gnome-volume-control panel won't run

Don-B · #1 6th July 2010, 03:36 AM

I have a new installation of Fedora-12. Actually it's Mythdora-12, which is based on Fedora-12. The sound seems to work, but I can't access the sound setting panel. I select System > Preferences > Sound and I get a message box with "Waiting for sound system to respond", but it never goes any further.

This has been discussed here several times, usually with Ubuntu, but those solutions haven't worked for my system. I tried deleting the .pulse folder, but that didn't help. It looks like pulse audio is required for my installation, so I'm hesitant to un-install it. Any suggestions on what to look for?

---------- Post added at 10:36 PM CDT ---------- Previous post was at 10:31 PM CDT ----------

A little more information; if I run it from a command prompt, as a user (not root), I get these error messages:

[mythtv@nick ~]$ /usr/bin/gnome-volume-control

** (gnome-volume-control:29898): WARNING **: Connection failed, reconnecting...

** (gnome-volume-control:29898): WARNING **: Connection failed, reconnecting...

** (gnome-volume-control:29898): WARNING **: Connection failed, reconnecting...

** (gnome-volume-control:29898): WARNING **: Connection failed, reconnecting...
[mythtv@nick ~]$

ozjd · #2 6th July 2010, 04:56 AM

If you don't have it install the pulseaudio volume control and use it.
yum install pavucontrol

Don-B · #3 7th July 2010, 12:44 AM

I tried pavucontrol, but it doesn't start either. I get an error message that says "Connection failed: Connection refused". I suspect my distro doesn't have some component that it needs.

By the way, is pavucontrol supposed to replace the gnome-volume-control panel, or just a different way to access the setup? Any suggestions on what to try next?

ozjd · #4 7th July 2010, 02:36 AM

Have a look at the PulseAudio Manager (paman if you don't have it). If the sound server isn't running, which may be why you are getting those errors, it will let you restart it. It also allows selection of other options.

Don-B · #5 7th July 2010, 03:06 AM

I installed paman and tried it; had a similar result with a "Connection Refused" message. Here's a screen capture of the message:

http://users.zoominternet.net/~dlbre...apture_116.jpg

I don't know if pulse audio is running...should it be? I started with an error on gnome-volume-control. Apparently the applet is running:

[root@nick ~]# ps waux | grep gnome-vol
mythtv 3071 0.0 0.2 111720 5660 ? S Jul05 1:09 gnome-volume-control-applet
root 11182 0.0 0.0 4220 712 pts/1 S+ 22:01 0:00 grep gnome-vol

ozjd · #6 7th July 2010, 03:35 AM

There is an option on that screen to connect to the server, try that.

Don-B · #7 7th July 2010, 04:16 AM

I clicked the "Connect" button and it looked like it didn't do anything, but I think it refreshed the display. What's it supposed to connect to? I'll look for that to see if it's loaded.

ozjd · #8 7th July 2010, 05:27 AM

It connects to the Pulseaudio sound server.

Don-B · #9 8th July 2010, 02:25 AM

I don't think that server is running:

[root@nick var]# ps waux | grep pulse
root 24365 0.0 0.0 4220 720 pts/0 S+ 21:21 0:00 grep pulse
[root@nick var]#

What else should I look for?

ozjd · #10 8th July 2010, 03:21 AM

There is another PA app that might be useful, padevchooser. As the name suggests it is for configuring the device Pulseaudio is trying to control. Even when you only have one device it shows other options. Other than that I'm not sure what to try.

One way to disable Pulseaudio is to remove alsa-plugins-pulseaudio, if you prefer that.

Cyberhawk · #11 19th August 2010, 11:13 AM

I too have a problem with pulseaudio, on fedora 13 to be exact. Installed it couple of days
ago, everything worked fine. Started to install some apps that I needed, enabled the free
part of rpm fusion, etc. At some point my pulseaudio server seems to have crashed - none
of the programs mentioned here can ever connect to it, the volue-control panel won't run
either.

Is it possible that reinstalling pulseaudio will resolve the issue? How should I do that,
pulseaudio isn't just one single package, is it?

Don-B · #12 20th August 2010, 02:53 AM

Mine's not running the pulse audio server at all, and it's not supposed to be. Everything works, audio-wise, except the control panel. I can run the alsamixer, aplay, alsactl, load drivers, mythtv works fine....everything works except the control panel.

Cyberhawk · #13 20th August 2010, 08:46 AM

sorry, I'll go search an answer somewhere else then.

Don-B · #14 21st August 2010, 02:45 AM

Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to come across abrasively, I just don't use pulse audio. We suspected it might be the cause of my control panel problem, but it's not even running. Actually, it's not configured to run, and I'm not really sure what it does or why I might need it. My system audio seems to work just fine (except for this one little problem), but the crazy control panel doesn't work. Go figure.

Cyberhawk · #15 21st August 2010, 10:29 AM

no offense taken. Hijacking threads with different unrelated stuff just isn't what I wanted to do :P

Anyway I think I resolved my issue. Pulseaudio starts flipping out when I install any of the
two equalizer packages out the repos. Removing them alone doesn't help, but removing
them and reinstalling pulseaudio as a whole does. Have to find out what package it exactly
is, that only needs the reinstalling and then I'll report it as a bug.