[adam81]

Hi,
I was running Eden 11.0 successfully on Ubuntu 12.04. I just updated to Gotham 13.2.

I went through issues before trying to get HDMI audio with eden and looks like I have problems again.

At the moment I've gone to the audio output page, and changed settings to expert, but I don't get the enable passthrough radio button at all.

I can set numbers of speakers to what ever I want, and have the downmix buttons but no radio.
\
The amp was on, and I reset my PC so would have thought that would have got around any handshake issue.

Any ideas?

[wsnipex]

Debug Log

[oldtvwatcher]

Hi,
I was running Eden 11.0 successfully on Ubuntu 12.04. I just updated to Gotham 13.2.

I went through issues before trying to get HDMI audio with eden and looks like I have problems again.

At the moment I've gone to the audio output page, and changed settings to expert, but I don't get the enable passthrough radio button at all.

I can set numbers of speakers to what ever I want, and have the downmix buttons but no radio.
\
The amp was on, and I reset my PC so would have thought that would have got around any handshake issue.

Any ideas?

The problem is they changed to using PulseAudio in Gotham. So you have to set up PulseAudio correctly, and there is a wiki page that explains how to do that.

Or, you can start XBMC from a terminal window using this:

AE_SINK=ALSA xbmc

That forces it to use ALSA, same as it did pre-Gotham. I always use this because it fixes some issues with multichannel sound for me. I wish they would give you the option to use ALSA in the XBMC expert configuration but they don't, but at least they do give you this way to revert to the old behavior. Note that the first post in this thread states:

PulseAudio does not support DTS-HD, TrueHD. If you need those codecs, stop pulseaudio prior to starting xbmc. Every other combination that might have worked for your _before_ was pure luck.

I've heard that some people have resorted to removing PulseAudio from their systems entirely; I guess if it isn't there then XBMC will fall back to using ALSA, but I have not done that personally so can't say for sure.

[fritsch]

I've heard that some people have resorted to removing PulseAudio from their systems entirely; I guess if it isn't there then XBMC will fall back to using ALSA, but I have not done that personally so can't say for sure.

Xbmc only uses what user has installed and running ... so sorry for using your pulseaudio server, that hoggs your alsa devices in order to save your ass from sound defects ...

[oldtvwatcher]

I've heard that some people have resorted to removing PulseAudio from their systems entirely; I guess if it isn't there then XBMC will fall back to using ALSA, but I have not done that personally so can't say for sure.

Xbmc only uses what user has installed and running ... so sorry for using your pulseaudio server, that hoggs your alsa devices in order to save your ass from sound defects ...

fritsch, I was just trying to help someone out that might be having problems similar to what I was having. I have already figured out that either you simply aren't aware of how incredibly frustrating it was to have sound work perfectly in Frodo and then start giving us problems in Gotham, or you do know but for some reason I can't fathom, you don't care about the end user experience (I can't fathom it because I can't figure out why anyone would want to create a program such as XBMC that is obviously intended for use by the general public, including non-techie types, and then deliberately make design choices that frustrate the end users such as myself, and perhaps the OP in this thread). Maybe doing things the "correct" way is more important to you than giving us a program that works for the widest number of users, or maybe there aren't that many users having this issue with the sound and I really am only part of an annoying vocal minority as you obviously seem to think (by looking at your signature). I don't know because I have never conducted a survey to see how many Linux users have had problems with sound since Gotham was released, but then again I don't suppose you have either. I only know I have seen several threads and posts related to sound issues.

Anyway, I have long since given up on trying to convince you that maybe you should consider that this really is a problem for Linux users, because that only seems to make you defensive. I would just point our again that most Linux users DO NOT make any sort of decision about what sound systems are installed in their distributions. I have never seen a version of any Linux distribution that asks, at the time of installation, whether you want to install PulseAudio, ALSA, or whatever else may be out there. The vast majority of Linux users (excepting those that build their own Linux systems from scratch, which is a very small minority) just take what they get and for the most part have NO IDEA what is being used on their systems until something like this comes up. Yet in your posts, you act like somehow it was a conscious choice by the user to install PulseAudio, and that because they did that it's their own fault they are having issues. Only in the Linux world would anyone think that even a small percentage of users have a clue as to the internals of the sound system, yet somehow you talk as if all Linux users made this choice deliberately.

