MPD (Media Player Daemon) configuration - no audio

**goodstuff9** · February 13th, 2018

Originally Posted by ivanovnegro2

Once I had a problem setting up mpd as its own service like in your case and I had problems with the sound because mpd was not in the audio group.

See what is in the audio group:

Code:

cat /etc/group | grep audio

You can add mpd to it:

Code:

sudo usermod -aG audio mpd

User "mpd" already is a member of the group "audio".

**tinylagarto** · February 13th, 2018

Do you have any error messages or terminal output when starting mpd? It could be useful.

**1fallen** · February 13th, 2018

Originally Posted by goodstuff9

User "mpd" already is a member of the group "audio".

See if you can follow this: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php..._configuration
I found "minidlna" to be a bit easier to setup.

**goodstuff9** · February 14th, 2018

Originally Posted by ivanovnegro2

Do you have any error messages or terminal output when starting mpd? It could be useful.

Well, not sure if I'm doing this correctly......

First in a terminal I run mpd --kill

I can see that mpd is not running at this point.

Then, I run mpd

No other output appears in the terminal.

I do see that mpd is running.

**goodstuff9** · February 14th, 2018

Originally Posted by 1fallen

See if you can follow this: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php..._configuration
I found "minidlna" to be a bit easier to setup.

When I read through the archlinux instructions, it seemed to me that I was already following those instructions that were applicable to Ubuntu.

**tinylagarto** · February 14th, 2018

Originally Posted by goodstuff9

Then, I run mpd

No other output appears in the terminal.

Then there is no error to report.

I think I am out because I only configure mpd to run as local user.

**pvanryn** · February 15th, 2018

Originally Posted by goodstuff9

When I read through the archlinux instructions, it seemed to me that I was already following those instructions that were applicable to Ubuntu.

goodstuff are you running MPD as a system service, or a user service? Following these instructions, I set MPD up as a user service and placed my mpd.conf in ~/.mpd. My audio output looks like this:

audio_output {
type "pulse"
name "Pulseaudio"
}

I don't bind it to any address.

On my remote client (I use ncmpcpp), I point it to the lan address of my server:

##### connection settings #####
#
mpd_host = 192.168.1.123
#
mpd_port = 6600
#
mpd_connection_timeout = 5

MPD can be kind of tedious, but once you get everything working right, it the best player around.

**tinylagarto** · February 15th, 2018

Pvanryn posted a great link and there is this I would like to paraphrase from the Ubuntu documentation if setting up as a system service:

Bugfix: Giving MPD proper permissions

Unfortunately, by default MPD does not have the proper permissions to access PulseAudio, the default audio setup on most new Ubuntu systems. If MPD plays for you without these steps, then that's great, but if you can play your songs but no sound is emitted, try the following steps.
What we need to do is add the user mpd to the groups pulse and pulse-access so that it can access the audio system.
$ sudo usermod -aG pulse,pulse-access mpd
MPD starts new pulseserver

Unfortunatly MPD tries to start its own pulseaudio server. So if you still unlucky you could try:

Code:

audio_output {
  type    "pulse"
  name    "MPD"
  server  "localhost"   # optional
# sink    "remote_server_sink"  # optional
}

Then you need to allow access. You should install paprefs

Code:

sudo apt-get install paprefs

Then run it (e.g. alt+f2 and enter paperfs). Click the Network Server tab, then check the Enable network access to local sound devices box, and finally check the Don't require authentication box. At this point make sure to restart the pulseaudio daemon.

Code:

sudo service pulseaudio restart

Now you should see MPD in Sound settings Application tab and hear music.

But like Pvanryn I also recommend and use a user configuration for mpd. It is easier setting up the permissions.

**jonnykickinbut** · March 14th, 2018

I think the main question you have to answer is the one about which set of speakers is the sound going to be using and then depending on which computer/audio card that is associated with could influence the method of connectivity. Depends whether you want sound as mentioned in the OP to come from the same computer with mpd running, which I think would be much easier (then you are not really streaming anything and just accessing the daemon and playing music from a server).

There is also this solution for access to the pulseaudio server (over the network)
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MP...ew_pulseserver

If you haven't installed paprefs it probably would help