pulseaudio module-combine-sink and network devices

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danboid
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pulseaudio module-combine-sink and network devices

Post by danboid »

Has anyone been successful in creating and using a combined pulseaudio output sink comprising of a network PA device and a local device? I've been trying commands such as:

$ pactl load-module module-combine-sink sink_name=Combined2 sink_properties=device.description=CombinedTwo slaves=tunnel.raspberrypi.local.alsa_output.usb-Focusrite_Scarlett_2i4_USB-00.analog-surround-40,alsa_output.usb-XMOS_HIFI_DSD-00.analog-stereo channels=2
Failure: Module initialisation failed

Or sticking similar config into /etc/pulse/default.pa with no luck. I can use each device individually fine.

Is this a limitation of PA ie can you only create a combined sink from local sinks/devices, no combining with network devices? Might this be possible under Pipewire? I've still not tried it.

Otherwise, I'm quite impressed at how well PA works over wifi.
danboid
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Re: pulseaudio module-combine-sink and network devices

Post by danboid »

If anyone else is interested in trying pulseaudio over the network, this is the best guide I've found:

https://unix.stackexchange.com/question ... d-securely

The Arch Linux wiki instructions for setting up PA over a network could do with some improvement.

There is a bug in Ubuntu 20.04 which stops paprefs from working properly. Under Ubuntu 20.04 most of the paprefs options are greyed out until you run:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/pulse-13.99.1 /usr/lib/pulse-13.99
danboid
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Re: pulseaudio module-combine-sink and network devices

Post by danboid »

I've got this working now. I have a working pulseaudio sink comprising of a pulseaudio soundserver running on my RPi over WiFi and my locally attached USB soundcard. The issue is that it doesn't work to define a combined sink that uses a network device in /etc/pulse/default.pa. Instead, I create the sink at boot by running a pacmd command like this via MATE's startup applications:

pacmd load-module module-combine-sink sink_name=combined sink_properties=device.description=CombinedSink slaves=tunnel.raspberrypi.local.alsa_output.usb-Focusrite_Scarlett_2i4_USB-00.analog-surround-40,alsa_output.usb-XMOS_HIFI_DSD-00.analog-stereo

It would seem /etc/pulse/default.pa is too early in the boot process to create combined sinks using network devices.
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