sep 2004 Posts: 277 Location: PNW

YOU FRIGGING DID IT!!!!

Documentation used was the Gentoo wiki, let me guess... it is outdated

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/PulseAudio

I do have the arch doc page open in a tab but I hadn't delved in yet, wasn't sure how pertinent it was and it seems overly detailed. Also not sure of age but I find in general Arch is up to date.

Does the same thing with or without.

I wasn't 100% sure Jack was removed so I checked, and true virtual and qjackctl were still in there. So I removed and rebuilt the entire system and world. Useless, I know but I figured, why the heck not.

Now I run pavucontrol, same symptom. BUT, PROGRESS! Now I run pulseaudio in console and I get THIS:

W: [pulseaudio] module.c: module-detect is deprecated: Please use module-udev-detect instead of module-detect!
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Meta command .endif is not valid in this context
E: [pulseaudio] main.c: Failed to initialize daemon.

I go into default.pa and see this old method is in force, so I comment it and also notice the *if jack* module, so I commented that part out (hadnt already done that).

Save that and run pulseaudio in console again and it basically says, how you big dummy why did you do that, pulse is already running!

pavucontrol is active now.

Case closed! whew that took way too long.
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eccerr0r · Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2017 6:42 pm Post subject:

Ah...cool. I think the Gentoo documentation is correct but badly worded. That segment to add hw:0,0 apparently was meant if you were neither using udev or systemd though simply saying udev/eudev would have sufficed (and not mentioning systemd). Plain udev(with openrc) and eudev users don't need to do that manual configuration.
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