mpd and pulse problem - Connection refused [SOLVED]

graysky · 2011-10-08 15:21:28

I'm having problems getting mpd to play nice with pulse-audio. Pulse is installed and works with vlc, mplayer, flash, etc. just fine. When I try to play through mpd the song in the gui simply shows a status of "paused" and the following gets written to the mpd.log.

Advice is appreciated.

# tail -f /var/log/mpd/mpd.log
Oct 08 11:12 : output: Failed to enable "pulse audio" [pulse]: pa_context_connect() has failed: Connection refused
Oct 08 11:12 : output: Failed to enable "pulse audio" [pulse]: pa_context_connect() has failed: Connection refused
Oct 08 11:12 : output: Failed to enable "pulse audio" [pulse]: pa_context_connect() has failed: Connection refused
Oct 08 11:12 : player_thread: problems opening audio device while playing "Not_So_Hard_Stuff/Disturbed-The Sickness-2000/01_Voices.flac"

Here is my mpd.conf

$ sed '/#/d' /etc/mpd.conf
music_directory		"/media/data/all_genres"
playlist_directory	"/var/lib/mpd/playlists"
db_file			"/var/lib/mpd/mpd.db"
log_file		"/var/log/mpd/mpd.log"
pid_file		"/var/run/mpd/mpd.pid"
state_file		"/var/lib/mpd/mpdstate"
user "mpd"

gapless_mp3_playback			"yes"
zeroconf_enabled		"yes"
zeroconf_name			"Music Player"

input {
        plugin "curl"
}

audio_output {
	type		"pulse"
	name		"pulse audio"
}

mixer_type			"software"
audio_buffer_size "35000"
buffer_before_play "5%"

The pulseaudio wiki suggests that a 'pulse' group and 'pulse-access' and even 'pulse-rt' groups may be required? I have used mpd for a year now with no such groups on my system.

EDIT: solved in post #13

Last edited by graysky (2011-10-16 13:42:46)

teletrabi · 2011-10-09 17:04:13

Same problem here - for now. My config already worked without these groups...but also doesn't work with them.
May be there was an update of mpd or pulse in the last days?

Rasi · 2011-10-09 21:38:47

teletrabi wrote:

Same problem here - for now. My config already worked without these groups...but also doesn't work with them.
May be there was an update of mpd or pulse in the last days?

with mpd-git all is fine...

graysky · 2011-10-09 21:56:07

mpd-git for me has the same behavior.

heftig · 2011-10-10 05:54:09

Recent PulseAudio requires a DBus session daemon, and recent DBus refuses to autolaunch without X.

Make sure either PulseAudio or DBus (so pulse can autospawn) is running when you start MPD.

graysky · 2011-10-10 08:30:27

@heftig - thanks for the info. I saw the dbus error and did just that - started it manually from X. I still get the same error.

hokasch · 2011-10-10 10:48:23

Is pulseaudio really running when you start mpd? IIRC I had similar problems due to pulseaudio's idle timeout (daemon quits but can not autospawn because of no dbus). You could run pulseaudio with -vvv in a seperate screen to check if it stays up.

EDIT: Hmm, odd. Just checked my daemon.conf, and "exit-idle-time = -1" is commented. But I defintely had problems with the auto-quit.

Last edited by hokasch (2011-10-10 10:51:46)

graysky · 2011-10-10 18:43:56

@hokasch - yes, it is running

$ pg pulse
USER       PID %CPU %MEM    VSZ   RSS TTY      STAT START   TIME COMMAND
facade   1888  0.0  0.0 239152  6460 ?        S<l  14:32   0:00 /usr/bin/pulseaudio --start
facade   1902  0.0  0.0  93668  2844 ?        S    14:32   0:00 /usr/lib/pulse/gconf-helper

graysky · 2011-10-10 21:14:37

Very odd. From within an xfce-session, if I start mpd then try to play a song, here is the output recorded to /var/log/errors.log:

Oct 10 17:10:53 localhost pulseaudio[5128]: [pulseaudio] server-lookup.c: Unable to contact D-Bus: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NotSupported: Unable to autolaunch a dbus-daemon without a $DISPLAY for X11
Oct 10 17:10:53 localhost pulseaudio[5125]: [pulseaudio] main.c: Daemon startup failed.

It doesn't matter if I start xfce from runmode 3 via "xinit" or from gdm.

$ cat ~/.xinitrc 
#!/bin/sh
exec ck-launch-session startxfce4
#exec ck-launch-session gnome-session
#enlightenment-session

Last edited by graysky (2011-10-10 21:22:00)

graysky · 2011-10-11 12:13:28

I just did a fresh install of arch to a spare partition, added xfce4, pulseaudio and mpd. Same problem as described above so I opened this bug report.

Strider · 2011-10-16 08:42:46

I confirm this bug.
My mpd client (sonata) refuses to work under gnome 3.2 when mpd is configured with pulseaudio output. With alsa outpur all works fine.

oilgame · 2011-10-16 11:26:49

I was struggling with this yesterday and I finally got it working by opening the X11 session to mpd: "xhost +local:mpd". Today even this doesn't seem to work

graysky · 2011-10-16 13:42:19

I too modified my /etc/mpd.conf to use alsa even though I don't have alsa-utils installed at all.

