pulseaudio sounds breaking when workrave take over the full screen

[Jery Wang]

Binary package hint: pulseaudio

Hardy Heron updated until April 17, 2008.

With workrave installed. When workrave is activated (break full screen), while playing any mp3 using rhythimbox 0.11.5, the sound breaks.

It also happens when changing window.

[Dan Andreșan (danyer)]

for me it is not related to workrave. It hapens with other application when I maximize and restore them, while playing music with rythmbox, I hear a skip.
Any debug info I can provide?

Thanks,
Dan.

[Jery Wang (jery-wang2002)]

Yes, including maximize and restore, opening dialog box and sometimes in firefox including clicking some of the links. It seems like when it changes focus, sound has problem.

The sound skip is really annoying when you are listening your music while you are working. Strangely, this bug though reported by so many people (just google: sound stuttering in hardy) and yet, it is only medium priority and it has not been fixed.

Sad to say, that it seems what is considered priority to fix is a showstopper something like no screen, can't boot. But hey, windows 3.11 and 95 can do that without any problem ages ago.

In fact it happens in gutsy too.

Maybe Ubuntu should slow down adding new features. I personally needs stability more than features. Isn't this reason why I am using Linux compared to Windows?

Maybe in the end, it doesn't matter anymore, when things gets complicated, things always break. It's too much to handle.

[Dan Andreșan (danyer)]

Workaround:

type in a terminal, as a user
pulseaudio -k

this will kill pulseaudio, and alsa will be used directly (not through pulseaudio). You need to restart rhythmbox to pick up the new card (when pulseaudio is running it makes itself the default audio card. Without it, alsa will became default)
My audio card (onboard) is able to mix audio from different sources since alsa 0.12 I think, so I have all the benefits I need without pulseaudio.