HOWTO: PulseAudio Fixes & System-Wide Equalizer Support

[psyke83]

I want to ask before I do anything, can this guide fix my problem in Flash/Firefox where I cannot play music and have a flash object with sound open at the same time? What about the problem I have where if I play any flash object with sound and close it and try to open a movie or play some music the sound will not work?

Are you using Ubuntu 64bit? The simple answer to your question is "yes" with a caveat.

Flash 9 needs the support library "libflashsupport" to enable PulseAudio support (to allow Flash and other applications to play sounds simultaneously), but it can introduce instability - you will notice Flash content "cutting out" randomly on websites.

Flash 10 works with PulseAudio, but there is a critical bug in Firefox exposed in this version of Flash, causing many websites to crash (unrelated to PulseAudio). There's no easy solution that works 100% reliably, until Firefox 3.0.2 is released.

[keiichidono]

Well as he said in the OP I can always just reload the page if flash doesn't load, right? I can do that until Firefox 3.0.2 is released. As long as my main problem with playing flash with sound and then closing Firefox and trying to open music or a movie will not have sound therefore requiring me to restart if I want to play my media is fixed I am good.

[psyke83]

Well as he said in the OP I can always just reload the page if flash doesn't load, right? I can do that until Firefox 3.0.2 is released.

That's why I asked if you're using 64bit Ubuntu (I can only tell that your CPU is 64bit from your signature). If you're using 32bit, then yes, a page reload will work. If you're using 64 bit, a page reload won't work (you'll need to restart Firefox). Only the newest development build of nspluginwrapper (1.1.0) supports plugin auto-restart, and nobody has built a 64bit package yet. No, I can't do it.

[sistoviejo]

When I played music over MPD I couldn't play music on Rhythmbox or Firefox and vice versa.
I decided to remove pulseaudio but that didn't solve the problem.
Maybe I haven't completely removed pulseaudio and that's why I still have this problem?
I only uninstalled the packages.

[psyke83]

When I played music over MPD I couldn't play music on Rhythmbox or Firefox and vice versa.
I decided to remove pulseaudio but that didn't solve the problem.
Maybe I haven't completely removed pulseaudio and that's why I still have this problem?
I only uninstalled the packages.

PulseAudio is integrated into the Hardy release, so you can't remove it without losing some functionality. I can't and won't support that kind of action, so you're on your own .

If you do decide to install PulseAudio again, you need to configure MPD properly. See here: http://mpd.wikia.com/wiki/PulseAudio

[sistoviejo]

If you do decide to install PulseAudio again, you need to configure MPD properly.

No way!! I'm happier with ALSA.

[keiichidono]

That's why I asked if you're using 64bit Ubuntu (I can only tell that your CPU is 64bit from your signature). If you're using 32bit, then yes, a page reload will work. If you're using 64 bit, a page reload won't work (you'll need to restart Firefox). Only the newest development build of nspluginwrapper (1.1.0) supports plugin auto-restart, and nobody has built a 64bit package yet. No, I can't do it.

Sorry I didn't answer that before, I use 32bit. So I can use the new nspluginwrapper and use autorestart, right? Thank you for the help.

[keiichidono]

I have to give you a big thanks for this guide, Flash now seems to work without any problems and I can play more than one audio source at once. I followed to Multimedia Guide before to install Flash 10 but now Flash 9 is working even better than ever for me. One of my big complaints when using Ubuntu is gone. Now I can also safely recommend it to a friend.

[keiichidono]

Ok, I met my first problem. Whenever a flash object can't run it restarts, all good. But it restarts the entire Firefox. I keep loosing all the tabs I have open to this. I think it may be because of the dev release of nspluginwrapper. I'll check it out, if anyone has any info on this I'll be very glad. EDIT: I can't seem to find/install an older version of nspluginwrapper. I'll reinstall it and see what happens. Hopefully I might be able to do something right this time. EDIT: I seem to have messed up my flash plugin somehow, no matter how many times i reinstall and uninstall it doesn't work. If I can get it back to the way it was before I started I'll be good to go. EDIT: I kinda have it half working now. BTW, if anyone references the xkcd comic I will kill them.

[AmbroseBierce]

Hey,
I tried this "HOW-TO" and it only partly works. Sound works but my internal mic ins`t working anymore. But some how it also works when i use the skype-static-oss version. If i try to record via the ubuntu recording tool it says "Internal Error with Dataflow"(free translated from German^^) and also "subclass did not specify output size". Does anybody else have this problem? How to solve it?
Im using a Sony Vaio VGN SZ61 MN/b with Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 64-bit