Version: unspecified (using KDE 4.7.2) OS: Linux (I originally reported this on Ubuntu's Launchpad as: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kde-runtime/+bug/875660) I'm running Kubuntu with pulseaudio. I have on my motherboard intel hda analog audio and my graphics card (an ATI) had an HDMI out; by default I like the audio to come out of the analog output that is the only one connected. Sometimes logging into KDE I find that it's decided to switch to the HDMI as the default; today I caught it and did an lsof /dev/snd/* and found: knotify4 2276 dg mem CHR 116,3 6691 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p knotify4 2276 dg 20r CHR 116,33 0t0 9995 /dev/snd/timer knotify4 2276 dg 21u CHR 116,3 0t0 6691 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p pulseaudi 2893 dg 24u CHR 116,9 0t0 6698 /dev/snd/controlC1 pulseaudi 2893 dg 31u CHR 116,6 0t0 6694 /dev/snd/controlC0 pulseaudi 2893 dg 38u CHR 116,6 0t0 6694 /dev/snd/controlC0 So knotify4 has hogged the analog output, and hence pa can't get in. So I kill knotify4, and do a pactl exit to restart pa - but pa then still lists the HDMI as the default output in paman. (I've now found I can switch it back with pacmd set-default-sink) Dave Reproducible: Sometimes Steps to Reproduce: It's a race, so only happens sometimes. 1) Login 2) Try to play some music 3) Find it doesn't play 4) lsof /dev/snd/* to see who has what devices Actual Results: No music coming out of my analog output. lsof shows knotify4 hogging the analog device Expected Results: Sweet music on my analog output, pa has opened all the devices.
It's not exactly a good solution, but I've been patching knotify for a while now to use libcanberra instead. It's been working pretty well for me! See the canberra branch here: http://colin.guthr.ie/git/kdebase-runtime/ It's pretty old now but should apply cleanly still if you want to try it out. The whole default device thing shouldn't really matter under KDE (provided you run start-pulseaudio-kde after restarting PA to reload the module-device-manager module) this is run automatically at startup and in future releases will be baked into PA itself so will be deprecated.... that's a good few months away tho'.
This happens for me now almost every day. I am using 4.7.4 - is this fixed in newer versions?
Not that I know of. Have you tried the canberra patches I posted earlier? Does that avoid the problem for you?
(In reply to comment #3) > Not that I know of. > > Have you tried the canberra patches I posted earlier? Does that avoid the > problem for you? I only get "No repositories found" at the site. If the patch should work, maybe I can make a patched ebuild (using Gentoo).
Oh sorry, I guess the link is out of date: http://colin.guthr.ie/git/kde-runtime/ I did a rebase not long ago, so the patches should all still apply (quite simple patches anyway)
I suspect this bug is the same, or related to, a problem that happened with my install of Kubuntu 12.04 beta2: After Kubuntu was freshly installed, my keyboard volume control keys would not work, even though sound would play and when the keys were pressed the pop-up notification and the panel widget would display the change. After wasting time reading about how to find various types of audio bugs, and then relearning that HDMI is for output (I've never used it), I finally realized that the problem was simply that KMix had chosen my HDMI as the "master channel" and I needed to change it to my built-in audio. If this bug is related to my problem, it will be great if it will be fixed soon, because I can imagine unsavvy users giving up on KDE when they can't discover how to fix the problem before their patience expires.
@Derick: This is a different problem.
I should say this hasn't happened to me for a while (tempting fate!) - I'm on 4.8.2 now.
This happened for me again when I upgraded from 4.7.4 to 4.8.1 ...it seems it happens when the system is loaded while starting KDE.
It still happens on 4.10.1. This is Gentoo. Two identical systems, on one PA wins and all is peachy. On the other however knotify4 wins and PA misses the default audio device. All you can do at that moment is: * kill knotify4 * kill PA * kill knotify4 AGAIN * start PA * restart kmix
I found what the difference was on the two machines what SHOULD help a lot! If I set phonon-gstreamer to higher priority, this problem happens, if I use phonon-vlc, then it doesn't. Don't know what to blame, but at least I have a working system again by prioritizing phonon-vlc.
Setting status correctly, might actually be backend related, see comment #11
Don't use GStreamer :) :D
Thank you for the bug report. As this report hasn't seen any changes in 5 years or more, we ask if you can please confirm that the issue still persists. If this bug is no longer persisting or relevant please change the status to resolved.
I haven't seen it for ages, using phonon-vlc (which is the default I guess?)