Mac OSX and missing pulseaudio plugin

[gonesurfing]

All,

I've hit a roadblock trying to get a cross platform application to run on osx which requires pulseaudio. QT5 builds and installs fine (through macports), but only builds the qtaudio_coreaudio.dylib in the plugin directory. This is despite selecting the pulse audio variant which supplies "-pulseaudio" to the configure script. I even built the audio devices example project, and it also only detects the core audio input/output. I've done a verbose log of the build process, of which some relevant parts are pasted below. Any ideas?

-Here is the configure invocation
configure -top-level -prefix /opt/local/libexec/qt5-mac -bindir /opt/local/libexec/qt5-mac/bin -headerdir /opt/local/libexec/qt5-mac/include -libdir /opt/local/libexec/qt5-mac/lib -archdatadir /opt/local/libexec/qt5-mac -plugindir /opt/local/libexec/qt5-mac/plugins -importdir /opt/local/libexec/qt5-mac/imports -qmldir /opt/local/libexec/qt5-mac/qml -datadir /opt/local/libexec/qt5-mac -docdir /opt/local/libexec/qt5-mac/doc -translationdir /opt/local/libexec/qt5-mac/translations -sysconfdir /opt/local/libexec/qt5-mac/etc/xdg -examplesdir /opt/local/libexec/qt5-mac/examples -testsdir /opt/local/libexec/qt5-mac/tests -hostdatadir /opt/local/libexec/qt5-mac -release -opensource -confirm-license -shared -largefile -accessibility -no-sql-db2 -no-sql-ibase -no-sql-mysql -no-sql-oci -no-sql-odbc -no-sql-psql -no-sql-sqlite -no-sql-sqlite2 -no-sql-tds -platform macx-clang -force-pkg-config -system-zlib -no-mtdev -no-journald -system-libpng -system-libjpeg -system-freetype -system-harfbuzz -openssl-linked -system-pcre --disable-xcb --disable-xkbcommon -no-xinput2 -no-xcb-xlib -glib -pulseaudio -no-alsa -no-gtkstyle -make libs -make tools -nomake examples -nomake tests -gui -widgets -rpath -verbose -no-optimized-qmake -nis -cups -iconv -no-evdev -icu -fontconfig -strip -no-pch -dbus-linked -no-use-gold-linker -no-separate-debug-info -no-xcb -no-eglfs -no-directfb -no-linuxfb -no-kms -no-system-proxies -framework -no-libudev -no-egl -no-openvg

Support enabled for:
Accessibility .......... yes
ALSA ................... no
CUPS ................... yes
Evdev .................. no
FontConfig ............. yes
FreeType ............... yes (system library)
Glib ................... yes
GTK theme .............. no
HarfBuzz ............... yes (system library)
Iconv .................. yes
ICU .................... yes
Image formats:
GIF .................. yes (plugin, using bundled copy)
JPEG ................. yes (plugin, using system library)
PNG .................. yes (in QtGui, using system library)
journald ............... no
mtdev .................. no
Networking:
CoreWlan ............. yes
getaddrinfo .......... yes
getifaddrs ........... yes
IPv6 ifname .......... yes
OpenSSL .............. yes (linked to the libraries)
NIS .................... yes
OpenGL / OpenVG:
EGL .................. no
OpenGL ............... desktop
OpenVG ............... no
PCRE ................... system
pkg-config ............. yes
PulseAudio ............. yes
QPA backends:
DirectFB ............. no
EGLFS ................ no
KMS .................. no
LinuxFB .............. no
XCB .................. no
Session management ..... yes

[SGaist]

Hi and welcome to devnet,

You can try by moving the CoreAudio plugin out of the install path. Then you'll see if the PulseAudio plugin is loaded. In doubt, you can use QT_DEBUG_PLUGINS=1 before your application start to follow what is being loaded

Hope it helps

[gonesurfing]

@SGaist

I just tried moving it, and no audio plugin is loaded. It appears that without the dylib in the audio plugin directory, pulseaudio is not an option to any application. I found this in the src qtmultimedia/qtmultimedia.pro file...

load(configure)
qtCompileTest(openal)
win32 {
qtCompileTest(directshow) {
qtCompileTest(wshellitem)
}
qtCompileTest(wmsdk)
qtCompileTest(wmp)
contains(QT_CONFIG, wmf-backend): qtCompileTest(wmf)
qtCompileTest(evr)
} else:mac {
qtCompileTest(avfoundation)
} else:qnx {
qtCompileTest(mmrenderer)
} else:!android {
contains(QT_CONFIG, alsa):qtCompileTest(alsa)
contains(QT_CONFIG, pulseaudio):qtCompileTest(pulseaudio)

It appears that when the mac platform is selected, only the coreaudio plugin is built. I can try to edit this to include the pulseaudio library and see if it will compile. Fingers crossed.