I just don't understand this and to me it all translates to, "I just don't want to deal with this anymore." So if that's the way you really feel, that's entirely your decision as a developer, and I realize that there is about 0% possibility that anyone will convince you otherwise. But, it would be nice if you'd at least point users having problems to that PulseAudio wiki page instead of initially responding with "Debug log", because most people have about as much desire to send a debug log as you apparently have to give us a choice in the XBMC advanced settings about which to sound system to use. To a user like me, posting "Debug log" is like saying, "GO AWAY", in part because I have no idea whether that log contains sensitive information that I may not wish to send to anyone else. Anyway, I was just attempting to help someone without putting them through that hassle.

[fritsch]

Yeah, you exactly name the reasons why I implemented pulseaudio sink for xbmc in the first two paragraphs. Most users don't know what they are running, they don't care, they click xbmc from their desktop and get audio through their default pulseaudio sound device.

Advanced Users can easily switch to ALSA as I have documented in the wiki. Why ALSA sink and PA sink cannot coexist I have also documented in the wiki. I even implemented the AE_SINK=ALSA workaround. I have not a single idea of what you want from me.

[adam81]

Thanks xbmclinuxuser.

When I saw you mentioned pulse audio I simply removed that from my system, and it works now. I'd only installed it previously to try and get sound on the ubuntu desktop, but that never worked anyway either.

The passthrough option came up, and I could select the device I wanted to use. Onkyo 607. Tested DTS and DD 5:1 and all working. My PC's not capable of outputting HD sound so it's as good as it needs to be now and back to as it was.

I'm certainly one of users who doesn't have a clue and wouldn't know what a debug log is.

Cheers

[oldtvwatcher]

Yeah, you exactly name the reasons why I implemented pulseaudio sink for xbmc in the first two paragraphs. Most users don't know what they are running, they don't care, they click xbmc from their desktop and get audio through their default pulseaudio sound device.

Advanced Users can easily switch to ALSA as I have documented in the wiki. Why ALSA sink and PA sink cannot coexist I have also documented in the wiki. I even implemented the AE_SINK=ALSA workaround. I have not a single idea of what you want from me.

Not that I think you would ever actually care what I want, but this is not for me, it is for all Linux users that have been having audio issues since Gotham was released and that don't yet know about the AE_SINK=ALSA workaround:

IF IT IS POSSIBLE, please give us a way to select between PulseAudio or ALSA in the advanced audio settings. If it is simply not possible, please consider adding a mention of the AE_SINK=ALSA workaround in the help text at the bottom of the screen for one of the relevant audio settings that would appear when Kodi/XBMC is using PulseAudio, so that users don't have to stumble across a wiki page to find this important information.

And, when someone posts saying they are having problems getting their audio to work in Linux, post a link to that wiki page first - don't just automatically post "Debug log", which is a rather rude response given that most users don't know the first thing about a debug log and in any case may not want to potentially send unknown information about their system off to who knows where, especially when doing that will not resolve the issue (I do realize that you were not the one who posted that in this thread, so just saying).

[wsnipex]

please stop trolling. Audio just works if you have pulseaudio installed and configured properly.
And fritsch told you that it is simply not possible to allow selecting pulse or alsa at runtime.

[fritsch]

I wrote another sentence into the wiki: http://kodi.wiki/view/PulseAudio#Why_can...ve_both.3F Nothing new, but summarized.

[oldtvwatcher]

please stop trolling. Audio just works if you have pulseaudio installed and configured properly.

fritsch asked a question, and I answered it - how is that "trolling"? And the problem is that for a number of Linux users, audio does not "just work" anymore. If it did there would not be posts from people who had no problem with it in Frodo, but either can't get it to work in Gotham or find that they are getting 2-channel sound in situations where they formerly had multichannel sound Even your wiki page notes that " PulseAudio does not currently allow TrueHD or DTS-MA passthrough, this is a PulseAudio limitation and not a limitation of the XBMC implementation."

And fritsch told you that it is simply not possible to allow selecting pulse or alsa at runtime.

