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#1 2013-09-28 13:16:18

Orim
Member
Registered: 2009-12-10
Posts: 61

[SOLVED] Pulseaudio stopped working

Hey,

after a complete system update of one of my machines and a following reboot because of a kernel update to 3.11.1 (-2),
pulseaudio is not working anymore.

Additionally in smplayer the video is running at double or triple speed, when pulse is selected as audio. I have no clue what mplayer is doing.
VLC video output runs normally but without sound.
When I switch to alsa sound works. Sound also works in the browser via flashplugin (which I guess is using alsa as well).

I'm using i3 as my WM so pulse is started via the /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/pulseaudio script.

What I tried so far:
- Checking that pulse is still running
- Restarting pulseaudio
- Muting and unmuting of pulse with alsamixer
- Adding tsched=0 to /etc/pulse/default.pa and restarting pulse. As described here: wiki
- Rebooting (I was desperate)

I don't see pulse/alsa related packages on yesterday's update.
Did anything change lately? Or am I just being unlucky with pulseaudio again?

Last edited by Orim (2013-10-09 21:12:27)

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#2 2013-09-28 17:56:02

ewaller
Administrator
From: Pasadena, CA
Registered: 2009-07-13
Posts: 19,740

Re: [SOLVED] Pulseaudio stopped working

If you start pulseaudio from a terminal, are there any error messages.

Also, check your session and ensure that it is active:

ewaller$@$odin ~ 1011 %loginctl list-sessions 
   SESSION        UID USER             SEAT            
         1       1000 ewaller          seat0           

1 sessions listed.
ewaller$@$odin ~ 1012 %loginctl show-session 1
Id=1
Timestamp=Sat 2013-09-28 10:22:14 PDT
TimestampMonotonic=48514751
VTNr=1
TTY=tty1
Remote=no
Service=login
Scope=session-1.scope
Leader=378
Audit=1
Type=tty
Class=user
Active=yes
State=active
IdleHint=yes
IdleSinceHint=1380388944996381
IdleSinceHintMonotonic=58607466
Name=ewaller
ewaller$@$odin ~ 1013 %

Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature -- Michael Faraday
Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. -- Alan Turing
---
How to Ask Questions the Smart Way

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#3 2013-09-28 18:10:16

Orim
Member
Registered: 2009-12-10
Posts: 61

Re: [SOLVED] Pulseaudio stopped working

No error messages whatsoever.
And nothing unusual about my session that I can see:

loginctl show-session c1
Id=c1
Timestamp=Sat 2013-09-28 14:37:47 CEST
TimestampMonotonic=37644904
VTNr=7
Display=:0.0
Remote=no
RemoteUser=root
Service=slim
Scope=session-c1.scope
Leader=515
Audit=0
Type=x11
Class=user
Active=yes
State=active
IdleHint=no
IdleSinceHint=0
IdleSinceHintMonotonic=0
Name=orim

When I start pulseaudio, then Firefox and try to watch something using flash,
I now get the video speed increase (and no audio) just as with smplayer. So that is obviously not a problem of mplayer.
When I turn off pulseaudio and restart Firefox everything behaves normal again, and I have audio when using flash.

So something is wrong with pulseaudio. Audio output itself does work perfectly fine with alsa, just not with pulseaudio.
What about that weird speed increase of the video output? Is something wrong with video/audio sync?
Could that be a hint to the actual problem?

Last edited by Orim (2013-09-28 18:11:32)

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#4 2013-09-28 18:20:20

ewaller
Administrator
From: Pasadena, CA
Registered: 2009-07-13
Posts: 19,740

Re: [SOLVED] Pulseaudio stopped working

Okay, lets take flash out of the equation.

What happens if you try aplay /etc/urandom    CAUTION:  Watch your audio levels -- if that command works, you should hear loud white noise.
Then, if there is no sound, fire up pavucontrol and see if aplay is playing active and that the audio meter is showing activity.  Also, ensure that the volume levels are up.

