[pulseaudio-discuss] PulseAudio <-> ALSA issues

[Colin Guthrie]

Wolfgang Rosenauer wrote:
>> Do you write a little data and wait for it to start? Or do you just pump 
>> data in and analyse it later. The reason I ask is that IIRC pulse will 
>> not start playing until a minimum buffer size is reached, so if you only 
>> put in a couple samples it probably wont start playing.
>>
>> Try pumping in more data first.
>>
>> (Apologies if I've got this wrong, I'm going from memory of other 
>> peoples comments - which I can't testify to in the first place, let 
>> along guarantee the quality of my own memory!)
> 
> You were basically right and you are still with that also.
> The issue was that we relied on snd_pcm_delay() to stay smaller than 
> 200msecs. When it got bigger we stopped feeding data to the alsa buffer 
> since we actually thought the buffer is full (which isn't the case as 
> you wrote) and so we got stuck :-(
> 
> Thanks for the help. The app is running fine now with pulse.

Woot! :)

Glad to help. If you want you or the apps original devs can pitch in on 
the alsa-dev mailing list on the thread I linked to earlier as there is 
talk about adding API functions etc. Although there was some consensus, 
I think the thread has dried up a little and I'm not sure anyone is 
taking on the mantle of adding the necessary functions. So a gentle poke 
with fresh impetus would probably help :D

Col