Audacious stops playing audio when outside of tty/term

[themusicgod1]

For the past few months, occasionally audacious stops playing audio. The program itself is responsive, but attempting to hit play results in no audio being played, and the timer for the particular track played to stay at 0:00. Exiting audacious doesn't help, though killing pulseaudio/ and forcefully reloading alsa via "alsa force reload" does. Today I noticed that if I change to the terminal via Alt-Ctrl-F1, the sound starts playing and remains playing so long as I'm away from Xorg, whereupon it stops playing when I return.

pulseaudio:
  Installed: 1:4.0-0ubuntu22
  Candidate: 1:4.0-0ubuntu22
  Version table:
 *** 1:4.0-0ubuntu22 0
        500 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ vivid/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
alsa-base:
  Installed: 1.0.25+dfsg-0ubuntu4
  Candidate: 1.0.25+dfsg-0ubuntu4
  Version table:
 *** 1.0.25+dfsg-0ubuntu4 0
        500 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ vivid/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
audacious:
  Installed: 3.5-2
  Candidate: 3.5-2
  Version table:
 *** 3.5-2 0
        500 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ vivid/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
xorg:
  Installed: 1:7.7+7ubuntu2
  Candidate: 1:7.7+7ubuntu2
  Version table:
 *** 1:7.7+7ubuntu2 0
        500 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ vivid/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
Linux Hedy 3.18.0-9-generic #10-Ubuntu SMP Mon Jan 12 21:41:54 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=15.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=vivid
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu Vivid Vervet (development branch)"

[themusicgod1 (themusicgod1)]

Backtrace when frozen:

(gdb) bt
#0 0x00007f3ae1e6645d in poll () at ../sysdeps/unix/syscall-template.S:81
#1 0x00007f3ae317614c in g_main_context_iterate (priority=2147483647, n_fds=3, fds=0xa79da90, timeout=20, context=0x756000)
    at /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.43.3/./glib/gmain.c:4103
#2 0x00007f3ae317614c in g_main_context_iterate (context=0x756000, block=block@entry=1, dispatch=dispatch@entry=1, self=<optimized out>)
    at /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.43.3/./glib/gmain.c:3803
#3 0x00007f3ae31764d2 in g_main_loop_run (loop=0xa7a23c0)
    at /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.43.3/./glib/gmain.c:4002
#4 0x00007f3ae2549545 in gtk_main ()
    at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgtk-3.so.0
#5 0x000000000040b09c in ()
#6 0x00007f3ae1d97ec5 in __libc_start_main (main=
    0x40a490, argc=1, argv=0x7fff76cb86f8, init=<optimized out>, fini=<optimized out>, rtld_fini=<optimized out>, stack_end=0x7fff76cb86e8)
    at libc-start.c:287
#7 0x000000000040b4fb in _start ()
(gdb) thread 2
[Switching to thread 2 (Thread 0x7f3ac5580700 (LWP 1821))]
#0 0x00007f3ae3a174fd in nanosleep ()
    at ../sysdeps/unix/syscall-template.S:81
81 ../sysdeps/unix/syscall-template.S: No such file or directory.
(gdb) bt
#0 0x00007f3ae3a174fd in nanosleep ()
    at ../sysdeps/unix/syscall-template.S:81
#1 0x00007f3ae319e1c8 in g_usleep (microseconds=<optimized out>)
    at /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.43.3/./glib/gtimer.c:259
#2 0x0000000000410eaa in _start ()
(gdb) thread 3
[Switching to thread 3 (Thread 0x7f3ab7df8700 (LWP 930))]
#0 0x00007f3ae1e6645d in poll () at ../sysdeps/unix/syscall-template.S:81
81 ../sysdeps/unix/syscall-template.S: No such file or directory.
(gdb) bt
#0 0x00007f3ae1e6645d in poll () at ../sysdeps/unix/syscall-template.S:81
#1 0x00007f3ad33dc461 in () at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpulse.so.0
#2 0x00007f3ad33cd8e1 in pa_mainloop_poll ()
    at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpulse.so.0
#3 0x00007f3ad33cdf7e in pa_mainloop_iterate ()
    at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpulse.so.0
#4 0x00007f3ad33ce030 in pa_mainloop_run ()
    at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpulse.so.0
#5 0x00007f3ad33dc3f6 in () at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpulse.so.0
#6 0x00007f3ad2f79628 in ()
    at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/pulseaudio/libpulsecommon-4.0.so
#7 0x00007f3ae3a100a5 in start_thread (arg=0x7f3ab7df8700)
    at pthread_create.c:309
#8 0x00007f3ae1e7090d in clone ()
    at ../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/x86_64/clone.S:111
(gdb) thread 4
[Switching to thread 4 (Thread 0x7f3ac5d81700 (LWP 924))]
#0 0x00007f3ae1e6645d in poll () at ../sysdeps/unix/syscall-template.S:81
81 in ../sysdeps/unix/syscall-template.S
(gdb) bt
#0 0x00007f3ae1e6645d in poll () at ../sysdeps/unix/syscall-template.S:81
#1 0x00007f3ae317614c in g_main_context_iterate (priority=2147483647, n_fds=2, fds=0x7f3ac00008c0, timeout=-1, context=0x77b770)
    at /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.43.3/./glib/gmain.c:4103
#2 0x00007f3ae317614c in g_main_context_iterate (context=context@entry=0x77b770, block=block@entry=1, dispatch=dispatch@entry=1, self=<optimized out>)
    at /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.43.3/./glib/gmain.c:3803
#3 0x00007f3ae317625c in g_main_context_iteration (context=0x77b770, may_block=may_block@entry=1...

