'Twas brillig, and Peter Hercek at 28/12/10 21:36 did gyre and gimble: > On 12/28/2010 09:28 PM, Colin Guthrie wrote: >> 'Twas brillig, and Peter Hercek at 28/12/10 19:58 did gyre and gimble: >>> Yes, it is quite usable for me. But the main reason is that I almost >>> always run an image in virtual box which keeps one connection always >>> active when it runs. >>> >>> I can run it without x11-publish and if I do not mess with it will work >>> fine ... till I do not start some other application using the pulseaudio >>> server. I did more tests and looks like any application (excepet the >>> line-in loopback itlsef) using the server will make it exit 20 seconds >>> after it is finished. This is even when I do not have suspend-on-idle >>> loaded. >>> >>> I thought the only expection is pacmd which would cause the server to >>> exit immediately. I was wrong. I used command exit as a way to quit >>> pacmd but that tells the server to exit too. When I finished pacmd with >>> ^D it behaved as all the rest of the pulseaudo server clients. >>> >>> My hypothesis would be that x11-publish somehow uses the server which >>> starts the 20 sec countdown. The rest of the modules I have loaded do >>> not do this. Any apllication connecting the server starts 20 sec >>> countdown too (when it finishes). Loopback cannot keep the server used >>> (so I think it should keep it used if it is not muted). >>> >>> As for as the module-x11-xsmp. I do not use it. I also to not use any >>> desktop environment. I have only the bare xserver, fluxbox, and a few of >>> x11 apps installed. Minimalistic environment, nothing fancy. >> >> Ahhh, right, then this last bit is the telling thing. This is >> technically expected behaviour. PA only stays alive when it's needed. It >> considers itself "needed" when an external client connects. e.g. some >> application that uses PA in some capacity. >> >> When no application has expressed and interest in using PA for 20s, then >> it exits. This is intended behaviour and is what the setting >> exit-idle-time in daemon.conf (see "man pulse-daemon.conf" for details) >> controls. >> >> Normally, PA will be kept alive for the duration of the user's X11 >> session by loading a special PA module (module-x11-xsmp) to connect to >> the X11 Session Manager. It allows PA to stay alive and not exit for the >> duration of the X11 session. If you do not run a session manager, >> obviously this module in PA cannot be loaded and PA will exit after 20s. > > Should it exit even when suspend-on-idle is not loaded? > Well it is named suspend-on-idle and not exit-on-idle ... so maybe it > should... > > >> Now you could argue that module-loopback should actually prevent idle >> timeout. I'd be tempted to agree with this, but there are probably other >> folk that would say that's a bad idea as it's often a "hidden" feature >> and we'd have people asking why their PA server is not exiting after the >> timeout! > > I do not mind if it by default does exit even when loopback is loaded > and active. But there should be a way to prevent the exit (because it > results in loss of sound when the loopback is used). Maybe I can achieve > it by somehow manually loading module-x11-xsmp ... so that I can pretend > I'm like gnome/kde folks? > > >> As for an immediate exit when used in combination of module-x11-publish, >> can you confirm that this immediate exit was just due to you manually >> telling the server to exit by typing "exit" into pacmd? > The immediate exit was there just because I used "exit" command in > pacmd. This is regardless of x11-publish ussage. My fault. I should have > read the help first and not expect it behaves like other applications > (e.g. mathomatic, calc). Maybe you can rename it to exit-server so that > it is clear what is being exited ... I do not expect you do this :-) > > For a while I thought that x11-publish still makes a difference: > * when x11-publish is loaded then the server exitst after 20 seconds if > it is used by module-loopback only > * when x11-publish is not loaded then the servr does not exit after 20 > ... or any number of seconds regardless whether it is used by > module-loopback or not, but it exits after 20 secondf after the server > is used by something else than module-loopback > > Now I know I was wrong. I achieved loading of x11-publish by using > start-pulseaudio-x11 which (as I see now) is script starting the server > and then calling pactl load-module module-x11-publish "display=$DISPLAY". > This pactl call must be the ussage which starts the 20 seconds countdown > when I used x11-publish. > > I can see why the 20 seconds (or other number of seconds defined in the > settings) countdown should not start immediately after server is up - > regardles of whether it was already used or not. It is probably there to > prevent races and I guess it is part of the protocol. But it confused me > quite a bit. Generally speaking the server will exit after it's idle timeout regardless of whether any client has ever connected (at least that's my understanding - I've not actually tested so perhaps this is not the case). i.e. if the PA daemon is not running at all (pa aux | grep pulseaudio), running just "pulseaudio --start" and not using any PA clients should make the server startup, wait for 20 seconds and then exit. I would not rule out the possibility that this countdown only starts after the first client connects (kinda like the X server option to exit after the last client disconnects - it requires a client to connect first before this shutdown is initiated). > I'm cool with any way which allows me to prevent the server exit when it > is used by module-loopback only. It may be done by module-loopback > actually telling the server it is being used or it can be done by some > switch/option/argument to module-loopback (looks like it is possible to > have them so I do not know how to specify it now) or a switch to server > or loading some module do-not-exit-on-idle or whatever :-) I do not > really care, it just sucks big time when I need to have some other > (visible) app using pulseaudio server to keep it running when I need > only module-loopback active. Well the server wide solution (i.e. your do-not-exit-on-idle option) is as I previously documented: setting exit-idle-timeout in daemon.conf to a negative number. This will totally prevent PA from killing itself after a timeout. But a more granular option in the module itself makes sense I think. Whether it is always on or just on when a certain switch is present on the module command line is open for debate. I'll ask others before deciding how to do that. Cheers Col -- Colin Guthrie gmane(at)colin.guthr.ie http://colin.guthr.ie/ Day Job: Tribalogic Limited [http://www.tribalogic.net/] Open Source: Mageia Contributor [http://www.mageia.org/] PulseAudio Hacker [http://www.pulseaudio.org/] Trac Hacker [http://trac.edgewall.org/]
