gstreamer decoding of ac3 fails when pulseaudio device is set to surround in lucid

the gstreamer pulseaudio plugin is the cause here

Does gst-plugins-good0.10 0.10.22-1 (available in Debian testing) fix this for you?

I contains the following new feature:

* directsoundsink: Implement SPDIF support for AC3

Note that if you want to try this you will first need to update GStreamer core/base to >= 0.10.29

>Does gst-plugins-good0.10 0.10.22-1 (available in Debian testing) fix this for you?

No, I moved the affected install to 0.10 0.10.22 a bit ago (gstreamer-devs ppa.

When I filed this during the beta it only affected ac3, recently, (before upgrading gst), it became most all formats.

Similar to this bug
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1478230

It should be noted that on 2 other installs this behavior doesn't happen, only with the 5.1 sound and pulse set to 5.1 analog output. - the other installs are 2, 2.1 output

Removing the gstreamer pulseaudio plugin fixes immediately, though that does remove 5.1 support in gstreamer (vs. 6 ch output which remains.

Same behavior is continuing into maverick - no .ac3 playback with gstreamer apps if using 5.1 analog output in pulse and trying to play a 5.1 .ac3 stream whether ffrom dvd video or an .ac3 audio file

From dmesg
Jul 14 19:29:39 doug-desktop1 kernel: [ 6454.176590] Xorg:877 freeing invalid memtype e8b35000-e9135000
Jul 14 19:30:05 doug-desktop1 pulseaudio[2556]: asyncq.c: q overrun, queuing locally
Jul 14 19:30:06 doug-desktop1 pulseaudio[2556]: last message repeated 10 times
Jul 14 19:30:06 doug-desktop1 pulseaudio[2639]: pid.c: Stale PID file, overwriting.
Jul 14 19:32:41 doug-desktop1 pulseaudio[2639]: asyncq.c: q overrun, queuing locally
Jul 14 19:32:42 doug-desktop1 pulseaudio[2639]: last message repeated 10 times
Jul 14 19:32:42 doug-desktop1 pulseaudio[2712]: pid.c: Stale PID file, overwriting.

From totem (rhythmbox is the same

(totem:2499): Totem-DEBUG: totem_playlist_add_one_mrl (): www_lynnemusic_com_surround_test.ac3 (null) (null)

** Message: Error: pa_stream_writable_size() failed: Connection terminated
pulsesink.c(1571): gst_pulseringbuffer_commit (): /GstPlayBin2:play/GstPlaySink:playsink0/GstBin:abin/GstBin:audiosinkbin/GstGConfAudioSink:audio-sink/GstBin:bin8/GstAutoAudioSink:autoaudiosink4/GstPulseSink:autoaudiosink4-actual-sink-pulse

I didn't have this problem in Lucid, but it's now in Maverick (and that's final, not alpha or beta).

While of little consolation to analog only systems this can be 'fixed' by using a digital output. (maybe a clue there.
For 5.1 digital output in pulse this method works well, also possibly see my comments in post 18
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1608804

closing