How can I force Kodi to use PulseAudio?

Help
1

By default, it uses PipeWire, but can I force it to use PulseAudio?

2

You can but you shouldnt, pipewire works alot better than PA does. PA is largely hated by the community for alot of reasons. Does it work as is?

3

Not sure I understand what this sentence mean?:wink: Does what work?

4

Does it work with pipewire as its currently configured, or do you have a specific reason for wanting to force PA’s usage with Kodi?

5

No, I can’t get PipeWire to work, at all with my m92p, where audio is output via the DisplayPort. This did work in 23.05, but not with 24.11. I think it was using PulseAudio before.

6

Please post your config and any relevant dmesg or journal entries

7

this is more of a kodi question really

go into settings, then system, audio, and from there you can probably choose

seems like passing environment variable is another option: KODI_AE_SINK=pulse

8

Yes, that works.

Thanks.

There is no way to do this in the settings, btw.

9

Well, you could do a write desktop app and include it as an env variable

environment.systemPackages = [
    (pkgs.writeShellApplication {
      name = "Kodi";
      text = "${pkgs.kodi}/bin/Kodi KODI_AE_SINK=pulse";
    })
    (pkgs.makeDesktopItem {
      name = "kodi";
      exec = "kodi";
      desktopName = "Kodi";
    })
];
1 Like
10

I misspoke. I didn’t actually manage to get it running under Pulse, using this

  systemd.services.kodi = {
    environment = {
      KODI_AE_SINK = "pulse";
    };
  };

I think I got it running under Pulse, by removing PipeWire from my system.

Also, I wouldn’t be able to use a desktop app, cause this is a service.

I’ve fixed the original problem, so I don’t need help here, but it would be nice to know why it didn’t work.

11

The desktop application would still be usable by the service.
Specifically, the writeShellApplication and then calling kodi’s pkg with ${pkgs.kodi}/bin/Kodi and then wraps it all up.
Try it.

12

Also, how did you solve the original problem? Share your work bro were curious