pulseaudio suddenly (re)starts on its own since update

[DrMcCoy]

I have pulseaudio installed, but I usually start it manually when I need it, otherwise I run a pure ALSA setup.

But since the the last world update a few days ago, pulseaudio suddenly starts on its own, whenver I so much as touch any of the sound devices. Even if I'm just running alsamixer, pulseaudio starts its daemon.

For example:
- I stop pulseaudio
- I check if the pulse daemon is running. It is not
- I start alsamixer. The pulseaudio devices are shown, not the alsa ones
- I check if the pulse daemon is running. It is running

I haven't even done anything pulse specific, I just started alsamixer! Why is pulseaudio shouldering its way into this? I don't want that, is there a way to disable that behaviour?

[alamahant]

Its a mystery who or what starts pulseaudio.
There are no init scripts in /etc/init.d
I thought maybe a combination of elogind+dbus but that doesnt seem to be the case.
Probably the DE session.
You could try in
/etc/pulse/client.conf

[DrMcCoy]

I don't even have a DE as such, just a WM. I'm running Enlightenment DR16.
I'm also not running systemd.

But yeah, setting autospawn to no seems to fix the issue for me, thanks!

And yes, it seems like I had that set previously, but I clobbered it when I purged and reinstalled pulseaudio a few weeks ago (due to some bluetooth changes I experimented with). I completely forgot about that, and I didn't even notice the change, but that does certainly explain a few other weirdnesses.

I.e. in the end, it's all my fault, like so often.

[Naib]

pulseaudio will spawn (unless you tell it not to...) if anything requests PA capability.
While I was trying to switch over to pipewire I was constantly hitting this because discord would auto-start, which would request PA and thus PA would spawn....

So aspects of alsamixer (directly or indirectly) is querying PA and thus PA launches. this will be via dbus iirc
_________________

[mv]

Can it be that you have media-plugins/alsa-plugins[pulseaudio] installed?

[poe_1957]

In systemd the pulseaudio does not come up, even installed as a service.

So in the user login you need to start pulseaudio manually in a terminal and that need to stay open as long as you want sound.
Starting pulseaudio as root does not function on boot up.

Anybody a good solution for this ?
_________________
Linuxpioneer
ALUG

[alamahant]

poe_1957
I also checked there is no pulseaudio service in systemd.
Maybe use a display manager and a universal USE="pulseaudio elogind dbus"?
I think its the individual apps that request pulseaudio and then the service is started.
In my case xfce with lightdm I dont need to write anything to the terminal to have sound.
_________________

[poe_1957]

There is indeed no service for pulseaudio. WHY?

I created it myself but no result.
The individual apps do not start pulseaudio. Pulseaudio need to be started and then it picks up the sound by the app.
Also I do not see Alsa taking over.
In the whole system i see various problems :

1) Audio not functioning like it shouild be
2) Electronic Identity card not functioning (Belgian EID does function under 5.x in ZORIN, UBUNTU,,....) in Gentoo since last change : the Cherry driver does not work anymore
3) Printing for older (XEROX 6600DN in my case does not function anymore) due to some change in version from Gentoo.
4) problem on Powermanagement with AMD processors (seems with 5.10.61 better)
5) in a previous post i mentioned some patch from SUSE to get rid of annoying error message. :
ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM (0x1001)
ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM (0x1001)
6)iwlwifi 0000:06:00.0: loaded firmware version 59.601f3a66.0 cc-a0-59.ucode op_mode iwlmvm
The iwlwifi drivers do not load the correct versions...
Probably the reason why no version is anymmore in green or yellow but all removed.

I removed QTwebengine and snappy. for having a working KDE desktop.
_________________
Linuxpioneer
ALUG

[alamahant]

[garrison]

There are multiple ways pulseaudio daemon can be started
1. via systemd user service, check this via 'systemctl --user status pulseaudio.{service,socket}'
2. via desktop environment XDG integration autostart feature, there is /etc/xdg/autostart/pulseaudio.desktop file which would exec start-pulseaudio-x11 when you log in to desktop environment
3. if you do not use systemd user service, and your desktop environment does not support XDG, start-pulseaudio-x11 can be started by your desktop environment start scripts (e.g. .xinitrc or something)

[poe_1957]

I do only know one service of systemd. What is your userservice in systemd? Please explain.
I use systemctl only as root. Since otherwise no rights.
_________________
Linuxpioneer
ALUG

[garrison]

[poe_1957]