Skype
Contents
- 1 Installation
- 2 Skype sound
- 3 Restricting Skype access
- 4 Skype plugin for Pidgin
- 5 Troubleshooting
- 5.1 GUI does not match GTK Theme
- 5.2 Test call fails
- 5.3 No video with GSPCA webcams
- 5.4 No video with Compiz
- 5.5 Skype does not use a GTK+ theme, even though other Qt apps do
- 5.6 No incoming video stream
- 5.7 Monster/low-octave "growling" distortion over mic
- 5.8 Crackling/noisy sound (mainly using 64-bit OS)
- 5.9 Skype sounds stops media player or other sound sources
- 5.10 Skype does not start after upgrade to 4.3.
- 5.11 You are already signed in on this computer
- 5.12 Empty white screen window
- 5.13 Skype doesn't output any sound after upgrading PulseAudio
Installation
Install the skype package. If you have a 64-bit system, enable the multilib repository first, since Skype is 32-bit only.
Running Skype is just as easy. Type skype
into a terminal or double-click the Skype icon on your desktop or in your DE's application menu.
Skype sound
Skype requires PulseAudio for voice communication and does not support plain ALSA.
Alternatively, if you do not want to use PulseAudio, you can install apulseAUR (and lib32-apulseAUR for x86_64 users) from the AUR, which emulates PulseAudio. Then execute Skype with:
$ apulse skype
or for x86_64:
$ apulse32 skype
See ALSA/Troubleshooting#Setting the default microphone/capture device and following sections if the microphone is not working.
If everything is functional, modify the desktop entry in /usr/share/applications/skype.desktop
so that the Exec line reads:
Exec=/usr/bin/apulse32 /usr/bin/skype %U
Restricting Skype access
There are a couple of reasons you might want to restrict Skype's access to your computer:
- The skype binary is disguised against decompiling, so nobody is (still) able to reproduce what it really does.
- It produces encrypted traffic even when you are not actively using Skype.
See [1] for more information.
Restrictions can be implemented in a number of ways, with varying ease and security. It is possible to run Skype in a container, run it as a separate user, or use the Mandatory Access Control functionality available in the Linux kernel.
systemd-nspawn
The following script will create a container in /mnt/stor/vm/skype
and run Skype from there on each subsequent run. Fetching the default pacman config is necessary for 64-bit systems with multilib enabled, but be careful in case you have custom repositories enabled. Note that sound and video may be broken with this method.
#!/bin/bash set -e DEST=/mnt/stor/vm/skype if [ ! -d "$DEST" ];then sudo mkdir -p "$DEST/var/lib/pacman/"; sudo mkdir -p "$DEST/etc/" sudo curl https://projects.archlinux.org/svntogit/packages.git/plain/trunk/pacman.conf.i686?h=packages/pacman -o "$DEST/etc/pacman.conf" echo sudo skype | sudo pacman --arch i686 --root "$DEST" --cachedir /var/cache/pacman/pkg --config "$DEST/etc/pacman.conf" -Sy - --noconfirm sudo systemd-nspawn -D "$DEST" groupadd skype sudo systemd-nspawn -D "$DEST" useradd -g skype skype sudo mkdir -p $DEST/home/skype/.config/pulse sudo cp ~/.config/pulse/cookie $DEST/home/skype/.config/pulse/ sudo cp ~/.Xauthority $DEST/home/skype/ sudo chmod 755 -R $DEST/home/skype/ sudo chown -R 1000:1000 $DEST/home/skype/ fi sudo systemd-nspawn -D "$DEST" --bind=/tmp/.X11-unix --share-system sudo -u skype env DISPLAY=:0 PULSE_SERVER=desktop skype
Docker
Install Docker and feel free to explore Docker Hub for Skype images prepared by users.
A tried and tested image is sameersbn/skype (hosted on Github). It uses X11 and PulseAudio unix domain sockets on the host to enable audio/video support in Skype. A wrapper script mounts the X11 and Pulseaudio sockets inside the container. The X11 socket allows for the user interface to display on the host, while Pulseaudio socket allows for the audio output to be rendered on the host. /dev/video0
is also mounted.
