Skype / Linux – When the Fix Becomes the Problem.. (Updated)
I have been running a ‘fixed’ version of Skype on my Linux systems for some time (Fedora 20, x86_64), which included ‘PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=30’ in a skype script to run the executable (skype-bin)..
Recently, I have experienced garbled and ‘sped up’ sound, and this was easily demonstrated using the Skype Test Call facility..
The solution to this used to be the one that I was already using – to run skype with PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=30 – but I now found that this appeared to be actually causing the latest problem, and skype worked just fine without it!
The solution is simple – to just remove the script, and rename skype-bin executable back to to skype..
It would appear that the engineers at Skype may have finally fixed the Linux problem, themselves?
Robert Gadsdon. August 19, 2014.
Update: It has been confirmed that – at last – the Skype executable has been fixed, to work correctly with pulseaudio.. And.. although the script caused a problem on both of my systems, it has been reported that on other systems it made no difference, and still worked OK.. (see comments below..)
RG. Aug 26.
Yes the new version of skype has native support for PulseAudio and doesn’t require the old workarounds.
That is good news.. It only took them a few years…!
RG.
Hello, I just tried making a call with and without PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=30; I hear no difference. The Test Call is exactly identical; it makes no difference on my system.
Anyway I’m glad to see this is fixed, I will remove the hack from my packages.
Regards,
–Simone
Thanks for the info – I’ll update the narrative to mention this..
RG.