Pulseaudio should be default playback device

[Ernst]

Binary package hint: amarok

I have Amarok installed on Lucid. I have xine installed as the only backend. Sometimes, after playing some songs, the playback stops and only a restart of the whole system resolves this. The probability is higher if other applications have/are play(ed)(ing) some sound.
I discovered that phonon does not use pulseaudio by default (Settings > Configure Amarok > Playback > Configure Phonon). Instead, it was listed as last entry on my system. So, sometimes the default analog device fails and then Amarok will skip to the second device: a digital out which is not in use on my system, resulting in silence.

Moving the pulseaudio output to the first place solve those problems (PA always works). I think this should be the default output for Amarok in Ubuntu, as Ubuntu relies heavily on PA. (Therefore, I decided to report this bug here and not upstream, as it seems as packaging choice.)

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: amarok 2:2.3.0-0ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-19.28-generic 2.6.32.10+drm33.1
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-19-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
Architecture: amd64
Date: Thu Apr 8 12:03:41 2010
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha amd64 (20100122)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: amarok

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Actually, the Xine and GStreamer backends both use Pulseaudio if you have it installed. Using the explicit Pulseaudio option bypasses xine entirely and directly uses PA for audio decdong.

[Ernst (ernst-blaauw)]

Ok, than that's my bug report: some xine devices sometimes fail in Amarok.
Where should I fill this bug? Should I redirect this bug from amarok to
xine?

On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 13:07, Jonathan Thomas <email address hidden>wrote:

> Actually, the Xine and GStreamer backends both use Pulseaudio if you
> have it installed. Using the explicit Pulseaudio option bypasses xine
> entirely and directly uses PA for audio decdong.
>
> ** Changed in: amarok (Ubuntu)
> Status: New => Invalid
>
> --
> Pulseaudio should be default playback device
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/558331
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Thue Janus Kristensen (thuejk)]

I had another related problem when I upgraded a friend's 8.04 to 10.04. With the unaltered settings the after the upgrade, amarok was configured to prefer alsa over pulseaudio.

When you run flashplugin-nonfree inside Firefox, then Flash seems to reserve the alsa output, and when amarok started then Amarok used pulseaudio, and everything worked.

If Amarok was started before Flash, then Amarok seemed to reserve the alsa output, and there was no sound in Flash.

Changing the settings to make Amarok always prefer pulseaudio made it always work. So it would be preferable if this was the default setting.