Spotify seems to have removed Alsa only support. It does not work anymore. It didn't in recent versions already but due to a misleading error message it wasn't clear to me right away. So the "-pulseaudio" flag is kinda broken. But it is still possible to run spotify without pulseaudio by using "apulse". Would it be possible to add a dependency of "apulse" when using the "-pulseaudio" flag and also replace the starting command in the resulting desktop file in "/usr/share/applications/spotify.desktop" from simply "spotify" to "apulse spotify"?
Discussion about this matter in Spotify community forums: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Linux/1-0-98-1-1-0-Crash-when-using-ALSA/td-p/4680398
sounds like the pulseaudio dep will need to change to || pulseaudio apulse
The bug has been closed via the following commit(s): https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/commit/?id=8a1c6289f802b1f98da3934e5f73758a230a066a commit 8a1c6289f802b1f98da3934e5f73758a230a066a Author: Matthew Thode <prometheanfire@gentoo.org> AuthorDate: 2019-05-02 17:29:59 +0000 Commit: Matthew Thode <prometheanfire@gentoo.org> CommitDate: 2019-05-02 17:30:19 +0000 media-sound/spotify: fix dep on pulseaudio, it or apulse are needed Fixes: https://bugs.gentoo.org/684922 Package-Manager: Portage-2.3.62, Repoman-2.3.12 Signed-off-by: Matthew Thode <prometheanfire@gentoo.org> media-sound/spotify/{spotify-1.1.5.ebuild => spotify-1.1.5-r1.ebuild} | 4 ++-- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
It's not fixed, spotify still segfaults without pulseaudio. At least it needs a post emerge message advising user to use apulse. The best solution would be to modify running script /usr/bin/spotify to automatically invoke apulse if needed. Some discussion of this issue was also in https://bugs.gentoo.org/665696
Also taking into accout the comment here: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Linux/1-0-98-1-1-0-Crash-when-using-ALSA/m-p/4711064/highlight/true#M17599 consider restoring the working version 1.0.96 to portage.
Ya it would be great to add something more to it. Currently it will still fail for everyone not having Pulseaudio installed and those will not even know why. Altering the exec command in /usr/bin/spotify should be doable.
how spotify is run is a runtime decision, not an install time one, I'd accept a patch with a message to the user stating as much but I won't force the use of apulse (as that is not fully supported upstream).
While understanding your reasoning, i've had to alter /usr/bin/spotify myself to make it work and i will have to redo this on any coming update as i am relying on the provided desktop file in /usr/share/applications which is using that file in /usr/bin. Other Ebuilds have small changes to things coming from upstream as well to make the program work flawlessly on Gentoo.
statically prepending apulse breaks users who don't have apulse
Would it be possible to put the dependency on apulse and patching of /usr/bin/spotify behind a use flag? Then it could be decided at install time.
Everyone not having pulseaudio (using "-pulseaudio") or apulse ends up with a segfault anyways. That's why the current version is still broken after install for non pulseaudio users.
write the patch and I'll apply it
