HOWTO: PulseAudio Fixes & System-Wide Equalizer Support

[psyke83]

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

In System->Preferences->Sound, set all the "Sound playback" options to "Autodetect" and "Sound capture" to "ALSA".

Also, make sure you use the ALSA version of Skype and read Appendix A (there's instructions specifically for Skype).

[AmbroseBierce]

Now it works. thx alot now everything really works.

[lamborghiniwang]

I followed the guide, everything seems to be working well, but Skype now crashes constantly if I choose pulse as the sound out and ringing device for Skype. Skype works well if I choose HDA Intel (hw:intel.0) as sound out and ringing device except that only one of the speakers have audio output in that case.
Does anyone have the same problem?
I am running 64 bit Hardy on a Thinkpad T61p.(Santa Rosa platform with integrated Intel 82801H ICH8 sound card )

[zozio32]

Skype issues

Hi again,
well, I've got everything working now, but skype.
I guess I have the "shuttering" problem, even if I am not sure what the word means.
I've followed Part A, B and C and I've try to apply the setting you recommend for Skype. After all that, if I press the "test call" button in Skype, I get a Problem with Audio Playback

I've tried to blindly fiddle a bit with the parameter of part C

default-fragments = 8
default-fragment-size-msec = 5

but without success.

I have also check in the pulse audio applet and Skype is not listed...

There is one stuff: how do I find what's the name of what I should choose for "Sound in". Anyway, I've tried with the 4 options I have, without success.

[psyke83]

I followed the guide, everything seems to be working well, but Skype now crashes constantly if I choose pulse as the sound out and ringing device for Skype. Skype works well if I choose HDA Intel (hw:intel.0) as sound out and ringing device except that only one of the speakers have audio output in that case.
Does anyone have the same problem?
I am running 64 bit Hardy on a Thinkpad T61p.(Santa Rosa platform with integrated Intel 82801H ICH8 sound card )

The first thing you can try is to disable the equalizer, if you enabled it already (follow Part D in reverse).

If it's not the equalizer giving trouble, I'm pretty sure I know the problem you're having, but the fix is a little complicated and risky. You need to update the "libasound2" packages to the newest version (from Intrepid) to make the PulseAudio ALSA plugin work correctly with Skype. These updated packages were once uploaded to "hardy-proposed" but were pulled from the repository soon after.

Download these packages:

$ wget -c http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/a/alsa-lib/libasound2-dev_1.0.16-2ubuntu1_amd64.deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/a/alsa-lib/libasound2_1.0.16-2ubuntu1_amd64.deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/a/alsa-plugins/libasound2-plugins_1.0.16-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/a/alsa-lib/lib32asound2_1.0.16-2ubuntu1_amd64.deb

Now, try to install via dpkg:

$ sudo dpkg -i wget -c libasound2-dev_1.0.16-2ubuntu1_amd64.deb libasound2_1.0.16-2ubuntu1_amd64.deb libasound2-plugins_1.0.16-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb lib32asound2_1.0.16-2ubuntu1_amd64.deb

Please, please, please check the output of dpkg and ensure there were no errors - I'm not using 64bit Ubuntu so I can't determine if these packages will install without requiring others.

If you receive errors, please post the output of dpkg above so I can try to find out the problem, then also give me the output of the following:

$ sudo apt-get install --dry-run -f

If you did get errors, this will revert packages to the Hardy versions:

$ sudo apt-get install libasound2-dev_1.0.16-2ubuntu1_amd64.deb/hardy libasound2_1.0.16-2ubuntu1_amd64.deb/hardy libasound2-plugins_1.0.16-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb/hardy lib32asound2_1.0.16-2ubuntu1_amd64.deb/hardy

If you received no errors, then reboot your machine and try Skype again. Let me know if it helps, I'm sure a lot of 64bit users will thank you if it does!

[psyke83]

Hi again,
well, I've got everything working now, but skype.
I guess I have the "shuttering" problem, even if I am not sure what the word means.
I've followed Part A, B and C and I've try to apply the setting you recommend for Skype. After all that, if I press the "test call" button in Skype, I get a Problem with Audio Playback

Are you using 64bit Ubuntu? If so, check my previous post as well. The word "stuttering" means that audio plays, but it seems to skip like a scratched CD (or broken record). I don't think stuttering is your problem.

If you're using 32bit Ubuntu, you may need to upgrade the "libasound2" packages as well.

Download the packages:

$ wget -c http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/a/alsa-plugins/libasound2-plugins_1.0.16-1ubuntu1_i386.deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/a/alsa-lib/libasound2-dev_1.0.16-2ubuntu1_i386.deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/a/alsa-plugins/libasound2-plugins_1.0.16-1ubuntu1_i386.deb

Install the packages:

$ sudo dpkg -i libasound2-plugins_1.0.16-1ubuntu1_i386.deb libasound2-dev_1.0.16-2ubuntu1_i386.deb libasound2-plugins_1.0.16-1ubuntu1_i386.deb

If there are errors, post the errors here and you can downgrade the packages by doing this:

$ sudo apt-get install libasound2-plugins/hardy libasound2-dev/hardy libasound2-plugins/hardy

If there are no errors, reboot and try Skype (just make sure you set the "pulse" device in the Skype Options, as Appendix A says).

[AmbroseBierce]

Here I am again^^
everything worked fine with skype...but now again i have problems. If i start skype and test call the sound breaks after a few seconds and i also can#t terminate skype any more...but still can use it menus...the rest of the sound works fine, also recoriding...skype-static-oss works...don know if this is a bug of skype or of pulse
hope you can help me again^

[NTolerance]

I followed a previous version of this how-to that used Flash 10 beta 2. Beta 2 is a real mess so I'd like to try the latest edit in the how-to. I assume that going back to Flash 9 by installing flashplugin-nonfree will automatically remove Flash 10 from my system?

[Bios Element]

Thank you SO MUCH for this! I spent DAYS trying to get my mic to work trying way after way and FINALLY I have it.

[DiCon]

For some reason it seems like I am unable to get RTP for pulseaudio since I get this in my syslog:

Jul 29 19:02:23 atlantis pulseaudio[15531]: main.c: RLIMIT_RTPRIO failed: Operation not permitted

I tried to google and search this thread and noticed the same or similar lines in many posts, but nobody seems to notice. But this is not supposed to be right after following this HOWTO, is it?

I tried this on two machines - my notebook, which I updated from older Ubuntu versions (and which does not really need RTP-support) and on my "TV"-barebone, which really needs the RTP and got a fresh 8.04 last weekend. On both the user is in the groups "pulse-access pulse-rt" (I copied this directly from the output of "groups") and both still have the "RLIMIT_RTPRIO failed" message in their syslog.

Any suggestions?