pulseaudio missing from device preference in system settings multimedia - pavucontrol can't move soundstreams when running kde I love pulseaudio and the possibilities it brings through pavucontrol to set per application volumes and move the audio streams between different hardware. I run KDE on all of my computers but use pavucontrol as kmix doesn't handle per application volumes. All of this worked perfectly up until recently, latest kde updates? Now pavucontrol can still manage the per application volumes, but it can no longer move audio streams between different hardware. If amarok is playing on "internal audio analog stereo" and I choose to move it to "Logitech_Wireless_Headset Analog Stereo" it is instantly moved back. If I go to System settings / multimedia / music and move "Logitech_Wireless_Headset Analog Stereo" up as my most preferred device for music and press apply, amarok is moved to "Logitech_Wireless_Headset Analog Stereo". If I remember correctly, I used to have an pulseaudio "device" in system settings / multimedia but it is no longer there. I think that this is the root of my problems. How do I get the pulseaudio device back, so I can control hardware output of audio streams through pavucontrol again?
f13/kde-4.3.4 now includes better pulseaudio integration, so the real devices are shown in phonon now instead of just "pulseaudio" (ie, that's intended behavior). Now, whether pavucontrol works or not... that's a little odd. Fwiw, I have and continue to use it to move streams, including amarok's, without problems. Re-assigning to pavucontrol. In the meantime, does pavucontrol fail for any and all streams, or just amarok?
I think I used to have BOTH pulseaudio and real devices shown in System settings / multimedia, always set pulseaudio to my most preferred device, so I don't know if the real devices used to work as intended or with pavucontrol. I tested some random apps I happen to have installed, to see if it is just an amarok problem or a more general one. Can NOT move with pavucontrol amarok Dragon Player Kapman KGoldrunner CAN move with pavucontrol Firefox (youtube) XMMS kdenlive openshot (turns up as python) xine empathy (video conference) (mutes amarok when on same device) ekiga supertuxcart nexuiz The ones I can't move with pavucontrol can all be moved by changing the preferred device for the corresponding group in System settings / multimedia.
> I think I used to have BOTH pulseaudio and real devices shown in System > settings / multimedia Yes, that was before PA integration in Phonon. The real devices meant directly outputting to them through ALSA, bypassing PA. Now with PA integration, the direct ALSA option gets hidden if PA is running (because you aren't supposed to output directly to the hardware when using PA, the application will fight with PA over the hardware), instead you get to choose the priority of the devices to output to using PA. > Can NOT move with pavucontrol > amarok > Dragon Player > Kapman > KGoldrunner Basically, all those that use Phonon, it seems. I guess PA's module-device-manager is overriding the choices you make through pavucontrol. > empathy (video conference) (mutes amarok when on same device) That's a PA feature (removed background noise when you want to do phone calls) which can be disabled in the config file.
> > I think I used to have BOTH pulseaudio and real devices shown in System > > settings / multimedia > > Yes, that was before PA integration in Phonon. The real devices meant directly > outputting to them through ALSA, bypassing PA. Now with PA integration, the > direct ALSA option gets hidden if PA is running (because you aren't supposed to > output directly to the hardware when using PA, the application will fight with > PA over the hardware), instead you get to choose the priority of the devices to > output to using PA. Ok, that makes sense, thank you for explaining. Digging around, I have found a way to turn off kde pulseaudio integration, by editing /usr/bin/start-pulseaudio-kde, changing "do_routing=1" to "do_routing=0" and restarting pulseaudio and running the script. This returns quite a few devices to System settings / multimedia including pulseaudio, and I can then again move amaroks sound stream with pavucontrol. But this seems to be the WRONG way to solve my problem, I like pulseaudio and look forward to a better integration with KDE. You mentioned that you have this running and that you still can move amaroks audio stream with pavucontrol. So am I missing some setting somewhere or is there something I can change in a config file to make my systems work as yours?
I am not a KDE guy myself, so I am not sure what to do with this bug. Does this perhaps explain the issue this bug is about? http://colin.guthr.ie/2010/02/this-is-the-route-to-hell/
Well, the latest pavucontrol in your git repo has module-device-manager-related code from Colin, we aren't shipping that in Fedora yet (the release we're shipping was tagged just before this went in), maybe it'd work better if we did?
While testing the latest pulseaudio(pulseaudio-0.9.21-5.fc12) updates from updates-testing, did I happen to find a workaround for my problem. If I run pulseaudio -k in a console, and restart pavucontrol is it again possible to move all of my audio streams :) But as soon as I reboot the problem is back, until I run pulseaudio -k in a console.
I don't know what update has fixed the problem, but I no longer have one :)