HOWTO: PulseAudio Fixes & System-Wide Equalizer Support

[psyke83]

Ok, but if you backpedal a bit to a few posts ago, I followed you original guide to fixing the streaming audio on the internet and now I have NO sound because of that.

Ah my apologies, I had forgotten your previous post. In that case, what I recommend is that you follow Appendix C (to revert changes), but it's not necessary to restore any backup files. Make sure you a) delete ~/.asoundrc* and /etc/asound.conf, and b) have the "ubuntu-desktop" or "ubuntustudio-desktop" metapackages installed (just in case some packages were accidentally removed).

Then perform the following test:
1. Ensure all the playback streams are set to "Autodetect" in System / Preferences / Sound.
1. Close all media players, etc.
2. Open a terminal, and kill the pulseaudio process:

$ pkill pulseaudio

3. Open a media player and try to play some audio.

If that works, then your sound is functioning when using ALSA directly. I would then recommend that you try following the guide again, to hopefully fix PulseAudio for you.

Can you also provide any relevant information? For example, did you notice packages getting uninstalled that seemed suspicious? Are you on i386 or amd64?

[timzak]

psyke83,

Shouldn't you warn users that enabling the hardy-proposed, then doing a dist-upgrade will basically update all of your applications to not-ready-for-primetime versions? It will also take forever to download and update all these apps. It even upgrades the kernel...is the .19 kernel even considered stable? I'm typing this as all this is happening and praying that nothing breaks after I reboot the computer.

[psyke83]

psyke83,

Shouldn't you warn users that enabling the hardy-proposed, then doing a dist-upgrade will basically update all of your applications to not-ready-for-primetime versions? It will also take forever to download and update all these apps. It even upgrades the kernel...is the .19 kernel even considered stable? I'm typing this as all this is happening and praying that nothing breaks after I reboot the computer.

Hmm, I guess so, although some packages must be upgraded for PulseAudio to work correctly.

Edit: I've updated the guide, thanks for the suggestion.

[timzak]

Hmm, I guess so, although some packages must be upgraded for PulseAudio to work correctly.

Edit: I've updated the guide, thanks for the suggestion.

Thanks, everything seems to be working okay after following your howto. Youtube videos don't crash the system anymore. I noticed that Firefox got updated too. Not sure which version is in hardy-proposed, but probably RC2?

Thanks for your help!

[billybag]

sorry if someone already mentrioned this. i am in a hurry i have to get to work.

My PulseAudio is waaay too quiet. Way more quiet then ALSA. I have my laptop hooked up to my stereo and i need to have my stereo AND laptop at both max volumes and it isnt enough... How can this be fixed?

[psyke83]

sorry if someone already mentrioned this. i am in a hurry i have to get to work.

My PulseAudio is waaay too quiet. Way more quiet then ALSA. I have my laptop hooked up to my stereo and i need to have my stereo AND laptop at both max volumes and it isnt enough... How can this be fixed?

First, open PulseAudio Volume Control (available from Device Chooser) and make sure the volume for PulseAudio playback streams is at 100%.

Secondly, make sure it's really a problem with Pulse and not ALSA. Temporarily move/delete your /etc/asound.conf and ~/.asoundrc files, kill the pulseaudio server and try to play sound.

So:

1. aplay /usr/share/sounds/startup.wav
2. sudo rm /etc/asound.conf ~/.asoundrc
3. pkill pulseaudio
4. aplay /usr/share/sounds/startup.wav

[BlueSkyNIS]

Hello psyke,

Thanks very much for this post!

Please, correct miss type in following:

$ analyzeplugin /usr/lib/ladspa/mbeq_1197.so

should be:

$ analyseplugin /usr/lib/ladspa/mbeq_1197.so

Cheers

[psyke83]

Please, correct miss type in following:

Thanks, it's fixed now!

[bowie101]

Hello. I followed your guide, as far as I can tell, to the letter.
Alienware area 51 laptop, Heron, i386, etc etc.

Well, orginally, I installed Flash 9, then had problems, then installed flash 10, then back to 9, and now, hopefully with following your guide, back to 10.

FF RC2.

It worked for just a bit (I think). When all cutting and pasting from your guide was done, (Part A: Required Fixes,
Part B: Adobe Flash & PulseAudio Fix, & Part D: Equalizer Support), FF worked, for the remaining 2 minutes that I used it. I went to YouTube, and it worked fine. Then I open Opera and Konqueror. (I'm in gnome, but have K installed as well, and therefore Konqueror. BTW, I also have XFCE installed and after installing ubuntu, installed the metapackage for ubuntu-studio on top. IS this relevant? you decide.) anyway...open Opera and Konqueror and the same youtube link in both browsers. Video works, no sound. Sound only works now in FF.

So I restart the machine.

Now FF is crashing, again. Not as much as before, but still, crashing immediately after launch, etc. So apparently, no change.

Suggestions? Sorry, I just found this thread today, and after scaning the first 3rd of the threads, I thought I'd just ask. Maybe the solution is already in here, in which case, just direct me to it, and I apologize.


btw, I followed part D just b/c i am using a laptop, and as a precaution. didn't experience this problem before.

thanks, b

[psyke83]

Suggestions? Sorry, I just found this thread today, and after scaning the first 3rd of the threads, I thought I'd just ask. Maybe the solution is already in here, in which case, just direct me to it, and I apologize.


btw, I followed part D just b/c i am using a laptop, and as a precaution. didn't experience this problem before.

From your post it seems that you tested Firefox immediately after applying the changes here. Did you read the warning about PulseAudio changes not taking effect until a reboot or logging out and back in?

If Firefox is crashing immediately upon startup, it would seem that there's something wrong with your system unrelated to PulseAudio. The cause of crashes for some users with the "libflashsupport" package installed (that shouldn't be installed on a user's system by default anymore) only causes Firefox to crash when closing and opening pages with flash content (e.g. when you visit Youtube, it works fine the first time, but when you click on another video link, then it can crash).

So, my advice to you is:
1. Remove the EQ changes (Part D), so we can make sure that's not the problem (besides, you shouldn't be using those settings if your audio quality is already fine). This is the easiest way to do it:

$ sudo dpkg --force-depends -P pulseaudio
$ sudo apt-get install pulseaudio

Log out and back in for changes to take effect.

2. Close *all* applications that play audio, and follow Appendix B, testing just one application at a time. Be sure to test Firefox, Opera and Konqueror separately. Just keep in mind that these applications only show an entry in the PulseAudio Volume Control when they are playing audio!

Let me know the results, and if you get the "A" result, try playing audio from more than one application at once (ensure they all show correctly in the Volume Control window).