[pulseaudio-discuss] sound works in console, but not in X, what gives?

[Colin Guthrie]

[ Just replying-all as I think I had to let this message through the
mailing list manually and thus the user is probably not subscribed to
the list ]

Note to Elijah, we don't really have a reply-all policy on this list. So
you should sign up to make sure you get all replies :)

'Twas brillig, and Jan Steffens at 25/08/11 02:46 did gyre and gimble:
> On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 8:02 AM,  <pulseaudio at eli.users.panix.com> wrote:
>>
>> "pactl suspend-sink 0 0" returns 0 (success, one would think) but
>> nothing changes with Sink #0. "pactl suspend-sink 0 1" doesn't
>> change anything either (and exits with 0 as well).
>>
>> Now, "pactl suspend-source 0 0" exits with 1 and gives an error:
>> "Failure: Invalid argument" ("pactl suspend-source 0 1", "... 1 0",
>> and "... 1 1" all do the same thing).
>>
>> What is going on here?
>>
>> Elijah

This is Jan's reply, which answers the subject generally:

> Not having rights to use the audio devices will cause PulseAudio to
> suspend the sinks until you regain rights. Ubuntu uses ConsoleKit and
> udev's ACL features to remove and add rights to devices depending on
> which user's virtual console is active.
> 
> You will have to start a ConsoleKit session from X somehow - otherwise
> ConsoleKit will not be aware the VC belongs to you, and udev will
> remove your rights on the audio devices when you switch to the X
> virtual console.
> This is normally done by gdm. If you use startx, this can be done in
> your .xinitrc, usually with a line like:
> 
> exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch icewm


Now here are some extra comments from me.

The reason you cannot suspend-source on index 0 is likely due to the
fact that you have selected a monitor source (that is a virtual input
source that is actually just whatever is playing on it's corresponding
sink). These sources do not support suspending by themselves and just
follow the status of the source they are connected to.

Of course with general usage the above commands work for me. (well the
suspend-sink ones anyway).

So without further info, there is not much to go on other than the
general advice above.

If you would like more help, please subscribe to the list, and give some
more debug - such as the output from "pacmd ls" and we can help you
debug further.

Cheers

Col


-- 

Colin Guthrie
gmane(at)colin.guthr.ie
http://colin.guthr.ie/

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