Sound error when trying to run more than one program

Change the settings so that both programs use Alsa or Pulseaudio as output.

i had a similar problem, and heres how i fixed it...

open up a terminal, and type:

               sudo gedit /etc/pulse/daemon.conf

punch in your password and you should now have Pulseaudio's config file open. now find the line that says:

               ; use-pid-file = yes

change this to read:

               use-pid-file = no

and reboot. hopefully thats that, and you will now be able to listen to multiple audio streams without issue!

Thank you folks, but both advice didn't work. Is there anything else that you can suggest?

I realized that I cannot get the sound from a running media application and an internet application at the same time. E.g. I can get sound while I run many media players (gnome, vlc, rythmbox). And I can get sound while I watch youtube and run skype. But when I run any two programs from different groups (e.g. vlc & skype or rythmbox & youtube) I cannot get sound from the one I run afterwards.

When I click on the sound icon on tray, Under file, "change source" (I am not sure about the translation of "source") I see the following and can choose one.

0: HDA Intel (ALSA Mixer)
1: Generic 1095 SI HDMI (OSS Mixer)
2: Playback: ALSA PCM on front:0 (ALC883 analog) via DMA (Pulse Audio mixer)
3: Capture: Monitor source of ALSA PCM on front:0 (ALC883 analog) via DMA (Pulse Audio mixer)
4: Capture: ALSA PCM on front:0 (ALC883 analog) via DMA (Pulse Audio mixer)

But nothing changes as I choose one of these. I tried all the possible combinations with the advices above.

Thank you once again for help and please help more...

Oh. Now I see I have the same problem. The Flash problem may be solved by installing the libflashsupport package. This however is a little bit buggy and crashes now and then but..
http://www.pulseaudio.org/wiki/FlashPlayer9Solution

"Due to various bugs in the Flash 9 plugin sound output of Flash 9 through
the pulseaudio soundserver doesn't work properly. This library adds
a clutch to make Flash 9 sound output in pulseaudio possible."

As for Skype, I found these:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/198453
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=4526841#post4526841
http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=112021

Thank you very much, my problem with youtubelike web applications ended. But Skype or Ekiga with other applications don't sound at the same time.

so long as you select a device that is using pulseaudio as the sound server, such as choice #2 on your above list, then the only thing that would need to be changed would be the pid-file use like i put in my previous post. if that isnt working, then it may perhaps be an issue with ALSA, but i honestly don't know. I'll keep watching this thread and post back if i find something important/useful!

Andrew

Thank you Andrew I tried to choose pulseaudio from two programs but it didn't work again. I will be waiting any suggestion.

Memet Ali

sorry about the long wait on this...ive been busy lately.

im sorry to hear that you still havent gotten the sound working... honestly im all out of ideas on this one. the only other thign i can think of is that if your current installation of 8.04 is an upgrade from an earlier version, there may be a conflict between pulseaudio and the old esound... so you could try uninstalling esound through synaptic (just search for 'esound'), if its not already gone, you could try running "sudo apt-get autoremove" in a terminal to uninstall any residual unused packages if you havent already, or you can try doing a fresh install to see if that works if you are so inclined...

i would suggest trying to sign onto the freenode IRC channels and seeing if somebody there is familiar with your problem...theres tons of birlliant people there, and surely theres someone that can give you more/better advice than i can. the two main channels you would want to worry about would be:
#ubuntu
for general support and...
#pulseaudio
for direct contatc with the pulseaudio team. theyd probably be your best bet on this issue, but the room is often empty/dead, so you'll have to check it fairly often.
if you dont have an IRC account, or youve never used the IRC channels before, theres an excellent description of how to get involved here:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InternetRelayChat

sorry i cant be more helpful... but im going to keep looking in case i find something about it. ill post back if i find something else, but thats about it.