[glubbish]

Running 17.6 on ubuntu 16.04

Recently had problems with pulseaudio and sound.
Seems likely an ubuntu problem as kodi has not changed.

The issue is that sometimes when playing a file (can be movie or recorded tv show or pretty much anything) I get no sound.
Running pavucontrol, I see it has defaulted to analog (I am using hdmi to my avr). I can change it back, but its a bit annoying to keep doing this.

I tried putting: "set-card-profile 0 output:hdmi-surround" at the end of /etc/pulse/default.pa but it did not stop it happening.

derek@kodi:~$ log | grep -i pulse
08:36:20.147 T:139960473086336  NOTICE: Enumerated PULSE devices:
08:36:20.147 T:139960473086336  NOTICE:         m_displayNameExtra: Default Output Device (PULSEAUDIO)
08:36:20.147 T:139960473086336  NOTICE:         m_displayNameExtra: HDMI / DisplayPort (PULSEAUDIO)
08:36:20.181 T:139959889553152   ERROR: PulseAudio: Sink alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.hdmi-stereo not found
08:36:20.184 T:139959889553152  NOTICE: PulseAudio: Opened device Default in pcm mode with Buffersize 150 ms
08:36:43.040 T:139959889553152   ERROR: PulseAudio: Sink alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.hdmi-stereo not found
08:36:43.043 T:139959889553152  NOTICE: PulseAudio: Opened device Default in pcm mode with Buffersize 150 ms
08:36:48.826 T:139959889553152   ERROR: PulseAudio: Sink alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.hdmi-stereo not found
08:36:48.828 T:139959889553152  NOTICE: PulseAudio: Opened device Default in pcm mode with Buffersize 150 ms
08:37:10.741 T:139959889553152  NOTICE: PulseAudio: Opened device Default in pcm mode with Buffersize 150 ms
08:37:53.717 T:139959889553152  NOTICE: PulseAudio: Opened device Default in pcm mode with Buffersize 150 ms
08:38:22.834 T:139959889553152  NOTICE: PulseAudio: Opened device Default in pcm mode with Buffersize 150 ms
09:02:48.285 T:139959889553152  NOTICE: PulseAudio: Opened device Default in pcm mode with Buffersize 150 ms
09:02:55.041 T:139959889553152  NOTICE: PulseAudio: Opened device Default in pcm mode with Buffersize 150 ms
09:12:02.202 T:139959889553152  NOTICE: PulseAudio: Opened device Default in pcm mode with Buffersize 150 ms
09:26:33.170 T:139959889553152  NOTICE: PulseAudio: Opened device Default in pcm mode with Buffersize 150 ms

Also, when I play music via the avr (bluetooth), it comes out all 5.1 speakers, but when playing a 5.1 movie, the rear speakers do not work
mediainfo for the movie I am testing with shows:
Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : AAC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile                           : LC
Codec ID                                 : A_AAC
Duration                                 : 2 h 6 min
Bit rate                                 : 756 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 46.875 FPS (1024 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Delay relative to video                  : 9 ms
Stream size                              : 682 MiB (18%)
Title                                    : AAC 5.1
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No

Sorry for the length here, but I also cannot set up passthrough (thought this may work), the header shows, but nothing to modify.
Tried setting to 2.0 but did not help, confirmed that sync playback to display was off.

