Bug 229885

Summary:	Phonon stops working in KDE 4.4
Product:	[Frameworks and Libraries] Phonon	Reporter:	T. J. Brumfield <enderandrew>
Component:	general	Assignee:	Matthias Kretz <kretz>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED
Severity:	major	CC:	BrahmaVihara, martin.sandsmark, vkrevs
Priority:	NOR
Version:	4.4.0 (KDE 4.4.2)
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	openSUSE
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:	4.4.3
Sentry Crash Report:

Description T. J. Brumfield 2010-03-07 21:50:04 UTC

Version:            (using KDE 4.4.0)
OS:                Linux
Installed from:    openSUSE RPMs

I've tried on 3 different computers in my house with openSUSE 11.2 and openSUSE 11.3 (Milestone) packages. In each, I have working audio with KDE 4.3. In each, the moment I upgrade to KDE 4.4, Phonon refuses to initialize my on-board sound. I've tried both Xine and Gstreamer back ends. In each instance, I can get audio working from the command line with alsa speaker tests, and Yast speaker tests. But Phonon is not working.

I've tried troubleshooting this for about two weeks, soliciting help in the openSUSE forums, #kde and #opensuse irc channels. No suggestion from anyone could get Phonon working. I've simply had to roll back to KDE 4.3 packages.

For a specific instance here, on this particular laptop, the sound is running on a nVidia Corporation MCP67 High Definition Audio chipset with the snd_hda_intel driver and a 2.6.31 kernel. I did try a 2.6.33 kernel with the openSUSE 11.3 packages.

Comment 1 Martin Sandsmark 2010-03-08 16:47:47 UTC

What version of Phonon are you using? Do you use PulseAudio?

Comment 2 T. J. Brumfield 2010-03-08 16:54:19 UTC

I do not use PulseAudio.

Other users on the openSUSE forums are reporting the same issue with KDE 4.4 packages.

I've tried packages from a number of repositories:

http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/KDE4:/Factory:/Desktop/openSUSE_11.2/
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/KDE4:/UNSTABLE:/Desktop/openSUSE_11.2/

Both have Qt 4.6.2

I've also tried openSUSE 11.3 which also has Qt 4.6.2.

You can test an openSUSE 4.4.1 LiveCD here:

http://home.kde.org/~kdelive/

Comment 3 Myriam Schweingruber 2010-04-05 12:03:09 UTC

Thank you for the feedback. Can somebody confirm this?

Comment 4 Myriam Schweingruber 2010-04-05 23:22:51 UTC

Setting correct version.

Comment 5 Brahma-Vihara 2010-04-09 23:45:43 UTC

(In reply to comment #3)
> Thank you for the feedback. Can somebody confirm this?
Hi,

I'm a newbie when it comes to bug-reporting.

So I'm not sure what you mean by confirmation. But if you're looking for another user with the same problem, then I can confirm that. It started after I upgraded from 4.3 to 4.4. I'm now using:

Opensuse 11.2
KDE 4.4.2 (factory)
Phonon 4.4.0
Xine 1.1.8

I can get sound from Yast speaker test, but not through command line speaker tests (it reports that the device or resource is busy). If I issue the command 'rcalsasound restart' and after having restarted the application (ie kaffeine or Konquerer), I have sound working. But after rebooting the system I have to do it all over again.

Comment 6 Brahma-Vihara 2010-04-10 14:14:25 UTC

(In reply to comment #5)
> (In reply to comment #3)
> > Thank you for the feedback. Can somebody confirm this?

Sound now works on my computer after having added user to 'audio' group. I found the following comment on this thread which might be of interest:
http://forums.opensuse.org/get-help-here/applications/436531-opensuse-11-2-sound-not-works.html

<Quote>:
 Originally Posted by evgeniy_10  
solution is simple: 
 
 add user to "audio" group and re-login && restart services.
 
 Why install scripts don't add user to "audio" group ?
</Quote>

<Quote>
Originally Posted by oldcpu, Global Moderator

evgeniy not every (in fact most) hardware needs the user added to group 'audio'. However alsa is developed in the open Source community, and a small number of developers wrote the code in the driver for their hardware requiring the user be part of group "audio". Unfortunately there was not consistency between the many contributers to the driver.
 
 Hence the problem you encountered.
 
 At least that is my assessment.
</Quote>

Comment 7 Myriam Schweingruber 2010-08-14 12:19:12 UTC

Is this still valid for a more recent KDE version? If possible, please test with KDE 4.5

Comment 8 Myriam Schweingruber 2010-09-29 12:08:33 UTC

Closing for lack of feedback, feel free to reopen if you can still reproduce this with KDE 4.5.1 or later