[Pkg-pulseaudio-devel] Bug#513673: /usr/bin/start-pulseaudio-x11 fails to work since pactl cannot locate the server...

[Daniel Pittman]

Package: pulseaudio
Version: 0.9.13-2
Severity: important

(this refers to the version of pulseaudio in experimental)

The script /usr/bin/start-pulseaudio-x11 is designed to start PulseAudio under an X
session, and is invoked with an xdg startup item among other things.  This, sadly,
doesn't actually work as desired:

The script starts the pulseaudio server with 'pulseaudio --start', then checks if
$DISPLAY is set.  When it is the following is invoked:

    /usr/bin/pactl load-module module-x11-publish "display=$DISPLAY"

Unfortunately, pactl cannot locate the pulseaudio server: it tries /tmp/pulse-daniel
and the system-wide instance, but not the ~/.pulse/<hostid>:runtime link.

This means that the x11 publishing module is not loaded successfully, which the
script ignores.  The same is true of the X session manager item that is loaded next.


I was able to address this by editing /etc/pulse/default.pa to set the following:

.nofail
load-module module-x11-xsmp
load-module module-x11-publish
.fail

That unconditionally tries to load the relevant modules, which fixes the problem:

pulseaudio --start now loads module-x11-publish
module-x11-publish adds properties to the X root window with the hostid server address
pactl uses those properties to issue the command to the server


I don't know if the fault like in pactl (which, frankly, I think it does) or in the 
system configuration, but either way it doesn't work correctly at present, resulting
in the script failing to register as an X11 PulseAudio server correctly.

Regards,
	Daniel

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 5.0
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (101, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-1-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_AU.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_AU.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages pulseaudio depends on:
ii  adduser                       3.110      add and remove users and groups
ii  consolekit                    0.2.10-5   framework for defining and trackin
ii  libasound2                    1.0.18-1   shared library for ALSA applicatio
ii  libasyncns0                   0.3-1      Asyncronous name service query lib
ii  libbluetooth2                 3.36-1     Library to use the BlueZ Linux Blu
ii  libc6                         2.7-18     GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libcap1                       1:1.10-14  support for getting/setting POSIX.
ii  libdbus-1-3                   1.2.1-5    simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libflac8                      1.2.1-1.2  Free Lossless Audio Codec - runtim
ii  libgdbm3                      1.8.3-4    GNU dbm database routines (runtime
ii  libltdl3                      1.5.26-4   A system independent dlopen wrappe
ii  libogg0                       1.1.3-4    Ogg Bitstream Library
ii  liboil0.3                     0.3.15-1   Library of Optimized Inner Loops
ii  libpolkit-dbus2               0.9-2      library for accessing PolicyKit vi
ii  libpolkit2                    0.9-2      library for accessing PolicyKit
ii  libpulsecore8                 0.9.13-2   PulseAudio sound server core
ii  libsamplerate0                0.1.4-1    audio rate conversion library
ii  libsndfile1                   1.0.17-4   Library for reading/writing audio 
ii  libspeexdsp1                  1.2~rc1-1  The Speex extended runtime library
ii  libwrap0                      7.6.q-16   Wietse Venema's TCP wrappers libra
ii  lsb-base                      3.2-20     Linux Standard Base 3.2 init scrip

Versions of packages pulseaudio recommends:
ii  gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio      0.9.7-2    GStreamer plugin for PulseAudio
ii  libasound2-plugins            1.0.18-2   ALSA library additional plugins
ii  padevchooser                  0.9.3-2    PulseAudio Device Chooser
ii  paprefs                       0.9.6-2    PulseAudio Preferences
ii  pulseaudio-esound-compat      0.9.13-2   PulseAudio ESD compatibility layer
ii  pulseaudio-module-hal         0.9.13-2   HAL device detection module for Pu
ii  pulseaudio-module-x11         0.9.13-2   X11 module for PulseAudio sound se

Versions of packages pulseaudio suggests:
ii  paman                         0.9.4-1    PulseAudio Manager
ii  pavucontrol                   0.9.7-1    PulseAudio Volume Control
ii  pavumeter                     0.9.3-1    PulseAudio Volume Meter
ii  pulseaudio-utils              0.9.13-2   Command line tools for the PulseAu

-- no debconf information