Re: [fluid-dev] fluidsynth 2.1.1 not creating a server

[Marcus Weseloh]

Hi Knute,

as your Ubuntu is using pulseaudio as sound server by default, alsa is
configured to use pulseaudio as the output "sink". So if you want to
keep the default system configuration of your ubuntu, then it makes
sense to use the FluidSynths pulseaudio driver as alsa will simply
forward all audio to pulseaudio anyway.

That the FluidSynth user service works fine when started manually but
breaks when enabled and executed at login seems to indicate a timing
problem. I suspect that pulseaudio just takes a little too long to
start accepting connections. So you could try to add a little delay to
your unit file, maybe with an ExecStartPre command:

[Service]
ExecStartPre=/bin/sleep 10

Please bear in mind that once started, FluidSynth is always "active",
even when you don't send MIDI events to it. So when you start it
automatically at boot, then it will constantly eat some CPU cycles and
also cause pulseaudio to have a higher load. So when you need it
mainly as a synth for Frescobaldi, another solution could be to simply
create a shell script that starts fluidsynth and frescobaldi together.

Cheers
Marcus

Am Fr., 7. Aug. 2020 um 17:33 Uhr schrieb Knute Snortum <ksnortum@gmail.com>:
>
> Thanks, Marcus.
>
> I disabled the system config for fluidsynth and enabled the user
> config.  I took PulseAudio out of the config and just used ALSA.
> Status looks good and MIDI plays from Frescobaldi when I start the
> process "manually" after boot.  But when I reboot, I get no MIDI
> output and systemctl --user static fluidsynth produces this:
>
> fluidsynth.service - FluidSynth launched in server mode
>      Loaded: loaded
> (/home/knute/.config/systemd/user/fluidsynth.service; enabled; vendor
> preset: enabled)
>      Active: active (running) since Fri 2020-08-07 08:18:57 PDT; 1min 18s ago
>    Main PID: 1810 (fluidsynth)
>      CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/fluidsynth.service
>              └─1810 /usr/bin/fluidsynth -a alsa -m alsa_seq -i -l -s
> -p FluidSynth /usr/share/sounds/sf2/FluidR3_GM.sf2
>
> Aug 07 08:18:57 knute-NUC7PJYH systemd[1798]: Started FluidSynth
> launched in server mode.
> Aug 07 08:18:57 knute-NUC7PJYH fluidsynth[1810]: fluidsynth: warning:
> Failed to set thread to high priority
> Aug 07 08:19:27 knute-NUC7PJYH fluidsynth[1810]: ALSA lib
> pulse.c:242:(pulse_connect) PulseAudio: Unable to connect: Timeout
> Aug 07 08:19:27 knute-NUC7PJYH fluidsynth[1810]: fluidsynth: error:
> Failed to open the "default" audio device
> Aug 07 08:19:27 knute-NUC7PJYH fluidsynth[1810]: Failed to create the
> audio driver
>
> Any ideas why ALSA is trying to connect to PulseAudio?  Is there some
> other way for me to start FluidSynth at boot time?
>
> ---
> Knute Snortum
> (via Gmail)
>
> On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 3:21 PM Marcus Weseloh <marcus@weseloh.cc> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Knute,
> >
> > you say that you used a user unit file file in .config/systemd/user/,
> > but the output from the status command is a report from a system unit
> > file in /lib/systemd/system/fluidsynth.service.
> >
> > If you want to use user-unit files, you need to prefix all systemctl
> > commands with --user. So you could try the following:
> >
> > First make sure your system-wide fluidsynth unit is stopped:
> > $ sudo systemctl stop fluidsynth
> >
> > Then reload your user-systemd just to be on the safe side:
> > $ systemctl --user daemon-reload
> >
> > Then try to activate your user-unit and check it's status:
> > $ systemctl --user start fluidsynth
