Ubuntu 24: ERROR: Failed to open "My Pulse Output" (pulse); failed to connect: Connection refused

[maxbobse]

Hi,

I have installed mpd on Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS and in my mpd.conf I have

audio_output {
        type            "pulse"
        name            "My Pulse Output"
        server          "localhost"             # optional
##      sink            "remote_server_sink"    # optional
##      media_role      "media_role"            #optional
}

pulseausdio has been installed. If I now try to play a track I get the error message

ERROR: Failed to open "My Pulse Output" (pulse); failed to connect: Connection refused

Are there any recommendations how to use mpd with Ubuntu 24?

Max

[borine]

Remove (or comment out) the line:

        server          "localhost"             # optional

from your mpd.conf then restart mpd.

[urgor]

Then MPD shows
exception: Failed to enable output "My Pulse Output" (pulse); pa_context_connect() has failed: Connection refused
in logs.

[urgor]

$ps -ef | grep pulseaudio

urgor       4066    4039  0 13:38 ?        00:00:00 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xfce4/panel/wrapper-2.0 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xfce4/panel/plugins/libpulseaudio-plugin.so 12 14680082 pulseaudio PulseAudio Plugin Adjust the audio volume of the PulseAudio sound system
urgor       6362    6325  0 13:41 pts/1    00:00:00 grep --color=auto --exclude-dir=.bzr --exclude-dir=CVS --exclude-dir=.git --exclude-dir=.hg --exclude-dir=.svn --exclude-dir=.idea --exclude-dir=.tox --exclude-dir=.venv --exclude-dir=venv pulseaudio

$ps -ef | grep mpd

mpd         6232       1  0 13:40 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/mpd --systemd
urgor       6424    6325  0 13:41 pts/1    00:00:00 grep --color=auto --exclude-dir=.bzr --exclude-dir=CVS --exclude-dir=.git --exclude-dir=.hg --exclude-dir=.svn --exclude-dir=.idea --exclude-dir=.tox --exclude-dir=.venv --exclude-dir=venv mpd

[borine]

pulseaudio is not running on your system, perhaps you are using pipewire. What is the output of

ps -ef | grep pipewire

[urgor]

urgor       2410    2394  0 20:40 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/pipewire
urgor       2411    2394  0 20:40 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/pipewire -c filter-chain.conf
urgor       2413    2394  0 20:40 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/pipewire-pulse
urgor       4293    3077  0 20:43 pts/0    00:00:00 grep --color=auto --exclude-dir=.bzr --exclude-dir=CVS --exclude-dir=.git --exclude-dir=.hg --exclude-dir=.svn --exclude-dir=.idea --exclude-dir=.tox --exclude-dir=.venv --exclude-dir=venv pipewire

As I understand it is kind of replacement for pulseaudio, and PA doesn't start automatically any more. What is the right approach: enable PA daemon, or configure MPD to use Pipewire?

[borine]

I think you really need help from ubuntu. You can use pipewire with its own pulseaudio emulation, which is the usual way on desktop systems because there are not many pipewire control clients available, or you can have mpd output directly to pipewire.

This is not an mpd problem, please consult the ubuntu documentation and ask for help on ubuntu forums so that you can make the best decision for your own system.

[urgor]

Bornie, thank you for responses. You was right - not a mpd issue.

In the end i installed pulseaudio, removed pipewire using this article from askubuntu, then added

load-module module-native-protocol-tcp auth-ip-acl=127.0.0.1

in /etc/pulse/default.pa config, and

audio_output {
        type            "pulse"
        name            "My Pulse Output"
        server          "127.0.0.1"
}

/etc/mpd.conf config. And finally the best music player (mpd) works!

[Jaeden-T]

If anyone is reading this and using Ubuntu 24,
Following @urgor 's answer and this article: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1407885/how-to-uninstall-pipewire-and-go-back-to-pulseaudio

I installed the packages sudo apt install pulseaudio pulseaudio-module-bluetooth pulseaudio-utils and sudo apt install pavucontrol

Then masked the services systemctl --user mask pipewire.service pipewire.socket wireplumber.service [email protected] pipewire-pulse.service pipewire-pulse.socket

Then rebooted my pc, then running systemctl --user status pipewire should say:

○ pipewire.service
     Loaded: masked (Reason: Unit pipewire.service is masked.)
     Active: inactive (dead)

once completed i followed @urgor 's steps by adding the load-module to /etc/pulse/default.pa then adding the pulse config then rebooted my PC and the error didint occur