[themusicgod1 (themusicgod1)]

Other symptoms when this occurs: youtube videos in both firefox and chrome stop playing in a similar fashion when this occurs, and at least once firefox segfaulted on startup.

[themusicgod1 (themusicgod1)]

Even weirder: Audio played on tty1 / Alt-Shift-F1 but not tty2 / Alt-Shift-F2

[themusicgod1 (themusicgod1)]

At least in one case, if I log into a new tty as soon as I log in, audio starts playing. Still doesn't play when in Xorg though.

[themusicgod1 (themusicgod1)]

This is pretty reproducible if you run the system close to out of memory enough, and then change to tty1.

[Dave Kokandy (drkokandy)]

If you say it's consistently reproducible, I can give it a try if you could be a little more specific with steps.

How low memory is "close to out of memory enough" to get it to stop playing? I can't reproduce a stop with high RAM usage here.

I can reproduce audio started in audacious GUI still playing on tty1 if you log in as the same user (but I don't know if that's a bug), but it also plays for me on tty2 or any other tty, so I can't reproduce comment #3.

I'm not sure what you mean exactly by comment #4 - from a cold boot, logging into tty immediately after logging into a desktop session plays music from the last session? With or without opening audacious?

[themusicgod1 (themusicgod1)]

Huh. Even more reproducible than I thought -- I'm thinking maybe the ram thing was a canard since I only go to tty1 when my ram is running low. I tried a bunch of times with ample ram and was able to still reproduce.

preconditions: you're in xorg/gnome on tty7 or whatever, audacious is open, you're also logged in on tty1 with just bash running

Step 2) press play on audacious
step 3) alt-ctrl-f1
step 4) alt-f2 (to change to different tty)

sound stops here (ie same as #3)

step 5) alt-f1 (to go back to terminal 1)

sound starts again.

step 6) go back to xorg alt-f7

sound stops here.

As for #4 I mean... the computer is running, I'm logged in xorg/gnome but not at that particular tty. I get silence...until I log in to the tty (then the music starts)

funny series:

if you, in tty1 log out of the current user ... the music stops. if you log in, the music starts again.
if you log out... and then change to tty2, then change back to tty1 (ie you're still just faced with a login screen...) the music starts again. And you can come back to xorg and it works....but if you go back to tty2 it stops.

[themusicgod1 (themusicgod1)]

This seems like it has been working correctly since 16.04.