[PlanetCCRMA] the jack permissions conundrum

Tue May 25 16:29:13 PDT 2010

On Tue, 2010-05-25 at 11:52 -0700, Niels Mayer wrote:
> > That would be very simple to verify. Install the Planet CCRMA Jack.
> > Restart the computer. See at what rt priority pulse is running. I doubt
> > you will see what you presume.
> 
> The issue is that I don't have pulse running....
> 
> What happens if you don't have pulse running but somehow the
> pulseaudio library is getting invoked? 

I have no idea, sorry. 

> If I'm running qjackctl and it
> makes a library call to pulseaudio, which in turn requests higher nice
> or priority values, and associates itself w/ group 'pulse-rt' to do so
> (but matches '*' and gets jack's priority settings rather than
> specific lower limits set for pulseaudio), isn't there a possibility
> where the pulse lib code would end up running w/ the same (high)
> priority associated w/ jack? 

It depends on how pulseaudio is coded. I would be very surprised if we
found that it grabbed the highest priority it can find. Most probably it
does not. 

> (note that I see the lockup in qjackctl,
> pehraps via dbus, perhaps directly. The lockup is not happening in
> jackd itself).

Is the lockup still happening to you? The last I remember is that
removing the qjackctl preferences file fixed the problem (and it was
only happening in one particular computer). 

Now, if this is still happening, under which conditions does it happen?

If you suspect a problem with the rt priorities, again, it is rather
easy to _check_ if that is the case. Change /etc/security/limits.conf so
that either the limits that the Planet CCRMA jack puts there are
commented out or lower. Logout, login again and try again. 

-- Fernando

> Note, the following music programs on my machine have listed
> dependencies on the pulseaudio lib. It is interesting that all the
> qt-based programs have this dependency (maybe the lockups are a qt
> bug?), in addition to some others:
> 
>  csound                    x86_64 5.10.1-14.fc12             @updates     3.0 M
>  csound-dssi               x86_64 5.10.1-14.fc12             @updates      21 k
>  csound-fltk               x86_64 5.10.1-14.fc12             @updates     178 k
>  csound-fluidsynth         x86_64 5.10.1-14.fc12             @updates      20 k
>  csound-gui                x86_64 5.10.1-14.fc12             @updates     379 k
>  csound-jack               x86_64 5.10.1-14.fc12             @updates      25 k
>  csound-osc                x86_64 5.10.1-14.fc12             @updates      15 k
>  csound-virtual-keyboard   x86_64 5.10.1-14.fc12             @updates      53 k
>  ffado                     x86_64 2.0.0-1.fc12.ccrma         @planetccrma 2.1 M
>  fluidsynth                x86_64 1.1.1-1.fc12               @updates      29 k
>  fluidsynth-dssi           x86_64 1.0.0-2.fc12               @fedora      110 k
>  fluidsynth-libs           x86_64 1.1.1-1.fc12               @updates     623 k
>  fweelin                   x86_64 0.6-1.fc12.ccrma           installed    1.1 M
>  hydrogen                  x86_64 0.9.4.1-1.fc12             @updates     8.8 M
>  hydrogen-drumkits         noarch 0.9.3-3.20080907.fc12      @fedora       20 M
>  jackmix                   x86_64 0.4-1.fc12.ccrma           @planetccrma 331 k
>  libprojectM-qt            x86_64 2.0.1-2.fc12               @updates     312 k
>  lmms                      x86_64 0.4.6-2.fc12               @updates      10 M
>  mixxx                     x86_64 1.7.0-1.fc12
> @rpmfusion-free   8.8 M
>  muse                      x86_64 1:1.0.1-2.fc12             @updates     9.0 M
>  nyquist                   x86_64 3.03-3.fc12                @fedora      6.4 M
>  projectM-jack             x86_64 2.0.1-2.fc12               @updates      46 k
>  qjackctl                  x86_64 0.3.6-1.fc12               installed    1.3 M
>  qmidictl                  x86_64 0.0.1-1.rncbc.suse112
> @/qmidictl-0.0.1-1.rncbc.suse112.x86_64 156 k
>  qmidinet                  x86_64 0.0.1-1.rncbc.suse112
> @/qmidinet-0.0.1-1.rncbc.suse112.x86_64 108 k
>  qsampler                  x86_64 0.2.2-1.fc12.ccrma         @planetccrma 680 k
>  qsynth                    x86_64 0.3.5-1.fc12               @updates     720 k
>  qtractor                  x86_64 0.4.6-4.npm.fc12           installed    2.3 M
>  qxgedit                   x86_64 0.1.0-2.rncbc.suse112      installed    2.3 M
>  rosegarden4               x86_64 10.04.2-1.fc12             @updates      11 M
>  swami                     x86_64 0.9.4-6.fc12               @fedora      893 k
>  tritonus                  x86_64 0.3.7-0.5.20090419cvs.fc12 @fedora      172 k
>  tritonus-alsa             x86_64 0.3.7-0.5.20090419cvs.fc12 @fedora      270 k
>  tritonus-aos              x86_64 0.3.7-0.5.20090419cvs.fc12 @fedora       14 k
>  tritonus-core             x86_64 0.3.7-0.5.20090419cvs.fc12 @fedora      129 k
>  tritonus-fluidsynth       x86_64 0.3.7-0.5.20090419cvs.fc12 @fedora       23 k
>  xjadeo                    x86_64 0.4.7-1.svn200.fc12.ccrma
> @/xjadeo-0.4.7-1.svn200.fc12.ccrma.x86_64 356 k
> 
> Niels
> http://nielsmayer.com