Streaming video kills audio until KDE restart

English Multimedia
1

Hi all,

I’m running OpenSUSE 11.3 64-bit on a relatively new machine and have noticed that running streaming video, such as on Youtube, often kills my audio until I restart KDE either by a restart or by logging off and on again. Here’s what happens:

  • I can listen to music with Amarok, etc. just fine
  • When I watch a video on Youtube, it works fine. However, when I try to turn on music again afterwards, it normally doesn’t work.
  • Another anomaly: For system sounds, such as the log-on and log-off sounds, my audio temporarily mutes. Very strange - I can play sounds with Amarok, etc., but my system sounds just don’t play and if I try testing them, e.g. from KMail, with the KMixer window up, I notice that the volume goes down to 0% as soon as the test starts. When the sound’s done, it goes back up. I’m not sure if this could be related to the video problem.

I’ve got the newest flash-player installed with YaST… Anybody have any tips? I’d be grateful :wink:

Best,
Daniel

2

Are you using pulseaudio??

3

Yes, although I’m not quite sure what it does. I installed it because before I did my laptop’s external speakers didn’t turn off when I plugged in headphones.

4

What’s the “relatively new” machine ? New because you just acquired it, or new because it was recently released? Make and model?

5

Disable pulseaudio, that’s what’s causing it. On KDE best use xine as the means for audio output.

6

@ consused - The machine is relatively new because I relatively recently acquired it. It’s also relatively new on the market, but not that new. Lenovo G560.

@ Knurpht - I’ve googled a bit about how to do that but was unable to find any helpful results except for uninstalling the pulseaudio packages. Is that what you mean? My desktop environment is KDE and in my multimedia settings in Personal Settings I’ve got Xine as the backend. However, the output device for every function is the PulseAudio Sound Server. There are no other devices listed, so that’s my only option. Xine is also the only backend listed.

7

Ok, don’t bother to answer that as I see you have a Lenovo G560 from your other thread here. Your m/c is quite new.

Found this link for Lenovo G560 on LinLap albeit tested on ubuntu. You may find other clues/discussions there re linux support of G560 including sound.

I have your original problem with audio muting on my Lenovo SL510 with 11.3 64bit, but I have separate channels on KMix for speaker/headphones, and a speaker mute button on keyboard so not such a big issue for me. However W7 does mute speaker when 'phones are plugged in. I have PulseAudio disabled in YaST>Sound as per default with KDE install and do not have your current sound problem. I would therefore match @Knurpht’s advice.

I am hoping for improved support for my notebook with kernel 2.6.35/36. :wink:

PS. Hadn’t seen your last response when I posted this.

8

PulseAudio Configuration is in YaST>Hardware>Sound>Other

9

Alright, a tentative positive report: I found the PulseAudio configuration in YaST (thanks for the tip) and turned it on - before it was turned off. Now I’ve got system sounds. I’ll experiment a little bit with videos and report back if that worked :slight_smile:

10

Alright, it was correct to make the positive report tentative: Although my system sounds now work, I’ve tried out watching Youtube videos. After the videos are done I can’t play any music with Amarok until I log out and log back in, like before. Amarok works fine, as long as I don’t watch Youtube. Strange, huh?

Correction: Now I don’t have to restart KDE, I have to restart Firefox. Or, more precisely, I have to quit Firefox. Then everything works fine. It also continues to work if I restart Firefox.

11

Lets see what packages you installed for pulseaudio?

Please post result of (as normal user) command: zypper se pulseaudio

I assume you already had installed libpulse-mainloop-glib0, libpulse0, and libxine1-pulse.

12

Here it is:

Lee@linux-ldv9:~> zypper se pulseaudio
Repository ‘Audio Update’ is out-of-date. You can run ‘zypper refresh’ as root to update it.
Loading repository data…
Reading installed packages…

S | Name | Summary | Type
–±------------------------------±---------------------------------------------±----------
| gmerlin-pulseaudio | Pulseaudio plugins for gmerlin | package
| projectM-pulseaudio | Pulseaudio tool for projectM | package
| projectM-pulseaudio | Pulseaudio tool for projectM | srcpackage
| projectM-pulseaudio-debuginfo | Debug information for package projectM-pul-> | package
i | pulseaudio | A Networked Sound Server | package
| pulseaudio | A Networked Sound Server | srcpackage
| pulseaudio-esound-compat | ESOUND compatibility for PulseAudio | package
| pulseaudio-gdm-hooks | PulseAudio GDM integration | package
| pulseaudio-lang | Languages for package pulseaudio | package
| pulseaudio-module-bluetooth | Bluetooth support for the PulseAudio sound-> | package
| pulseaudio-module-gconf | GCONF module for PulseAudio | package
| pulseaudio-module-jack | JACK support for the PulseAudio sound server | package
| pulseaudio-module-lirc | LIRC module for PulseAudio | package
| pulseaudio-module-x11 | X11 module for PulseAudio | package
| pulseaudio-module-zeroconf | Zeroconf module for PulseAudio | package
i | pulseaudio-utils | PulseAudio utilities | package

13

Sorry, I tried to be too clever and missed a couple, so could you post result of: zypper se pulse

That should get them all.