$ sed '/#/d' /etc/mpd.conf
music_directory		"/media/data/all_genres"
playlist_directory	"/var/lib/mpd/playlists"
db_file			"/var/lib/mpd/mpd.db"
log_file		"/var/log/mpd/mpd.log"
pid_file		"/var/run/mpd/mpd.pid"
state_file		"/var/lib/mpd/mpdstate"
user "mpd"

gapless_mp3_playback			"yes"
zeroconf_enabled		"yes"
zeroconf_name			"Music Player"

input {
        plugin "curl"
}

audio_output {
type		"alsa"
name		"My ALSA Device"
}

mixer_type			"software"
audio_buffer_size "35000"
buffer_before_play "5%"

oilgame · 2011-10-16 15:24:54

graysky wrote:

I too modified my /etc/mpd.conf to use alsa even though I don't have alsa-utils installed at all.

$ sed '/#/d' /etc/mpd.conf
music_directory		"/media/data/all_genres"
playlist_directory	"/var/lib/mpd/playlists"
db_file			"/var/lib/mpd/mpd.db"
log_file		"/var/log/mpd/mpd.log"
pid_file		"/var/run/mpd/mpd.pid"
state_file		"/var/lib/mpd/mpdstate"
user "mpd"

gapless_mp3_playback			"yes"
zeroconf_enabled		"yes"
zeroconf_name			"Music Player"

input {
        plugin "curl"
}

audio_output {
type		"alsa"
name		"My ALSA Device"
}

mixer_type			"software"
audio_buffer_size "35000"
buffer_before_play "5%"

Doesn't work for me I get this error when I try to play something with your configuration:

ALSA lib pulse.c:229:(pulse_connect) PulseAudio: Unable to connect: Connection refused

Oct 16 18:23 : output: Failed to open "My ALSA Device" [alsa]: Failed to open ALSA device "default": Connection refused

graysky · 2011-10-16 15:37:59

@og - sorry, I don't know what to say

Rasi · 2011-10-16 16:12:59

why dont you guys run mpd as your own user? your music files normally belong to you anyway... and pulseaudio is a userprocess, so its destined to have issues otherwise...

oilgame · 2011-10-16 16:57:21

Rasi wrote:

why dont you guys run mpd as your own user? your music files normally belong to you anyway... and pulseaudio is a userprocess, so its destined to have issues otherwise...

At least I don't want to give unnecessary rights for processes, my main user's home directory is encrypted and some of us have multiple users..

Last edited by oilgame (2011-10-16 16:59:08)

graysky · 2011-10-16 17:48:50

Running as an mpd user is adventitious for several reasons: any user can interact with the player and playing continues when you log out of X.

Rasi · 2011-10-18 11:13:45

graysky wrote:

Running as an mpd user is adventitious for several reasons: any user can interact with the player and playing continues when you log out of X.

the mpd process is not dependent on X at all, doesnt matter what user you start it with
and the first argument can be circumvented by using mpd access rights (see mpd.conf)

SanskritFritz · 2011-10-18 11:21:54

graysky wrote:

Running as an mpd user is adventitious for several reasons: any user can interact with the player and playing continues when you log out of X.

I honestly thought that this was the whole point of using mpd...

Arch Linux

#1 2011-10-08 15:21:28

mpd and pulse problem - Connection refused [SOLVED]

#2 2011-10-09 17:04:13

Re: mpd and pulse problem - Connection refused [SOLVED]

#3 2011-10-09 21:38:47

Re: mpd and pulse problem - Connection refused [SOLVED]

#4 2011-10-09 21:56:07

Re: mpd and pulse problem - Connection refused [SOLVED]

#5 2011-10-10 05:54:09

Re: mpd and pulse problem - Connection refused [SOLVED]

#6 2011-10-10 08:30:27

Re: mpd and pulse problem - Connection refused [SOLVED]

#7 2011-10-10 10:48:23

Re: mpd and pulse problem - Connection refused [SOLVED]

#8 2011-10-10 18:43:56

Re: mpd and pulse problem - Connection refused [SOLVED]

#9 2011-10-10 21:14:37

Re: mpd and pulse problem - Connection refused [SOLVED]

#10 2011-10-11 12:13:28

Re: mpd and pulse problem - Connection refused [SOLVED]

#11 2011-10-16 08:42:46

Re: mpd and pulse problem - Connection refused [SOLVED]

#12 2011-10-16 11:26:49

Re: mpd and pulse problem - Connection refused [SOLVED]

#13 2011-10-16 13:42:19

Re: mpd and pulse problem - Connection refused [SOLVED]

#14 2011-10-16 15:24:54

Re: mpd and pulse problem - Connection refused [SOLVED]

#15 2011-10-16 15:37:59

Re: mpd and pulse problem - Connection refused [SOLVED]

#16 2011-10-16 16:12:59

Re: mpd and pulse problem - Connection refused [SOLVED]

#17 2011-10-16 16:57:21

Re: mpd and pulse problem - Connection refused [SOLVED]

#18 2011-10-16 17:48:50

Re: mpd and pulse problem - Connection refused [SOLVED]

#19 2011-10-18 11:13:45

Re: mpd and pulse problem - Connection refused [SOLVED]

#20 2011-10-18 11:21:54

Re: mpd and pulse problem - Connection refused [SOLVED]

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