Bug 873199

Summary: No sound from Java applications with pulseaudio
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Martin Wilck <martin.wilck>
Component: java-1.7.0-openjdkAssignee: Omair Majid <omajid>
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: 17CC: ahughes, dbhole, jvanek, omajid
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OS: Linux   
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Last Closed: 2012-11-06 15:02:08 UTC Type: Bug
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Webex error-pop-up none

Description Martin Wilck 2012-11-05 10:37:52 UTC 
Description of problem:
Sound doesn't work in Java applications

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
java-1.7.0-openjdk-1.7.0.9-2.3.3.fc17.1.x86_64

How reproducible:
always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. run a Java application that requires sound in a Fedora standard configuration
  
Actual results:
No sound

Expected results:
Sound works

Additional info:
It's sufficient to edit /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.7.0-openjdk-1.7.0.9.x86_64/jre/lib/sound.properties, uncomment the lines

javax.sound.sampled.Clip=org.classpath.icedtea.pulseaudio.PulseAudioMixerProvider
javax.sound.sampled.Port=org.classpath.icedtea.pulseaudio.PulseAudioMixerProvider
javax.sound.sampled.SourceDataLine=org.classpath.icedtea.pulseaudio.PulseAudioMixerProvider
javax.sound.sampled.TargetDataLine=org.classpath.icedtea.pulseaudio.PulseAudioMixerProvider

and comment the respective lines referencing "com.sun.media.sound.DirectAudioDeviceProvider" and "com.sun.media.sound.PortMixerProvider".

Because Fedora's desktop is focused on Pulseaudio, this setting should be made by default.

See also:
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=248326
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/pulseaudio-discuss/2010-June/007145.html
Comment 1 Omair Majid 2012-11-06 14:18:52 UTC 
(In reply to comment #0)
> Sound doesn't work in Java applications

What application can I use to verify this behaviour?

> Because Fedora's desktop is focused on Pulseaudio, this setting should be
> made by default.

From what I know the PulseAudio-based mixer provides some advantages over the alsa-based mixer but both should work equally well on a stock fedora configuration.

> See also:
> http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=248326
> http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/pulseaudio-discuss/2010-June/007145.
> html

These look like half-truths to me. PulseAudio should be set up so that applications using the user-space alsa API don't notice any change. Please take a look at:
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/Documentation/User/PerfectSetup#ALSA_Applications

The data flow for applications using the ALSA api ends up looking like this:
Application -> ALSA (userspace api) -> PulseAudio -> ALSA (kernel api) -> Hardware 

If this is broken, we should fix this. But please provide more details.
Comment 2 Martin Wilck 2012-11-06 15:00:54 UTC 
Created attachment 639408 [details]
Webex error-pop-up

Hmm, it looks as if the attached pop-up made me draw wrong conclusions. I was trying to attend a Red Hat Webinar (!) using F17 and got this error. First thing I tried was Oracle Java, with no success. Then I searched the web and found the resources mentioned about Pulseaudio.

I just tested again using the Java sound demo (http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/index-139508.html) and it works fairly well even without the Pulseaudio settings in the Java config file.

So, this bug can be closed, and I still have no idea why Webex fails under Fedora.
Comment 3 Omair Majid 2012-11-06 15:31:41 UTC 
(In reply to comment #2)
> I still have no idea why Webex fails under Fedora.

Does Webex work for you with the changes to sound.properties that you proposed?
Comment 4 Martin Wilck 2012-11-07 12:26:13 UTC 
I had no chance to test that. Someone would need to setup  a test session with sound. The Webex standard test session has no audio, so the problem wasn't detected.