14 
Lee@linux-ldv9:~> zypper se pulse                                                            
Loading repository data...                                                                   
Reading installed packages...                                                                
                                                                                             
S | Name                                     | Summary                           | Type      
--+------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------+-----------
  | Performous-plugin-pulse                  | Pulse-plugin                      | package   
i | alsa-plugins-pulse                       | Pulseaudio Plug-In for the ALSA-> | package   
  | alsa-plugins-pulse-32bit                 | Pulseaudio Plug-In for the ALSA-> | package   
  | audacious-plugins-output-pulse           | Pulseaudio Sound Daemon output -> | package   
  | audacious-plugins-output-pulse-debuginfo | Debug information for package a-> | package   
  | cmus-plugin-pulse                        | Pulseaudio Output Plugin for th-> | package   
  | cmus-plugin-pulse-debuginfo              | Debug information for package c-> | package   
  | gmerlin-pulseaudio                       | Pulseaudio plugins for gmerlin    | package   
  | libao-pulse                              | PulseAudio Plug-in for libao      | package   
  | libmpg123-0-pulse                        | Pulseaudio Support for mpg123     | package   
i | libpulse-browse0                         | PulseAudio network browsing API   | package   
i | libpulse-browse0                         | pulseaudio: Fix setup-pulseaudi-> | patch     
  | libpulse-devel                           | Development package for the pul-> | package   
i | libpulse-mainloop-glib0                  | GLIB 2.0 Main Loop wrapper for -> | package   
  | libpulse-mainloop-glib0-32bit            | GLIB 2.0 Main Loop wrapper for -> | package   
i | libpulse0                                | Client interface to PulseAudio    | package   
i | libpulse0-32bit                          | Client interface to PulseAudio    | package   
i | libxine1-pulse                           | Pulseaudio plugin for xine        | package   
  | projectM-pulseaudio                      | Pulseaudio tool for projectM      | package   
  | projectM-pulseaudio                      | Pulseaudio tool for projectM      | srcpackage
  | projectM-pulseaudio-debuginfo            | Debug information for package p-> | package   
i | pulseaudio                               | A Networked Sound Server          | package   
  | pulseaudio                               | A Networked Sound Server          | srcpackage
  | pulseaudio-esound-compat                 | ESOUND compatibility for PulseA-> | package   
  | pulseaudio-gdm-hooks                     | PulseAudio GDM integration        | package   
  | pulseaudio-lang                          | Languages for package pulseaudio  | package   
  | pulseaudio-module-bluetooth              | Bluetooth support for the Pulse-> | package   
  | pulseaudio-module-gconf                  | GCONF module for PulseAudio       | package   
  | pulseaudio-module-jack                   | JACK support for the PulseAudio-> | package   
  | pulseaudio-module-lirc                   | LIRC module for PulseAudio        | package   
  | pulseaudio-module-x11                    | X11 module for PulseAudio         | package   
  | pulseaudio-module-zeroconf               | Zeroconf module for PulseAudio    | package   
i | pulseaudio-utils                         | PulseAudio utilities              | package   
  | qmmp-output-pulse                        | Pulseaudio Sound Daemon output -> | package   
  | qmmp-output-pulse-debuginfo              | Debug information for package q-> | package   
  | vlc-aout-pulse                           | VLC Audio Out for Pulse Audio     | package   
  | vlc-aout-pulse-debuginfo                 | Debug information for package v-> | package   
  | xmms2-plugin-pulse                       | Pulse Support for xmms2           | package   
  | xmms2-plugin-pulse-debuginfo             | Debug information for package x-> | package
15

Thanks. IIRC, that looks ok for installed packages. P/A support is supposed to be better implemented from KDE 4.4 onwards. However, I think you need more setup/configuration to get certain ALSA based applications through PulseAudio.

See this PerfectSetup page on the P/A wiki, looking first at the comment in the Flash Player section re Flash Player 10 and click on the link there to take you back up to the ALSA section where you will get an idea of what is needed. To implement, you can follow exactly what user boast, running 11.3 KDE, successfully did in this thread at post #10, having consulted ArchWiki.

No guarantees, but good luck, and let us know how it goes. :slight_smile: