[pulseaudio-discuss] PA Startup problem on Acer Aspire One

[Mark Greenwood]

On Tuesday 02 Jun 2009 10:01:01 Colin Guthrie wrote:
> 'Twas brillig, and Mark Greenwood at 01/06/09 20:41 did gyre and gimble:
> > Strange issue.. my Acer Aspire One is having issues since I installed
> > pulseaudio on it.. I think they might be related to bootup speed,
> > since this model has a rather slow SSD from which it boots. I'm
> > running PA 0.9.15
> > 
> > Essentially, if I start PA using the 'normal' method (i.e. just
> > install it and let the scripts do what they are supposed to) then I
> > get no audio. I can start pavucontrol and I can see activity in the
> > vu meters for the applications, but there is no activity on the vu
> > meter for the output (Intel HDA). I also can't play anything using
> > direct ALSA output in an application, because something (PA
> > presumably) has control of the sound card, although
> > module-suspend-on-idle is loaded.
> > 
> > If I kill pulseaudio and start it again from the command line, it all
> > works correctly.
> 
> Even if pulse suspends itself, it should be able to unsuspend OK unless 
> something has snuck in and grabbed the device.
> 
> When it's in this locked state, the output of "pacmd list-sinks" will 
> confirm if it's in the suspended state and you should be able to issue a

It does, and it is suspended.
 
> "pacmd suspend-sink 0 false" to unsuspend sink with index 0. If it is 
> locked into a suspend state, this should try and unsuspend it.

'pacmd suspend-sink 0 false' gives
Failed to parse suspend switch
and the output is still suspended

But starting something playing and listing sinks shows the state RUNNING.

> You can also try hitting the mute button twice in pavucontrol to see if 
> it is another occurrence of the infamous "undetected mute on startup bug."

Aha! That got it. After that the state went to IDLE and now I can hear audio. While audio is playing it goes to RUNNING and then back to IDLE, then back to SUSPENDED when I close pavucontrol.

So looks like this is the cause. Can I help with debugging?

Mark

> 
> > I have a suspicion that it might be due to the slow bootup and
> > perhaps something to do with suspend on idle. Can I disable suspend
> > on idle somehow to test this theory (I couldn't find it in
> > default.pa)? Anyone else have any other ideas?
> 
> Look again ;)
> 
> My default.pa has:
> ### Automatically suspend sinks/sources that become idle for too long
> load-module module-suspend-on-idle
> 
>