[pulseaudio-discuss] Hpw to start the pa server

[Gene Heskett]

On Thursday 15 April 2010, Colin Guthrie wrote:
>'Twas brillig, and Gene Heskett at 14/04/10 22:05 did gyre and gimble:
>>> I forgot to ask, but can you now give "pacmd ls" output now that the
>>> server is running?
>>
>> That is also pretty verbose & thanks for teaching me about scrollback
>> saving. See that output at
>> <http://gene.homelinux.net:85/gene/pacmd-ls.out>
>
>That looks good so far.
>
>Can you perhaps run that command at the same time as using paplay to
>"play" the ia-ora startup sound? You should no longer be getting the
>connection refused error and as long as you're quick you should be able
>to dump pacmd ls before the sound stops "playing".

I believe I caught it while paplay was still working.  The new pacmd ls 
output is at <http://gene.homelinux.net:85/gene/pacmd-sl.out>

>At present the sinks appear to exist and be working, but they are
>"suspended" this is due to a time out:
>
>        state: SUSPENDED
>        suspend cause: IDLE

Now one of the channels is said to be running.

>If you do the pacmd ls while something is playing, this should be
>different. I just wnat to make sure PA is able to open the devices
> properly.
>
>
>Aside from this, how is your sound connected to the computer? Is it
>using digital output? If so this is likely the problem. The setup
>currently is analog.

Exactly as it worked flawlessly under F10 with pulse disabled, all analog via 
the mini-phone plugs on the card, nothing has been disturbed, and I do hear 
the thump in the woofer when udev starts.

FWIW, pavucontrol looking at analog output, with or without amplifier, shows 
the music playing in its vu bar.

>If this is the case you need to use pavucontrol's
>configuration tab to pick an appropriate card profile (you can also use
>gnome-volume-control and I'll be working on a KDE version at some point
>during May).
>
>Getting there... it's a slow process. Feel free to pop on IRC if you
>want a more interactive debugging session.

I'd say we were close, close enough for me to crawl under that desk and turn 
the machine around, unplug the audio cables and see if a finger makes any 
noise.  OTOH, I do hear the thump when udev starts at reboot time, so I 
believe the audio signals cabling chain is ok.

Aha!  I found it!  I configured kmix to show me every channel, which makes it 
about 2x my 1680 screen width, and pulled its window to about 1/2 screen 
height so I could read all the labels, and found the last control on the 
right was muted.  It is called "Audigy Analog/Digital Output Jack"
I knew that turning on the IEC-958 muted it, and that is muted as it should 
be.

Frankly, I am inclined to say its a bug, when selecting the analog stereo 
output in pavucontrol, that it should be automatically un-muted.

And it doesn't have near the gain it did have.  Listening to cnn, I have 
everything wide open and its just a comfortable level. (to these 75 year old 
ears that is)  It certainly would not wake anybody outside this room.  There 
is also a background hum that comes and goes, somewhat like the 59.94hz vs 60 
hz beat from the old NTSC broadcast facility, like something is wide open.  
That was the microphone circuit, which has nothing plugged in but a cable 
about 6" long that jumps the pcHDTV-3000 tv cards output back into the 
Audigy2.  And I just got the pling from kmail's new mail pinger.

It also sounds as if there is a lot of bass boost that wasn't there before, 
and despite its running at what pavucontrol says is just an average level, I 
am hearing some digital flat topping.  I'll probably be able to find that 
eventually.

So, we have a case closed I believe, and a bug that ought to be fixed.

Thank you for your patience Colin.

>Col
>


-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
BOFH excuse #127:

Sticky bits on disk.