PulseConnectionListener

Listen for sink changes on the default Pulseaudio server

Build from sources

Clone repository:

git clone https://github.com/Audio4Linux/PulseConnectionListener
cd PulseConnectionListener

Install dependencies (glibmm-2.4, giomm-2.4 and libpulse):

# Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S glibmm pulseaudio

Compile project:

mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make

You should end up with a binary called pa_conn_watcher:

./pa_conn_watcher --help

Watch for pulseaudio sink changes
Usage:
  ./pa_conn_watcher [OPTION...]

  -o, --once        Wait for one event and exit
  -r, --run arg     Execute shell command on sink update
  -f, --filter arg  Filter by sink name
  -c, --contains    Filter modifier: don't require exact match
  -s, --silent      Disable output
  -h, --help        Print this message

Usage

First you need to find the name of the sink you want to watch:

pactl list sinks | grep "Name:" -A1

I'll use my Bluetooth earbuds (bluez_sink.80_7B_3E_21_79_EC.a2dp_sink) for the following examples. (You can also leave this filter out if you want to receive events from all sinks.)

Launch the pa_conn_watcher executable with the corresponding parameters:

./pa_conn_watcher --filter "bluez_sink.80_7B_3E_21_79_EC.a2dp_sink"

We can also run a shell command when an event has been received. For example, we can print something to stdout or run external scripts:

./pa_conn_watcher --run "echo 'Something happened!'" --silent --filter "bluez_sink.80_7B_3E_21_79_EC.a2dp_sink"

./pa_conn_watcher --run "viper restart" --once --filter "bluez_sink.80_7B_3E_21_79_EC.a2dp_sink"

NOTE: If you intend to use this program with Viper4Linux (viper restart), keep in mind that this causes an endless loop:

Watcher detects update -> restart viper -> restart causes sink update -> watcher detects update -> ...

To prevent this you can provide a --once flag and call the executable from a bash loop with sleep 5 appended to the command.

Debugging

You can enable debug output using this environment variable:

export G_MESSAGES_DEBUG=all