> > $ systemctl --user status fluidsynth
> >
> > Cheers
> > Marcus
> >
> >
> > Am Do., 6. Aug. 2020 um 23:08 Uhr schrieb Knute Snortum 
> > <ksnortum@gmail.com>:
> > >
> > > Thanks, Ceresa, I read that whole thread but it doesn't seem to apply
> > > to my situation.
> > >
> > > I am on Ubuntu 20.04, using systemd now to try to start FluidSynth.  I
> > > learned that PulseAudio won't start as root, so I added my service to
> > > ~/.config/systemd/user.  It looks like this:
> > >
> > > [Unit]
> > > Description=FluidSynth launched in server mode
> > > After=sound.target
> > >
> > > [Service]
> > > ExecStart=/usr/bin/fluidsynth -a pulseaudio -m alsa_seq -i -l -s -p
> > > FluidSynth /usr/share/sounds/sf2/FluidR3_GM.sf2
> > >
> > > [Install]
> > > WantedBy=default.target
> > >
> > > But when I do a systemctl status fluidsynth, I see this:
> > >
> > > fluidsynth.service - FluidSynth
> > >      Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/fluidsynth.service; enabled;
> > > vendor preset: enabled)
> > >      Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Thu 2020-08-06 08:47:37
> > > PDT; 5h 6min ago
> > >     Process: 838 ExecStart=/usr/bin/fluidsynth -a pulseaudio -m
> > > alsa_seq /usr/share/sounds/sf2/FluidR3_GM.sf2 (code=exited,
> > > status=255/EXCEPTION)
> > >    Main PID: 838 (code=exited, status=255/EXCEPTION)
> > >
> > > Aug 06 08:47:36 knute-NUC7PJYH systemd[1]: Started FluidSynth.
> > > Aug 06 08:47:37 knute-NUC7PJYH fluidsynth[838]: fluidsynth: error:
> > > Failed to create PulseAudio connection
> > > Aug 06 08:47:37 knute-NUC7PJYH fluidsynth[838]: Failed to create the
> > > audio driver
> > > Aug 06 08:47:37 knute-NUC7PJYH fluidsynth[838]: FluidSynth runtime 
> > > version 2.1.1
> > > Aug 06 08:47:37 knute-NUC7PJYH fluidsynth[838]: Copyright (C)
> > > 2000-2020 Peter Hanappe and others.
> > > Aug 06 08:47:37 knute-NUC7PJYH fluidsynth[838]: Distributed under the
> > > LGPL license.
> > > Aug 06 08:47:37 knute-NUC7PJYH fluidsynth[838]: SoundFont(R) is a
> > > registered trademark of E-mu Systems, Inc.
> > > Aug 06 08:47:37 knute-NUC7PJYH systemd[1]: fluidsynth.service: Main
> > > process exited, code=exited, status=255/EXCEPTION
> > > Aug 06 08:47:37 knute-NUC7PJYH systemd[1]: fluidsynth.service: Failed
> > > with result 'exit-code'.
> > >
> > > Any ideas why the PulseAudio connection fails?
> > >
> > > ---
> > > Knute Snortum
> > > (via Gmail)
> > >
> > >
> > > ---
> > > Knute Snortum
> > > (via Gmail)
> > >
> > >
> > > On Wed, Aug 5, 2020 at 2:41 PM Ceresa Jean-Jacques
> > > <jean-jacques.ceresa@orange.fr> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Hi,
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > >How would you start FluidSynth at startup automatically? -
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Here possible solution.
> > > >
> > > > https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/fluid-dev/2020-01/msg00032.html
> > > >
> > > > jjc
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > fluid-dev mailing list
> > > > fluid-dev@nongnu.org
> > > > https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fluid-dev
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > fluid-dev mailing list
> > > fluid-dev@nongnu.org
> > > https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fluid-dev
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > fluid-dev mailing list
> > fluid-dev@nongnu.org
> > https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fluid-dev
>
> _______________________________________________
> fluid-dev mailing list
> fluid-dev@nongnu.org
> https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fluid-dev