[SGaist]

That's not something I would have guessed but it's not unexpected. So yes, disabling it by hand looks like the only solution currently. You could however try to ask a feature request to allow building of the pulse audio module on OS X

[gonesurfing]

I've modified the following project files to ensure pulse audio support is compiled in...
qtmultimedia.pro
plugins/plugins.pro

The dylib file is compiled but when I load the audiodevice example app, I still don't get pulse audio support. Using QT_DEBUG_PLUGINS, I see that the pulseaudio dylib is found, but only coreaudio is loaded. I even tried compiling with gstreamer support with the same result. Here is the debug output. The same program compiles in Ubuntu and loads pulseaudio support with no issues.

What am I missing? It seems like there must be a qmake configuration setting that says not to include the pulseaudio library on mac.

QFactoryLoader::QFactoryLoader() looking at "/Users/ewthornton/local/qt-macx-clang-pulse2/plugins/audio/libqtmedia_pulse.dylib"
Found metadata in lib /Users/ewthornton/local/qt-macx-clang-pulse2/plugins/audio/libqtmedia_pulse.dylib, metadata=
{
"IID": "org.qt-project.qt.audiosystemfactory/5.0",
"MetaData": {
"Keys": [
"default"
]
},
"className": "QPulseAudioPlugin",
"debug": false,
"version": 328706
}

Got keys from plugin meta data ("default")
QFactoryLoader::QFactoryLoader() looking at "/Users/ewthornton/local/qt-macx-clang-pulse2/plugins/audio/libqtmedia_pulse_debug.dylib"
Found metadata in lib /Users/ewthornton/local/qt-macx-clang-pulse2/plugins/audio/libqtmedia_pulse_debug.dylib, metadata=
{
"IID": "org.qt-project.qt.audiosystemfactory/5.0",
"MetaData": {
"Keys": [
"default"
]
},
"className": "QPulseAudioPlugin",
"debug": true,
"version": 328706
}

Got keys from plugin meta data ("default")
QFactoryLoader::QFactoryLoader() checking directory path "/Users/ewthornton/qt-examples/audiodevices/audiodevices.app/Contents/MacOS/audio" ...
loaded library "/Users/ewthornton/local/qt-macx-clang-pulse2/plugins/audio/libqtaudio_coreaudio.dylib"

otool -L audiodevices
audiodevices:
/Users/ewthornton/local/qt-macx-clang-pulse2/lib/QtMultimedia.framework/Versions/5/QtMultimedia (compatibility version 5.4.0, current version 5.4.2)
/Users/ewthornton/local/qt-macx-clang-pulse2/lib/QtNetwork.framework/Versions/5/QtNetwork (compatibility version 5.4.0, current version 5.4.2)
/Users/ewthornton/local/qt-macx-clang-pulse2/lib/QtCore.framework/Versions/5/QtCore (compatibility version 5.4.0, current version 5.4.2)
/System/Library/Frameworks/DiskArbitration.framework/Versions/A/DiskArbitration (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/IOKit.framework/Versions/A/IOKit (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 275.0.0)
/Users/ewthornton/local/qt-macx-clang-pulse2/lib/QtGui.framework/Versions/5/QtGui (compatibility version 5.4.0, current version 5.4.2)
/Users/ewthornton/local/qt-macx-clang-pulse2/lib/QtWidgets.framework/Versions/5/QtWidgets (compatibility version 5.4.0, current version 5.4.2)
/System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGL.framework/Versions/A/OpenGL (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/AGL.framework/Versions/A/AGL (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.0.0)
/usr/lib/libstdc++.6.dylib (compatibility version 7.0.0, current version 104.1.0)
/usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1213.0.0)

[SGaist]

On OS X the official backend is CoreAudio not PulseAudio so for testing purpose, i'd remove the CoreAudio backend to see if the PulseAudio gets selected

[gonesurfing]

@SGaist

That worked!

Now, why won't they coexist? I'd like to have support for both in my application.

[SGaist]

They do but I guess that since CoreAudio comes before PulseAudio alphabetically, it's the one getting selected.