[pulseaudio-discuss] Pulseaudio and Skype

[Mark Greenwood]

Hi All,

I know pulse and skype have a chequered history, but I've done a lot of googling and I can't find any other description of this particular  problem.

I'm running Skype 2.1 beta and Pulseaudio 0.9.19 on Kubuntu 9.10.

Firstly, skype works fine if I disable pulseaudio. (That's just for information, not a comment).

If I enable pulseaudio, skype automatically sets all the audio options to be pulseaudio - there is no option in this version to use ALSA if pulse is enabled, which is sensible enough I guess.

But although I can make calls, and the other end can hear me and I can hear them, the other end can also hear themselves - as loud as me with a slight delay. They all say it's so offputting that they can't hold a conversation.

If I turn my microphone down, the other end says the echo goes away - but they can't hear me either. Moving the microphone away from the speakers isn't an option as this is on a laptop.

Now, I wouldn't be here asking daft questions about closed source software - except that it all works fine when pulseaudio is not involved. It almost appears as if there's some echo cancellation which is broken when pulseaudio is in the mix, or that possibly pulse is feeding the incoming voice conversation back into skype somehow.

Any ideas on how to go about making it work?

Thanks,

Mark