#719: Pulseaudio interacts poorly with non-pulse apps ----------------------+----------------------------------------------------- Reporter: p-static | Owner: lennart Type: defect | Status: new Milestone: | Component: daemon Keywords: | ----------------------+----------------------------------------------------- Sorry about the vague title, I'm not familiar enough with the mechanics of the problem to be more specific. Basically, if another program has exclusive control of the sound device somehow (Pidgin and Flash are the most common culprits), Pulseaudio will silently use a dummy output module. From a usability perspective, this is pretty horrible - all of a sudden, ALSA applications will work fine, and Pulseaudio applications will produce no sound, for no visible reason.
Specifically, I frequently find myself in situations where Pulseaudio suddenly stops working. Usually, the problem is that it's outputting to a dummy output device. "fuser /dev/snd/*" tells me which process is holding the output device, and killing that process makes pulse work again. At a minimum, Pulseaudio should warn the user as clearly as possible that it's unable to output sound, and list the program that's holding the sound device so that the user can actually do something about it. (Ideally, it should just solve the problem silently - ALSA applications manage to output sound somehow, which suggests that it's not an insurmountable problem.) -- Ticket URL: <http://pulseaudio.org/ticket/719> PulseAudio <http://pulseaudio.org/> The PulseAudio Sound Server _______________________________________________ pulseaudio-tickets mailing list pulseaudio-tickets@mail.0pointer.de https://tango.0pointer.de/mailman/listinfo/pulseaudio-tickets