How to: Fix PulseAudio and primary audio issues with Fedora 10 (F10)

[kovshenin]

try su -c 'vi default.pa'
or perhaps su -c 'yum -y install gedit'

[marko]

Hey thanks for the HOW-TO. Slight problem off the hop. When I enter

su -c 'gedit /etc/pulse/default.pa'

I get:

bash: gedit: command not found

after i put in my password of course.

Then I did a bit of digging around and learned about a command called $EDITOR. So I tried that:

su -c '$editor default.pa'

then put in my password, then got:

bash: default.pa: command not found

Ha! Any suggestions? I'm using fedora 10, xfce version (didn't think desktop version would affect using the terminal... but I guess it does? not sure.)

The gedit problem is because you didn't have gedit (Gnome Editor) installed, you can get the
gedit package and install it

yum install gedit

using the yum package tool or you can use the Add/remove software tool

you don't have to explicitly type "$EDITOR", the editor you're talking about is "vi",
which is an ancient editor that's been around in unix forever (written by Bill Joy)
I think the name came from the word "visual".

anyway, the reason your

su -c '$editor default.pa'

failed is you didn't give the full path, if you just say the name of a file
like default.pa, then it has to be in the local directory, otherwise you have to
give the full path like you did at the top of your post.


su -c 'vi /etc/pulse/default.pa'

but I think you'd like using gedit more

[kovshenin]

By the way, any body dealt with this:
Summary:

SELinux is preventing the npviewer.bin from using potentially mislabeled files
(./.pulse).

Detailed Description:

[SELinux is in permissive mode, the operation would have been denied but was
permitted due to permissive mode.]

SELinux has denied npviewer.bin access to potentially mislabeled file(s)
(./.pulse). This means that SELinux will not allow npviewer.bin to use these
files. It is common for users to edit files in their home directory or tmp
directories and then move (mv) them to system directories. The problem is that
the files end up with the wrong file context which confined applications are not
allowed to access.

Allowing Access:

If you want npviewer.bin to access this files, you need to relabel them using
restorecon -v './.pulse'. You might want to relabel the entire directory using
restorecon -R -v './.pulse'.

Additional Information:

Source Context unconfined_u:unconfined_r:nsplugin_t:s0
Target Context unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0
Target Objects ./.pulse [ dir ]
Source npviewer.bin
Source Path /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/npviewer.bin
Port <Unknown>
Host typhoon
Source RPM Packages nspluginwrapper-1.1.10-1.fc10
Target RPM Packages
Policy RPM selinux-policy-3.5.13-30.fc10
Selinux Enabled True
Policy Type targeted
MLS Enabled True
Enforcing Mode Permissive
Plugin Name home_tmp_bad_labels
Host Name typhoon
Platform Linux typhoon 2.6.27.7-134.fc10.i686 #1 SMP Mon
Dec 1 22:42:50 EST 2008 i686 i686
Alert Count 32
First Seen Sun 14 Dec 2008 05:10:50 PM MSK
Last Seen Mon 15 Dec 2008 08:28:21 AM MSK
Local ID 35263e9a-2f14-461b-aaa0-ef81cc8410d0
Line Numbers

Raw Audit Messages

node=typhoon type=AVC msg=audit(1229318901.437:162): avc: denied { setattr } for pid=30013 comm="npviewer.bin" name=".pulse" dev=dm-0 ino=139370 scontext=unconfined_u:unconfined_r:nsplugin_t:s0 tcontext=unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 tclass=dir

node=typhoon type=SYSCALL msg=audit(1229318901.437:162): arch=40000003 syscall=212 success=yes exit=0 a0=9a81c88 a1=1f4 a2=1f4 a3=fffffffb items=0 ppid=29957 pid=30013 auid=500 uid=500 gid=500 euid=500 suid=500 fsuid=500 egid=500 sgid=500 fsgid=500 tty=(none) ses=3 comm="npviewer.bin" exe="/usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/npviewer.bin" subj=unconfined_u:unconfined_r:nsplugin_t:s0 key=(null)

================================================== ===================

I get it everytime I launch some audio in firefox (flash plugin). And my Skype really sucks on pulseaudio output, and nothing at all on input, no sound.

Thanks,
K.

[hephasteus]

Sorry never did say thank you for the guide. It's worked great though I never really had too much problems with choppyness except from time to time. It's weird having all the control apps for pulse set up and this last update put an applet on my toolbar to control pulse. I had to set it to get it to connect right. I just can't believe how far fedora has come with sound since core 4. Amazing.

[Silpheed2K]

Hey thanks for the HOW-TO. Slight problem off the hop. When I enter

su -c 'gedit /etc/pulse/default.pa'

I get:

bash: gedit: command not found

What you need to do is run a text editor as root and go to the directory /etc/pulse on your hard drive and open the file default.pa
I just simplified it by combining it all into one command instead of just telling people to do all that.

