Cadence Force Restart breaks Pulseaudio

[64Guitars]

I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 (precise) 32-bit. If I run Cadence and start Jack, then click the "Force Restart" button, it breaks PulseAudio every time. The Output Devices tab in PulseAudio Volume Control then shows No Devices. To get PulseAudio working again, I have to delete the ~/.pulse folder and login again.

[64Guitars]

That's kinda intentional.

Cadence is about getting JACK as the main sound server, and having non-jack apps working as bridges.
Pulseaudio is the #1 reason why JACK fails to start so Cadence needs to setup a few things to make sure pulseaudio is a slave to JACK, not the master.

Couldn't it be done in a less destructive, more reversible way? I mean, forcing the user to manually delete their ~/.pulse folder every time they press "Force Restart" seems a bit extreme. I think when I stop JACK in Cadence, it should fix whatever it broke in PulseAudio so that I can continue using my computer normally. I shouldn't have to delete my ~/.pulse folder and login again.

If you need JACK and pulseaudio, use cadence to start JACK and enable the pulseaudio bridge.

That's exactly what I'm trying to do. However, it's not working. I get no sound from anything that's trying to use PulseAudio (YouTube, for example, or anything using HTML5 audio). That's why I pressed "Force Restart". I thought it was worth a try. But I didn't expect it to break PulseAudio even after JACK is stopped.

The strange thing is, the JACK bridge did work for a while at first. Although, I had selected "ALSA -> JACK (plugin)" rather than "ALSA -> PulseAudio -> JACK (plugin)". But then, for whatever reason (maybe because I deleted ~/.pulse ?), it stopped working. Now none of the three bridging options seem to work for me.

When I select "ALSA -> PulseAudio -> JACK (plugin)" and start JACK, the PulseAudio JACK Sink is added to the Output Devices tab of PulseAudio Volume Control, and it's also shown in Catia connected to the 8 system inputs for the HDMI audio of my NVIDIA graphics card. Perhaps that's what's wrong. Shouldn't it be going to the stereo audio on my motherboard instead? That's what my speakers are connected to - not the HDMI. How do I select which audio device is used for the JACK Sink?

[64Guitars]

Okay. I think I've found the solution to my JACK Bridge problem. I have to go into Ubuntu's System Settings and open the Sound applet. There, I can select which audio device to use for output. If I select "Jack sink (PulseAudio JACK Sink)", then everything seems to work as expected.

However, I still think that the behaviour of the "Force Restart" button needs to be improved. When I stop JACK, PulseAudio should resume working. I shouldn't have to delete my ~/.pulse folder every time to get PulseAudio back after JACK has stopped.

[64Guitars]

You should set the alsa-audio bridge to "none", it can conflict with pulseaudio.

Thanks. I didn't realize that the ALSA bridge was independent of the PulseAudio bridge. But I've tried your suggestion and I now realize that the PulseAudio bridge still works when the ALSA bridge is set to "none".

(I recommend removing pulseaudio completely though, and using only the alsa-audio bridge).

But, if I remove PulseAudio, won't that break lots of stuff in Ubuntu? For instance, HTML5 audio seems to use PulseAudio in Ubuntu. If I remove PulseAudio, how will I get any sound from websites that use HTML5 audio?

The PulseAudio page on the Ubuntu wiki says, under the heading of "PulseAudio Removal", "This is generally a bad idea, for reasons outlined in this Article". Among other things, that article says "don’t try uninstalling the PulseAudio package, as it has far too many dependencies". That scares me. I'm afraid that if I remove PulseAudio, I'll start having lots of problems with Ubuntu.

Regarding the many outputs, pulseaudio just uses a matching number to your JACK outputs.
You can set in Cadence configure-jack dialog the "output channels" option to '2'.

Thanks. Just tried it and now I get a nice simple stereo PulseAudio JACK Sink, which is what I want.

[64Guitars]

you're right about removing pulseaudio, at least in Ubuntu (Unity).

I hate Unity. I use GNOME Classic instead.

Is everything sorted for you?
Do you still need any help?

Yeah, I think I'm okay for the time being. Thanks for asking.

There is one question that comes to mind though. Ever since I started using the KXStudio repositories, I occasionally get a flood of KDE-related updates (100 or more at a time). Since I don't actually use the KDE desktop, I'm wondering if I get these updates because I chose more of the KXStudio repositories than I actually need on Ubuntu. Should I remove some of the repositories? If so, which ones?

You'll notice that I have Nick Dowell's amSynth PPA in there. That's because I added that long before I added the KXStudio repositories and I wasn't sure if it was a conflict or not. I haven't had any problems so far, other than the last KXStudio update (which I mentioned in another topic and is now fixed - thank you). Should I remove Nick's PPA or leave it?