Well at the risk of you accusing me of trolling again, when I read what it actually says on that wiki page (even after fritsch's most recent edit), the impression i am left with is not that it is impossible to implement a way for the user to select one or the other, but that it is more a matter of convenience for the developers. The way I read that text, it is that because desktop sounds or audio from other devices might cease to function while XBMC is using ALSA, OR because PulseAudio might try to "hog" the audio device, you don't want to deal with complaints from other Linux users (the ones happy if they can get 2-channel sound) when that happens. Or something like that - I honestly don't understand the reluctance to give users a choice, unless doing so truly is impossible, and only the developers know that. And if your reaction is to say that I've already been told it's impossible, all I'm saying is that's not the impression the text on the wiki page leaves one with.

I will simply report that in all the times I have started XBMC using the AE_SINK=ALSA workaround, I have never had any problems with PulseAudio trying to hog my audio, or anything like that. I never had any problems like that under Frodo either, when it was using ALSA by default. At least for me, my preference would be for XBMC to use whatever works on a particular user's system (and delivers multichannel audio when available) because when XBMC is running, I don't care about anything else that may try to produce sound. But then again, I don't ever start XBMC while something else is running that is producing sound.

The main thing I have been trying to get across is that very few Linux/XBMC users even know that there may be multiple sound systems in their Linux distribution, and hardly any of them made a conscious choice to install PulseAudio. Therefore if you simply cannot bring yourself to give users a choice in the advanced settings, or if it truly is impossible, then all I am pleading with you is to at least make the AE_SINK=ALSA workaround better known, particular when a Linux user posts that they are having issues with sound. The wiki page does a pretty good job of explaining it but when a Linux user says they are having audio issues and they are not referred to that page immediately, or told about the AE_SINK=ALSA workaround, then they may jump through unnecessary hoops and become more frustrated with XBMC/Kodi. And I can't understand why that would be desirable for anyone.

Since what I have said on this subject obviously irritates you, that is all I will say about it; I will not post again in this thread. I don't think there is anything I could possibly say that would change your mind in any case, if what I have said already hasn't budged you, so I give up.

[fritsch]

Implementing it so that user can select is a one liner(!) it's a removal of exactly one line in code: https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/blob/master...y.cpp#L263
Remove the return ...

But as you seem to not read at all and I really don't want to repeat it again, but doing it for you, just for you: Opening an exclusive ALSA devices while pulseaudio server is running is a ticking time bomb. Whenever xbmc pauses a movie or stops a movie or switch from menu to movie that device might not open anymore, because Pulseaudio will hogg it and open it to prepare it for desktop audio.
Same when starting xbmc. Xbmc will enumerate, but when testing the device PA could already have it and we wil plain segfault.


So, what now?

I decided: Give Users with PA Server the pulseaudio sink, cause of the reasons named above. Let those that don't want to understand the chance to use ALSA never the less. Btw. the user in the OP only wants to use AC3 and DTS (Edit: which works perfectly fine with pulseaudio). You now removed his complete sound server and the next time he wants to have chrome audio or using anything else, he won't have audio at all. Nicely done!

[oldtvwatcher]

Btw. the user in the OP only wants to use AC3 and DTS (Edit: which works perfectly fine with pulseaudio). You now removed his complete sound server and the next time he wants to have chrome audio or using anything else, he won't have audio at all. Nicely done!

I said I would not reply again in this thread but I can't let this pass. NOWHERE did I suggest that the OP remove PulseAudio from his system, in fact I would not have known how to do that (and from his original post, I would have deduced that it was NOT working fine with PulseAudio, but I'll let him debate that with you if he so chooses). I did mention that some people have resorted to that but I was certainly not advocating it, I was just pointing out the extreme measures some people have taken to resolve the audio issues. Removing PulseAudio was entirely his choice, and I assume he knows what he's doing on his system. I have ONLY ever suggested using the AE_SINK=ALSA workaround when launching XBMC, which I assume would not interfere with the playing of audio from anything else once XBMC is closed. And personally, I certainly don't want anything else making noise while XBMC is playing!

For the record, I do NOT suggest that anyone remove PulseAudio from their system unless THEY know what they are doing, and the tradeoffs involved.

NOW I'm finished, unless you are going to accuse me of something else I did not say or do.

[fritsch]

NOW I'm finished, unless you are going to accuse me of something else I did not say or do.