Bug#521675: Only root can play sound in pulseaudio

[Felipe Sateler]

On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 11:41 AM, Dr. Robin Haunschild <H at unschild.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> on Tue, 08 04 14 15:54:27 Felipe Sateler wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> > $ grep 119 /etc/passwd
>> > speech-dispatcher:x:119:29:Speech Dispatcher,,,:/var/run/speech-
>> > dispatcher:/bin/sh
>> > $ grep 119 /etc/group
>> > pulse-access:x:119:robin
>> >
>> > I'm not aware that I am using speech-dispatcher. Maybe I just uninstall
>> > the package speech-dispatcher and hope the problem will be gone. Or is
>> > speech- dispatcher some system package needed by other applications?
>>
>> This may be the problem. Does /etc/default/speech-dispatcher enable
>> the speech dispatcher? I have RUN=no in that file. Please try
>> disabling the speech dispatcher. Uninstalling might be more difficult
>
> Right, I had RUN=yes, changed it into RUN=no, and restarted the system.
>
> Now the pulseaudio process from speech-dispatcher has not been started. Also,
> I can play sound as expected. I tried a regular mp3 and ogg file as well as
> playing youtube and some local video, works fine. Thanks so much. Please feel
> free to close this bug.
>
> However, I'd like to note that I did not set RUN=yes. Do I have to expect some
> disadvantage setting RUN=no? Is it possible to include in the post-install-
> script of pulseaudio that RUN=no is set in  /etc/default/speech-dispatcher in
> case there is no general disadvantage?

The default is to set RUN=no, both in the version in wheezy and the
version in testing. Possibly speech-dispatcher defaulted to yes on
earlier versions and it didn't migrate.

There is a bug about this in speech-dispatcher which I just noticed
(#625235). I can reproduce the problem in current sid by enabling
speech-dispatcher and rebooting. I would think this is a bug in
pulseaudio, as it should be capable of talking to itself to negotiate
the card.

Strangely enough, if I start another user session I can play sound
with pulseaudio just fine. I need to do some research.

-- 

Saludos,
Felipe Sateler