Sound missing from some applications - still struggling with audio

[Oceanwatcher]

On the PC where I have Linux Mint installed I have an audio problem that almost made me tear my hair out (or the rest of it). Seems like I have the same problem on my laptop.

Different distro (maybe not THAT different...), different hardware. Same problem.

Here is what is happening:

I am naive enough to believe that it should be possible to have audio from all applications at the same time. So I want the OS to give warning signals etc., I want Amarok to play, and I want Skype and Kopete to do their pling when they feel like.

Right now, I have audio from Amarok and nothing else. Skype does not work, Kopete do not utter even a little beep.

Where do I start looking? Have anyone else here sound from Both Amarok and Kopete at the same time?

My laptop is a Dell XPS M1210 just in case somebody is familiar with it. I am playing music with Amarok right now, so there is nothing wrong with the hardware.

Addition: I think ALSA is working ok most of the time. System sounds seem to be working. Kopete give warning sounds, but it seems pulseaudio is still not configured right. At least there is some kind of bzz in the speakers when I try to test pulseaudio. But nothing that can be recognized as SOUND.

[Aries K]

Re: Sound missing from some applications

I am having the same problem as well. I can hear sound watching YouTube just fine but the Kopete notification sounds do not work. I even tried playing around with the audio settings, anyone have any ideas? EDIT: After some tinkering it seems like the sound breakage occurs when playing Flash videos. I restarted my computer, ran Amarok and tested Kopete's notifications and they worked together. Lastly, I played a video in YouTube and the sound in Kopete and Amarok quit working... Well after a while the problem seems to fix itself (even without a restart). If I play a flash video in YouTube again it will go out again. This has occurred in all Linux distros I have used, most likely has to do with Flash (At least with my experience).

[Oceanwatcher]

Re: Sound missing from some applications

After the last update, I now have sound from both Amarok and Kopete. But I do not hear anything from Kopete while I am playing in Amarok.

I am still missing sound from Skype, and I know I had this in Linux Mint. But also there, I had problems getting sound from everything at the same time.

I get some messages sometimes that the sound hardware is not working. Not sure what that is.

[flarson]

Re: Sound missing from some applications

I am surprised that Skype is not playing but amarok is. Have you opened the Skype configuration and looked in the audio devices? It should show your and allow you to test it.

[Oceanwatcher]

Re: Sound missing from some applications

Yeah. That is the weird part. I tried all the devices listed in Skype and none of them would give even a small beep. And no error messages either. Problem is, this is something I have come to expect from Linux. I have never had audio working "as it should".

I know it is dependent on the hardware and the manufacturers, but I also have a feeling that all the different soundsystems in Linux does not exactly help... If we could have narrowed the systems down to at the most two that are playing nicely together, it would have made life easier for all, I think. No worries, I am just rambling here.

How to get sound in Skype working (and I really need that to communicate), I have no idea.

[Aries K]

Re: Sound missing from some applications

Yep, in Ubuntu now that I think about it Pidgin sounds stop working while sound-multitasking and in Open Suse Kopete does the same thing. It is a hurdle I think Linux will eventually overcome. There is no perfect operating system, I even see high end Mac systems crash quite often for no apparent reason, at least we are excellent in the stability area. Try going to System Settings and play around with the default audio devices, usually something branded for example "Nvidia" will work better than something like "Pulse Audio". You can also try clicking the "Defaults" button and see if that fixes your problem, that seems to work for me. The sound will most likely go away when watching Flash videos but you will notice once you stop watching them Amarok, Kopete, etc. will get their sound back. Good luck.

[Oceanwatcher]

Re: Sound missing from some applications

Hmm.... Let us hope that this gets fixed as soon as possible. It is one of the things I call a showstopper.

People using both Mac and MS Win are used to sound that work from all programs at the same time unless it is a very special program - pro audio using ASIO could sometimes be a problem. But normal userprograms will behave well.

And yes, I have seen a lot of crashing in both MS Win and Mac. So far, Kubuntu 9.04 has not really crashed once yet. Some of the programs have crashed, but at the moment, all seem to be running just fine.

[raven9]

Re: Sound missing from some applications

Hi all, i am new on the forum.
I haved the same problem, and solved it with instalation of pulseaudio:

sudo apt-get install pulseaudio

After that just in System Settings=>Multimedio put Pulseaudio on the first place in all tabs.
Sorry for my bad English, but i'm still learning.
Hope this help.

[Oceanwatcher]

Re: Sound missing from some applications

But I already have pulseaudio in the list. But is does not work. Does this mean there is a bug in pulseaduio, or it is not completely installed?

Should I try the same? Can anything break if I do that?

[raven9]

Re: Sound missing from some applications

Yes there is already pulseaudio in the list, but only some part of it.
I did what i wrote in my previous post and it solved problems in my case. Now i can watch youtube, listen music on Amarok, and have notification in Kopete. After reboot it say something to me that i need to do but i forget what is it so i did nothing.

[Aries K]

Re: Sound missing from some applications

Hi all, i am new on the forum.
I haved the same problem, and solved it with instalation of pulseaudio:

sudo apt-get install pulseaudio

After that just in System Settings=>Multimedio put Pulseaudio on the first place in all tabs.
Sorry for my bad English, but i'm still learning.
Hope this help.

Wow thanks, that seemed to do the trick. What an excellent way to introduce yourself to the forums . No problem about the English, we know what you mean. I saw I had Pulse Audio in the list previously but did not have all the parts like you said so I installed it. Works great, thanks again!

[raven9]

Re: Sound missing from some applications

We are here to help each other.

[Aries K]

Re: Sound missing from some applications

We are here to help each other.

Most definitely.

[Oceanwatcher]

Re: Sound missing from some applications

I did the installation, but nothing changed.

When I press the test button in the audio configuration, it is like it is playing, but the sound can not be heard anywhere. Should there not be a separate setup for Pulseaudio?

[raven9]

Re: Sound missing from some applications

Did you try to restart your system?