Linux No sound through pulseaudio
#1
I'm trying to get xbmc working on a debian derivative, I've got pulseaudio setup and working (confirmed via vlc and ffplayer) but xbmc gives no audio, the sink does show up in the volume dialog but so sound comes out.... Here are a few logs
http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=151662
http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=151153
any ideas?

P.S. Yes I want pluse working, I have other programs I would like to share the audio with

More Info! So it seems xbmc doesn't like pulse in system mode, disable it, enabled user mode, and it works! Any idea why system mode doesn't work?
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#2
Try the latest beta instead if you're still having issues, the Pulseaudio support has been completely reworked and should be much more reliable once properly configured.
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#3
You use 12.3 without having PULSE build in at all (ALSA is used via the damn pulse wrapper).

Please upgrade to a v13 beta version, then pulseaudio will be used.
First decide what functions / features you expect from a system. Then decide for the hardware. Don't waste your money on crap.
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#4
Waterfoul I feel your pain. Sad Unfortunately I followed "helpful" suggestions on other forums (not XBMC!) such as "just uninstall Pulse using these commands..." from people with more ignorance than knowledge and it completely messed-up my OS as Pulse is quite tightly bound into most current Debian derivatives.

It's also completely unnecessary.

There's a much simpler solution to this problem which I stumbled across by accident. At least is works well for me on an Intel NUC running Mint 16 Petra with Cinnamon and hopefully it will work OK for you too.

Go into the menu editor for your particular Debian distro eg by right-clicking on the Menu button, selecting Configure and then clicking on Menu Editor.

Find the XBMC entry - typically under the Sound & Video submenu - and select Properties.

Change the command line entry from "xbmc" to "pasuspender -- xbmc"

Make sure you include the double dash (--) for safety. It just means "everything that follows is the command to be executed with Pulse suspended".

Save and you can now run XBMC without PulseAudio. Connect your system connected to your target audio device (eg, TV or home cinema amp) then go to XBMC Audio settings under System and change both the output devices at the bottom of the screen to something like HDMI PIO .... In my case it names my surround sound amp.

Et voila! You can now play XBMC without any major mods to your OS and without any of the constraints imposed in trying to do a pass-through PulseAudio.

Even better, Pulse simply resumes when you exit XBMC so, for example, I also have SqueezeLite installed on my media server which plays quite happily through Pulse both before and after running XBMC!

Incidentally a manual way of achieving the same effect is to install pavucontrol (PulseAudio Volume Control) and turn Pulse off in the Configuration menu before running XBMC, but that's a bit clunky compared with using pasuspender as you have to turn Pulse on again to use other apps such as Logitech Media Server.

Hope that helps!
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#5
Upgrade to v13 and xbmc will happily use pulse, no need to suspend anything.
First decide what functions / features you expect from a system. Then decide for the hardware. Don't waste your money on crap.
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#6
Quote:Upgrade to v13 and xbmc will happily use pulse, no need to suspend anything.

Am I not right in saying that passing sound through Pulse imposes certain limitations eg, on DTS MA and TrueHD?

All the "suspension" does actually is release the HDMI port so that other applications can address it directly. And given it's a 15 second invocation change, it's a very quick, easy and entirely complete fix to the XBMC/PA issue with no constraints on what you pass through the HDMI port. Fit and forget. Big Grin
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