derek@kodi:~$ pacmd list-cards
1 card(s) available.
    index: 0
        name: <alsa_card.pci-0000_00_1b.0>
        driver: <module-alsa-card.c>
        owner module: 6
        properties:
                alsa.card = "0"
                alsa.card_name = "HDA Intel PCH"
                alsa.long_card_name = "HDA Intel PCH at 0xf7c10000 irq 29"
                alsa.driver_name = "snd_hda_intel"
                device.bus_path = "pci-0000:00:1b.0"
                sysfs.path = "/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0"
                device.bus = "pci"
                device.vendor.id = "8086"
                device.vendor.name = "Intel Corporation"
                device.product.id = "1e20"
                device.product.name = "7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller"
                device.form_factor = "internal"
                device.string = "0"
                device.description = "Built-in Audio"
                module-udev-detect.discovered = "1"
                device.icon_name = "audio-card-pci"
        profiles:
                input:analog-stereo: Analog Stereo Input (priority 60, available: unknown)
                output:analog-stereo: Analog Stereo Output (priority 6000, available: unknown)
                output:analog-stereo+input:analog-stereo: Analog Stereo Duplex (priority 6060, available: unknown)
                output:iec958-stereo: Digital Stereo (IEC958) Output (priority 5500, available: unknown)
                output:iec958-stereo+input:analog-stereo: Digital Stereo (IEC958) Output + Analog Stereo Input (priority 5560, available: unknown)
                output:hdmi-stereo: Digital Stereo (HDMI) Output (priority 5400, available: unknown)
                output:hdmi-stereo+input:analog-stereo: Digital Stereo (HDMI) Output + Analog Stereo Input (priority 5460, available: unknown)
                output:hdmi-surround: Digital Surround 5.1 (HDMI) Output (priority 300, available: unknown)
                output:hdmi-surround+input:analog-stereo: Digital Surround 5.1 (HDMI) Output + Analog Stereo Input (priority 360, available: unknown)
                output:hdmi-surround71: Digital Surround 7.1 (HDMI) Output (priority 300, available: unknown)
                output:hdmi-surround71+input:analog-stereo: Digital Surround 7.1 (HDMI) Output + Analog Stereo Input (priority 360, available: unknown)
                off: Off (priority 0, available: unknown)
        active profile: <output:hdmi-surround>
        sinks:
                alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.hdmi-surround/#22: Built-in Audio Digital Surround 5.1 (HDMI)
        sources:
                alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.hdmi-surround.monitor/#22: Monitor of Built-in Audio Digital Surround 5.1 (HDMI)
        ports:
                analog-input-front-mic: Front Microphone (priority 8500, latency offset 0 usec, available: no)
                        properties:
                                device.icon_name = "audio-input-microphone"
                analog-input-rear-mic: Rear Microphone (priority 8200, latency offset 0 usec, available: no)
                        properties:
                                device.icon_name = "audio-input-microphone"
                analog-input-linein: Line In (priority 8100, latency offset 0 usec, available: no)
                        properties:

                analog-output-lineout: Line Out (priority 9900, latency offset 0 usec, available: no)
                        properties:

                analog-output-headphones: Headphones (priority 9000, latency offset 0 usec, available: unknown)
                        properties:
                                device.icon_name = "audio-headphones"
                iec958-stereo-output: Digital Output (S/PDIF) (priority 0, latency offset 0 usec, available: unknown)
                        properties:

                hdmi-output-0: HDMI / DisplayPort (priority 5900, latency offset 0 usec, available: yes)
                        properties:
                                device.icon_name = "video-display"
                                device.product.name = "SAMSUNG"

[fritsch]

Please carefully read the pulseaudio kodi wiki, everything is answered there: http://kodi.wiki/view/PulseAudio

In short, for what you want Pulseaudio is the wrong soundserver.

[glubbish]

Hi Fritsch,

I have read this as carefully as I can.
I was able to get passthrough working but it did not help.
I also tried disabling pulseaudio. This gave 5 options in system settings, only one provided any sound, but rear speakers still did not work.

I was at a friends house the last few days who has a similar setup (using Digital Surround 5.1 (HDMI) Output in pulseaudio). He had the back speakers working

The wiki did not seem to mention the sound stopping with the default setting changing in pulse.
In my last test with Digital Surround 5.1 (HDMI) Output the sound stopped so I exited and went to pavucontrol, it showed Digital Surround 5.1 (HDMI) Output in configuration, but output showed "dummy output"
changed to 7.1 and back to 5.1 and if fixed that issue

[glubbish]

BTW, if I run the movie from ubuntu (without kodi) the rear speakers work.

[glubbish]

Oddly, after playing from ubuntu its now working through kodi.
It has not stopped and changed config, will update if it does

[glubbish]

Sound is still failing. Checking via pavucontrol its set back to stereo analog. Changing to Digital Surround 5.1 (HDMI) Output fixes the problem

[fritsch]

Sound is still failing. Checking via pavucontrol its set back to stereo analog. Changing to Digital Surround 5.1 (HDMI) Output fixes the problem

 Where is the kodi issue in here? You have an issue with pulseaudio itself.