Container has access to ~/.Skype
and ~/Downloads
directories on your host system. Wrapper scripts are installed into /usr/local/bin
.
For installation use upstream instructions.
Use Skype with special user
A special user can be used for running Skype within one's normal environment. Permissions will have to be set to ensure your home directory is not readable by the special Skype user (see File permissions and attributes).
An AUR package, skype-restrictedAUR[broken link: archived in aur-mirror] exists that will run skype as a separate user ("_skype") cleanly. It is heavily based on the information in this section. Alternatively, one can use skype-secureAUR, a package that works similarly to skype-restricted, but wraps around already installed Skype binary.
Create a new group for the skype user:
# groupadd skype
Then we have to add the new user:
# useradd -m -g skype -G audio,video -s /bin/bash skype
Now add the following line to /home/skype/.bashrc
:
export DISPLAY=":0.0"
At last we define the alias (e.g. in ~/.bashrc
):
alias skype='xhost +local: && su skype -c skype'
Now we can start Skype as the newly created user simply by running skype
from the command line and entering the password of the user skype.
If you are tired of typing in the skype user's password every time, make sure you installed the sudo package, run visudo
then add this line at the bottom:
%wheel ALL=(skype) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/skype
And use this alias to launch skype:
alias skype='xhost +local: && sudo -u skype /usr/bin/skype'
xhost
command, Skype may fail with a "No protocol specified" error on stdout.I noticed that the newly created user is able to read some of the files in my home directory because the permissions were a+r, so I changed them manually to a-r u+r and changed umask from 022 to 066.
In order to restrict user "skype" accessing your external drive mounted in /media/data
for instance, make sure first that "skype" does not belong to group "users" (if you used the default group "skype", everything should be fine), then change the accesses on the mount point:
# chown :users /media/data # chmod o-rwx /media/data
This way, it is ensured that only the owner (normally "root") and "users" can access the specified directory tree while the others, including "skype", will be forbidden.
Access Pulseaudio controls when using Skype as a different user
As the "main-user" copy /etc/pulse/default.pa to ~/.pulse/default.pa and add:
load-module module-native-protocol-tcp auth-ip-acl=127.0.0.1
As the skype user, create ~/.pulse/client.conf and add:
default-server = 127.0.0.1
Open URLs in your user's browser
When one clicks URL in chat window, skype execute xdg-open to handle it. By default xdg-open
uses default web browser for skype user environment. In order to open links in your user's browser perform next setup.
Log in as skype user:
$ sudo -u skype -i
Create local preferences dir:
$ mkdir -p ~/.local/share/applications
Create /home/skype/.local/share/applications/firefox-sudo.desktop
file:
[Desktop Entry] Name=Firefox Exec=/home/skype/firefox-wrapper %u Terminal=false Type=Application Categories=Network;WebBrowser;
Set firefox-sudo.desktop
to manage HTTP and HTTPS URLs:
$ xdg-mime default firefox-sudo.desktop x-scheme-handler/http $ xdg-mime default firefox-sudo.desktop x-scheme-handler/https
(Optionally) add FTP handler:
$ xdg-mime default firefox-sudo.desktop x-scheme-handler/ftp
Create /home/skype/firefox-wrapper
script (adjust your_user):
#!/bin/bash DISPLAY=:0.0 HOME=/home/your_user sudo -u your_user /usr/lib/firefox/firefox -new-tab $1
Make it executable:
$ chmod +x ~/firefox-wrapper
Now as root user open /etc/sudoers
:
# visudo
And add permission for skype user to exec user's browser (adjust your_user):
skype ALL=(your_user) NOPASSWD: /usr/lib/firefox/firefox -new-tab http*, /usr/lib/firefox/firefox -new-tab ftp*
Access received files
By default skype
stores received files with 600 permissions (only owner can access them). One may use incron to perform automatic permission fix upon downloading.
