[pulseaudio-tickets] [PulseAudio] #719: Pulseaudio interacts poorly with non-pulse apps

[PulseAudio]

#719: Pulseaudio interacts poorly with non-pulse apps
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 Reporter:  p-static  |       Owner:  lennart
     Type:  defect    |      Status:  new    
Milestone:            |   Component:  daemon 
 Keywords:            |  
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 Sorry about the vague title, I'm not familiar enough with the mechanics of
 the problem to be more specific. Basically, if another program has
 exclusive control of the sound device somehow (Pidgin and Flash are the
 most common culprits), Pulseaudio will silently use a dummy output module.
 From a usability perspective, this is pretty horrible - all of a sudden,
 ALSA applications will work fine, and Pulseaudio applications will produce
 no sound, for no visible reason.

 Specifically, I frequently find myself in situations where Pulseaudio
 suddenly stops working. Usually, the problem is that it's outputting to a
 dummy output device. "fuser /dev/snd/*" tells me which process is holding
 the output device, and killing that process makes pulse work again.

 At a minimum, Pulseaudio should warn the user as clearly as possible that
 it's unable to output sound, and list the program that's holding the sound
 device so that the user can actually do something about it. (Ideally, it
 should just solve the problem silently - ALSA applications manage to
 output sound somehow, which suggests that it's not an insurmountable
 problem.)

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Ticket URL: <http://pulseaudio.org/ticket/719>
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