Pulseaudio crashes

[rvsmith]

Does anyone else have problems with pulse? It has always been flakey but it is worse in TC11 for some reason. It runs for a while then crashes and has to be killed so that it respawns. Chrome has to be restarted too which is a pain when things are logged in using MFA, especially in the middle of a web call.
I have taken to running a check script to pulseaudio --check every 5 mins and raise an alert when it fails so at least I know to restart browser before next call.
There are forums full of pulse problems including this one and no answers that I've found to work. Nothing much in TC forums so presume either it works for everyone else or they dont use it at all.
Any ideas welcome.
Harvey
 

[Juanito]

I don't use pulseaudio with firefox, but it might be that using a pre-built binary (firefox) is the problem.

If firefox was compiled against a different version of pulseaudio, it could cause errors.

Otherwise, I don't see any problems with pulseaudio.

[aus9]

@rvsmith

I use a firefox running from unpack, normally without pulseaudio but have no problems when it is running.

some questions/comments based on your previous posts.

1) How many web browsers are you running at once?
---both firefox and chrome are memory hogs

2) A long time ago, you did some things with skype. Did you notice if flaky pulse occurs before or after using skype?

3) Maybe start a diary on what you have running.
Also report if you are making input stream changes to pulseadio.....maybe its flaky because it can't handle physical media changes?

4) Are you running pulse system wide or with home configs?

[rvsmith]

Thanks for the replies.
Juanitos point about pre-builds sounds reasonable. I switched to a prebuild of Chrome some time ago to get web Skype amd Outlook web access to work. Now MS Teams is also a requirement. I've been using TC for homeworking since TC2.10 and am desperately trying to avoid being forced onto Windows.
On resource - I have found that the least resource intensive is to stick to a single browser with many tabs/windows because they share resource to some extent. Using >1 is too resource heavy, same for multiple desktop apps. The single browser option keeps usage down nicely. Use of h/w acceleration is essential. I dont think resource is an issue.
Pulse is started from the TCE recommended .xsession startup of pulse user rather than system-wide as root

I have just started trialling the latest Firefox because TC provides a latest build whereas TCE Chromium is a year old. MSTeams blocks calling entirely on Firefox unless I use an agent spoofer. Skype test call will not open even then. On the plus side - no Pulse crash yet. If I find a combi that works will post back.

[Juanito]

Did you try epiphany or midori instead of firefox?

[rvsmith]

I dont think either support webRTC.
Midori is OK for lightweight stuff but for something like playing a youtube video starts to struggle. Chrome/Firefox are faster.
Never managed to get Epiphany to work.
Resource is not an issue, functionality is. I did try those 2 for lightweight browsing while Chrome does the big stuff but once a big browser is open its better to use it for everything.

I have now had pulse crashes when running only Firefox but when pulse is respawned Firefox reconnects immediately unlike Chrome which has to be bounced.

[aus9]

right if interested you can play youtube with alsa only.

here is my mini-howto...but I leave it to you to test alsa sound works first

use any web browser with youtube....click on share to get the url
paste that url into the network stream box or as per link into your terminal command

http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,23958.0.html