Last edited by ewaller (2013-09-28 18:20:32)


Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature -- Michael Faraday
Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. -- Alan Turing
---
How to Ask Questions the Smart Way

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#5 2013-09-28 18:44:46

Orim
Member
Registered: 2009-12-10
Posts: 61

Re: [SOLVED] Pulseaudio stopped working

Thanks for the help so far.
I guess you mean /dev/urandom wink

Well aplay works as long as pulseaudio is not started.

When I do start pulseaudio I can't hear anything with aplay anymore.
And pavucontrol does not show any activity.
I didn't know pavucontrol before and there is something interesting.
On the Output Devices tab, it only shows HDMI / DisplayPort (unplugged).

I'm not using HDMI to output sound, just a regular analog stereo jack plugged in the onboard sound card.
On the Configuration Tab I can only select Off or the HDMI Thingie. This seems wrong.

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#6 2013-09-28 21:18:09

ewaller
Administrator
From: Pasadena, CA
Registered: 2009-07-13
Posts: 19,740

Re: [SOLVED] Pulseaudio stopped working

Orim wrote:

Thanks for the help so far.
I guess you mean /dev/urandom wink

Yeah, yeah. that it!  (Opps, sorry )

On the Output Devices tab, it only shows HDMI / DisplayPort (unplugged).

I'm not using HDMI to output sound, just a regular analog stereo jack plugged in the onboard sound card.
On the Configuration Tab I can only select Off or the HDMI Thingie. This seems wrong.

Yes, I agree.  What about the configuration tab?  Does selecting a different configuration expose different output devices?

Last edited by ewaller (2013-09-28 21:18:39)


Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature -- Michael Faraday
Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. -- Alan Turing
---
How to Ask Questions the Smart Way

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#7 2013-10-08 15:58:38

Orim
Member
Registered: 2009-12-10
Posts: 61

Re: [SOLVED] Pulseaudio stopped working

I totally forgot about this. Until I had to reboot today...

@ewaller
Regarding the configuration tab: Well, like I wrote, there were no different configurations to choose from, just OFF and HDMI.
But after my reboot I can't even start pulseaudio anymore. So I can't run pavucontrol either.

Now, when I want to start pulseaudio with --start, journalctl shows me this:

[pulseaudio] sink.c: Default and alternate sample rates are the same.
[pulseaudio] bluetooth-util.c: org.bluez.Manager.GetProperties() failed: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownMethod: Method "GetProperties" with signature "" on interface "org.bluez.Manager" doesn't exist

pulseaudio then seems to run (run, not work) for a few seconds and then it's gone. So I guess it can't even start anymore.

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#8 2013-10-08 17:20:15

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: [SOLVED] Pulseaudio stopped working

What if you run it from the command line with '-v' (or setting the --log-level=debug)?

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#9 2013-10-08 21:05:20

Orim
Member
Registered: 2009-12-10
Posts: 61

Re: [SOLVED] Pulseaudio stopped working

Oh man, when I was starting it with -v it suddenly worked.
I couldn't believe it. So I killed it again, started it normally...still working.
So I started pavucontrol and after selecting analog stereo (which was missing last week) as a fallback device, audio was working as if nothing ever happened.

Just to make sure I made a complete reboot and everything is fine now. I just have no clue whatsoever as to the reason for it ever not working.
I was pretty sure the bluetooth thing was not important as I've seen that error message before.
I didn't install any updates in the meantime.

The only thing that I did was delete ~/.config/pulse But before trying the -v option it would only complain about its missing config and not start as before.
I tried that several times and it never worked. But it's the only thing that I actually did before WonderWoofy's post so that must be it (?)
I don't think the verbose option is some magical healing power...

pulseaudio is like a cat. It doesn't know what it wants. Obviously it didn't feel like working for a week or something.

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#10 2013-10-08 23:34:33

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: [SOLVED] Pulseaudio stopped working

Ha, don't you hate it when that kind of crap happens?  I think pulseaudio is great so long as its working… and it hasn't broken on me yet <knock on wood>.

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#11 2013-10-09 21:11:57

Orim
Member
Registered: 2009-12-10
Posts: 61

Re: [SOLVED] Pulseaudio stopped working

You're really lucky. It broke for me countless times before. But this was the first time I needed some help to figure it out.
Although nothing's actually figured out. But it's still working a day later...so...yay.

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