By the way, any body dealt with this:
Summary:

SELinux is preventing the npviewer.bin from using potentially mislabeled files
(./.pulse).

that's more of a SELinux problem than a PulseAudio problem because SELinux wasnt configured correctly by default... there were some RPM updates to try and fix that... but before the update I got rid of the SELinux nagging by running the following command (there was an SELinux RPM update so I dont know if this will mess with that update... as I said I ran these commands before the update was ever released.

$ su -
# rpm -Uvh http://koji.fedoraproject.org/packages/selinux-policy/3.5.13/21.fc10/noarch/selinux-policy-3.5.13-21.fc10.noarch.rpm
# rpm -Uvh http://koji.fedoraproject.org/packages/selinux-policy/3.5.13/21.fc10/noarch/selinux-policy-targeted-3.5.13-21.fc10.noarch.rpm

for those who dont know.. $ means your'e a regular user and # means you're running it as root.

[glennzo]

Hi Silpheed2K. I've followed your how-to steps in hopes of eliminating the crackling I get from my speakers when I watch things like YouTube or Break videos. Seems to have cured my woes. Thanks for taking the time for the write-up.

[kovshenin]

Silpheed2K, thanks. I disabled SELinux, but that was after I updated my system and installed pulse audio, was it too late?

[Silpheed2K]

Silpheed2K, thanks. I disabled SELinux, but that was after I updated my system and installed pulse audio, was it too late?

I dont know the consequences of disabling SELinux but you could've just tried running the commands I gave you and it should have fixed most of the nagging. (however it does still pop up from time to time for me)

[kovshenin]

I dont know the consequences of disabling SELinux but you could've just tried running the commands I gave you and it should have fixed most of the nagging. (however it does still pop up from time to time for me)

I will, thanks

[kovshenin]

Got warnings:

[kovshenin@typhoon ~]$ su -
Password: 
[root@typhoon ~]# rpm -Uvh http://koji.fedoraproject.org/packages/selinux-policy/3.5.13/21.fc10/noarch/selinux-policy-3.5.13-21.fc10.noarch.rpm
Retrieving http://koji.fedoraproject.org/packages/selinux-policy/3.5.13/21.fc10/noarch/selinux-policy-3.5.13-21.fc10.noarch.rpm
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
	package selinux-policy-3.5.13-30.fc10.noarch (which is newer than selinux-policy-3.5.13-21.fc10.noarch) is already installed
[root@typhoon ~]# rpm -Uvh http://koji.fedoraproject.org/packages/selinux-policy/3.5.13/21.fc10/noarch/selinux-policy-targeted-3.5.13-21.fc10.noarch.rpm
Retrieving http://koji.fedoraproject.org/packages/selinux-policy/3.5.13/21.fc10/noarch/selinux-policy-targeted-3.5.13-21.fc10.noarch.rpm
error: Failed dependencies:
	selinux-policy = 3.5.13-21.fc10 is needed by selinux-policy-targeted-3.5.13-21.fc10.noarch
[root@typhoon ~]#

Any ideas?

Thanks,
K.

[Silpheed2K]

No ideas, I ran the commands without getting any warnings.

[kovshenin]

Silpheed2K, thanks.
Anyways, it probably WAS a SELinux issue after all. You see, when I disabled SELinux (leaving the checkbox "remap on restart" checked) I did not reboot. A few hours ago I did though, and the problem seems to have disappeared, SELinux stopped yelling whenever I launch any audio in firefox via flash and youtube and stuff. I will check Skype later today and let you know if you're interested.

Anyways, I still can't audio record through pulse (applications - sound & video - sound recorder). It doesn't show me the level of my mic (although pulse capture levels does!) and hangs up whenever I press the stop button after recording. I can try and get some error messages if they will help, but you probably have the picture. (Cheese Webcam boot acts the same when I try to record video, as if it's recording audio aswell).

Regards,
K.

[xroox]

Sweet, ok I'm going to try and install gedit... hadn't thought of that. And for Mark0... thanks for the hints. I had navigated right to the folder the file was in so I didn't write out the full path! I thought that would work... hm? I don't know.

Alright trying it with gedit....

[xroox]

Alright got that done... was able to successfully enter all the commands/make edits to file, but still no sound.

Pulseaudio Applet shows in the volume meter and volume control that there is sound (can see it changing... and at a good level too) but nothing out of speakers.

Any thoughts! Thanks!

EDIT: there is SOME sound! Very faint. I can hear it with headphones but it's at about 1% of what it should be... barely audible.

[Silpheed2K]

try turning the PCM channel in your volume control up.