Happy New Year to one and all,
Recently I did a fresh install of my Debian Amd64 Testing/Sid box and of course I got to experience the wonders of pulseaudio. In the past I often read of the problems of getting the sound in Skype to function with pulse. This proved to be the case.

At first my mic did work but I couldn't hear anything from the person being called. They could here me but I couldn't hear them. After a thorough search of all known problems (and there are many ) involving Skype & pulse I found one that suggested using the following command to start Skype:
and that solved the problem. Now everything works perfectly. No problems whatsoever. My question: can anyone explain why "PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=60" is necessary and what it does exactly?
Cheers,
jdk

Stolen from http://arunraghavan.net/2013/08/puls...4-0-and-skype/

Indeed it does. Thanks zhjim. This is one more confirmation of the shoddy nature of this piece of ... uh ... kit.
jdk

PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=60 skype %U

Can the above be made to launch Skype without using a terminal/konsole? If so how?

PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=60 skype %U

Can the above be made to launch Skype without using a terminal/konsole? If so how do I make a Launcher for desktop?

Hi Moshe,
Please just ask me once. I'm old but not senile. Yes, of course you can do it from a desktop short cut. I use KDE but I'm sure you can work it out if you have a different desktop.
1. Set up the short cut in the normal way for your environment. Right-click on the skype icon on your desktop and a menu appears. Click on the item Properties.
2. Once you have done that click on the Application tab.
3. In the bar marked Command: type in PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=60 skype %U
and that's it.

This assumes that the "skype" command is located on your PATH; otherwise you have to supply the path to the skype executable in the command.

I can't answer since you haven't revealed what desktop you're using. If it's KDE just right-click on the open desktop, hover over the Create New item; move your cursor to the right until the various choices appear and then select Link to Application.
jdk

Dear jdkaye,
No I know you're not over the hill yet. Sorry about the double posting, I'd hit on the idea of Stereo typing well you've heard of Stereo sound; Stereo typing is once for the right eye and once for the left one . After I'd posted I suddenly remembered how to do through right clicking on Edit Applications and adding it under Internet, and copying to Panel and Desktop.

My distro is as you guessed correctly kde and it is Mageia 5 (Cauldron). However although the script that you suggest works fine. However, unfortunately it doesn't solve the problem of quitting and reopening to get sound. I didn't have the problem with Mageia 3 and wondering whether it's something to do with their latest version of Skype or the latest Kernel 3.13.2. Or the Mageia team haven't quite got it right.

Stay Happy & young
Moshe

You seem to have changed your question from posts #4, 5 to this one. You were asking about creating a desktop shortcut--at least that's how I understood your question.
Now you are asking about something else. I didn't suggest any script (my memory isn't perfect but it's not that bad). I posted some suggestions about how to create a link to skype that incorporates the command PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=60 skype %U on your desktop. If you are now asking a different question please start a new thread and try to make your question as clear as possible.
Cheers,
jdk

True Sorry I wasn't clear enough. Yes I thought that I could use your advise to solve my problem. However unfortunately found I could not. However with your excellent knowledge of Skype I could not resist in seeing perhaps you had an idea for saving restarting Skype to get sound.

I still don't understand what you're talking about. I use skype everyday from a desktop shortcut that I described earlier. I do not need to restart skype to get sound. Can you describe exactly what you're trying to do and what problem you are encountering. I can't make sense of exactly what your problem is.
jdk

My problem is that in order to have any sound use from Skype, I have to quit Skype as soon as it starts on system startup then reopen it. The sound is mutted if I do not reopen it.

I've also tried setting a 10 second Skype startup delay, this did not help.

Your Latency script works and opens the sound OK on the reopening of Skype.

If I understand you correctly, this has nothing to do with a desktop shortcut. Maybe you really need to start your own thread on this topic.
jdk

BTW am NON-Technical, so regular updating fixes most problems :-)



For self trying the latency fix did not seem to resolve Skype failing sound and sound test this an issue most of past month.


Yesterday installing libpulse0-32 bit (with other related bits) seems to have fixed it for now.


The OS: openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle) (x86_64)


Name: libpulse0-32bit
Version: 4.0.git.270.g9490a-8.1
Arch: x86_64
Vendor: openSUSE
Installed Size: 801.2 KiB
Summary: Client interface to PulseAudio


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What a shock, MS programs being filled with bugs...