xfce4-volumed-pulse does not work if it's started before pulseaudio itself

[Matthias Pronk]

If I start xfce4-volumed-pulse using a XDG autostart .desktop file (in ~/.config/autostart), and the xfce4-volumed-pulse is started before PulseAudio is ready, it will exit in error. Sometimes it works, but on my host more often it does not work, and I need to start xfce4-volumed-pulse manually.

I think the solution would be that if the daemon cannot connect to PA immediately, it will retry a few times (every second or so).

The errors are:

(xfce4-volumed-pulse:2084): xfce4-volumed-pulse-WARNING **: xvd_connect_to_pulse: failed to connect context: OK
(xfce4-volumed-pulse:2084): xfce4-volumed-pulse-WARNING **: Unable to initialize pulseaudio support, quitting
(xfce4-volumed-pulse:2084): GLib-GObject-CR

This is observed in version 0.2.0-3 from ArchLinux AUR:
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/xfce4-volumed-pulse/

[Weedy (weedy2887)]

It also fails if pulse dies after a while.
xfce4-volumed-pulse just needs reconnect code period. It doesn't have to be reoccurring, it can run when it receives the action.

[Mike (mikes-d)]

Experiencing the same problem here, using an XDG autostart .desktop file. (ArchLinux - AUR)

[Maximilien Noal (noal-maximilien)]

I'm experiencing this bug too on Archlinux.
What's strange is that I never encountered it when I was using Xubuntu, which comes with PA and xfce4-volumed-pulse.
The issue here is that Xfce autostarts items in a somewhat random manner :
https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10296

Anyway, I fixed it by disabling the desktop file of both PA and xfce4-volumed-pulse in xfce4-session-settings -> autostart, and created a new desktop file which starts a script file localted in ~/bin which contains the following :
start-pulseaudio-x11 &
sleep 5 # or else PA has not fully started yet, which makes xfce4-volumed-pulse quit
xfce4-volumed-pulse &
timidity -iAD -Os & #must be started after PA or else I have no sound
pnmixer & # PA mixer for the Xfce panel.

[Weedy (weedy2887)]

Please add the retry/reconnect code.