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

[Silpheed2K]

Well it's time for my contribution to this community with the new release of Fedora 10.. lots of people are having issues with the audio.

So lets start:

The quick and easy tutorial
... well... at least it worked for me...
(how easy may vary depending on user experience)

open a terminal and run the following command

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

and replace the line:

load-module module-hal-detect

with:

load-module module-hal-detect tsched=0

(of course save your changes and then move on to the next step)


Next run the following command:

su -c 'yum install pavucontrol pavumeter paman padevchooser paprefs alsa-plugins-pulseaudio gstreamer-plugins-pulse pulseaudio pulseaudio-core-libs pulseaudio-esound-compat pulseaudio-libs pulseaudio-libs-glib2 pulseaudio-libs-zeroconf pulseaudio-module-gconf pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-module-zeroconf pulseaudio-utils xine-lib-pulseaudio xmms-pulse'

DO NOT RUN THE FOLLOWING COMMAND AS ROOT
next, Run this command

pulseaudio -k

and you're done... test out the audio and see how it works.

edit:
Also forgot to mention, be sure to have your audio settings under System > Preferences > Hardware > Sound
for "Sound Playback" (not sound capture) set to PulseAudio Sound Server.







Side Note:
If you're experiencing random lock ups and you're not doing anything sound related.. multiple things can cause your desktop to freeze up.. such as stressing your network or having your firewall configured improperly, so it may not be pulseaudio at all.
edit 2:
Important Update:
Some users have been complaining about a glitch in the software that dumps a message into their log files and causes random lock-ups.
If you experience random lock-ups or a message being dumped into certain log files, remove the tsched=0 term to enable timer-based scheduling, which makes the audio less CPU intensive;
the line should look like this afterwards:

load-module module-hal-detect

However you may experience pop and stuttering audio glitches if you remove it. If in some rare case you do, put it back.
In other words, it's safe to remove tsched=0; everything else in the tutorial stays.
run the command

$ pulseaudio -k

after you get done editing the file (/etc/pulse/default.pa) then test the audio. (to edit just run the first command of the tutorial)

[PatMcLJr]

Hey Slipheed2K
That seemed to cure the poping I was getting in dosbox!
Thanks!
Pat Jr.

[scottro]

I'll add a link to the 5 common problems as it's worked for at least one person.

[kovshenin]

Listen, this may sound stupid, but is this the case of audio multiple streaming? If I got my skype running and launch lastfm I get a Pulse audio error, and firefox won't give me sound unless skype and lastfm are closed.

Sorry. Thanks.
K.

[Silpheed2K]

Originally Posted by kovshenin

Listen, this may sound stupid, but is this the case of audio multiple streaming? If I got my skype running and launch lastfm I get a Pulse audio error, and firefox won't give me sound unless skype and lastfm are closed.

Sorry. Thanks.
K.

It isnt one specific case, as the title suggests it addresses mostly all of the audio issues, so follow the tutorial and you should be fine. (should fix your problem)

[kovshenin]

Originally Posted by Silpheed2K

It isnt one specific case, as the title suggests it addresses mostly all of the audio issues, so follow the tutorial and you should be fine. (should fix your problem)

Yes, that seems to have solved the problem. Thank you very much!

[ogetbilo]

Excellent work!

Is this "pulseaudio -k" command permanent?

[Silpheed2K]

Originally Posted by ogetbilo

Excellent work!

Is this "pulseaudio -k" command permanent?

you only need to use that command once... "pulseaudio -k" kills the current pulseaudio daemon and restarts it.

[agerardi]

Thank you. Pulseaudio now working great in Gnome Fedora 10.

[NoEffex]

Sweet, works great now in all the various sounds apps.

[bcearl]

This solution did not work for me...

I have an Audigy 2 ZS sound card like many others and it "just worked" in past releases of Fedora. I've tried everything suggested in the thread below and the only option that works is to install fc9 pulseaudio packages.

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=203708

Unfortunately, using the fc9 packages breaks stuff like the GNOME sounds, etc.

I've found that the only thing affected by fc10 pulseaudio is video playback (i.e. your weekly tv show download). Music is hardly affected (small pops once in a while), and stuff like GNOME sounds and flash sounds are fine.

Adding the tsched=0 option made my audio problems worse (GNOME would freeze when I'd try to watch a tv show). It's too bad because this option should theoretically make pulseaudio operate as it does in Fedora 9 (which worked).

Has anyone out there verified this solution works for an Audigy 2 ZS?

I'm thinking it might take until Fedora 11 before this is all straightened out... but I'm hoping not! Thanks!

[pigbellamy]

Excellent! I can now watch flash videos (like the ones on YouTube) without the sound skipping horrendously Kudos to you, sir

[actaea]

When I typed in "pulseaudio -k", the computer responded


I: caps.c: Limited capabilities successfully to CAP_SYS_NICE.
I: caps.c: Dropping root privileges.
I: caps.c: Limited capabilities successfully to CAP_SYS_NICE.
N: main.c: Called SUID root and real-time/high-priority scheduling was requested in the configuration. However, we lack the necessary privileges:
N: main.c: We are not in group 'pulse-rt' and PolicyKit refuse to grant us privileges. Dropping SUID again.
N: main.c: For enabling real-time scheduling please acquire the appropriate PolicyKit privileges, or become a member of 'pulse-rt', or increase the RLIMIT_NICE/RLIMIT_RTPRIO resource limits for this user.
W: main.c: High-priority scheduling enabled in configuration but not allowed bypolicy.

I presume this makes no difference. Or are there some steps I should take, like adding myself to the group pulse-rt?

[Silpheed2K]

You're fine and you dont need to do anything else.

[xroox]

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.)