/home/skype/downloads
Make skype home dir and download dir accessible:
# chmod 755 /home/skype /home/skype/downloads
Install incron with the incron package from the official repositories, and enable and start incrond
using systemd.
Open incrontab for root user:
# incrontab -e
Add incron job:
/home/skype/downloads IN_CREATE chmod 644 $@/$#
Save changes and exit incrontab editor.
To test incron in action just enter skype download dir and create test file:
# cd /home/skype/downloads # install -m 600 /dev/null test.txt # ls -l test.txt
File permissions should be 644 or -rw-r--r--
(Optionally) link skype download dir into your home dir:
$ ln -s /home/skype/downloads ~/skype_files
AppArmor
See the AppArmor page for how to set up AppArmor.
The userland tools for AppArmor come with a collection of example profiles. Skype is amongst them. Copy this to the directory where AppArmor profiles are stored.
# cp -ip /usr/share/apparmor/extra-profiles/usr.bin.skype /etc/apparmor.d/
For whatever reason, the profile is not complete. You may wish to modify it further. Here is an example for Skype 4:
#include <tunables/global> /usr/bin/skype { #include <abstractions/audio> #include <abstractions/consoles> #include <abstractions/dbus-session> #include <abstractions/gnome> #include <abstractions/kde> #include <abstractions/nameservice> #include <abstractions/video> # Executables /usr/bin/skype ixmr, /usr/lib{,32}/skype/skype ixmr, /usr/bin/xdg-open PUxmr, /usr/bin/kde4-config PUxmr, # Configuration files owner @{HOME}/.Skype/ rw, owner @{HOME}/.Skype/** krw, owner @{HOME}/.config/Skype/ rw, owner @{HOME}/.config/Skype/** krw, # Downloads/uploads directory owner @{HOME}/Public/ rw, owner @{HOME}/Public/** krw, # Libraries /usr/lib{,32}/libv4l/v4l2convert.so mr, /usr/share/skype/lib/libQtWebKit.so.4 mr, # Shared data /usr/share/skype/ r, /usr/share/skype/** r, # Devices /dev/ r, /dev/video[0-9]* mrw, # System information /etc/machine-id r, @{PROC}/sys/kernel/{ostype,osrelease} r, @{PROC}/sys/vm/overcommit_memory r, @{PROC}/[0-9]*/net/arp r, owner @{PROC}/[0-9]*/cmdline r, owner @{PROC}/[0-9]*/status r, owner @{PROC}/[0-9]*/task/ r, owner @{PROC}/[0-9]*/task/[0-9]*/stat r, owner @{PROC}/[0-9]*/fd/ r, /sys/devices/system/cpu/ r, /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu[0-9]*/cpufreq/scaling_{cur_freq,max_freq} r, /sys/devices/pci*/*/usb[0-9]*/*/*/modalias r, /sys/devices/pci*/*/usb[0-9]*/*/*/video4linux/video[0-9]*/dev r, /sys/devices/pci*/*/usb[0-9]*/*/{idVendor,idProduct,speed} r, # This probably should go to appropriate abstractions /etc/asound.conf r, owner @{HOME}/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf r, owner @{HOME}/.config/gtk-3.0/bookmarks r, owner @{HOME}/.config/oxygen-gtk/argb-apps.conf rw, owner @{HOME}/.config/pulse/cookie krw, owner @{HOME}/.icons/** r, owner @{HOME}/.kde4/share/config/kdeglobals krw, owner @{HOME}/.kde4/share/config/gtkrc-2.0 r, owner @{HOME}/.kde4/share/config/oxygenrc r, /usr/share/icons/*/index.theme kr, /usr/share/nvidia/nvidia-application-profiles-*-rc r, # Denials deny owner @{HOME}/.mozilla/ r, deny owner @{HOME}/.mozilla/** r, deny /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/** r, }
~/Public
. Feel free to change it to any folder you like.To use the profile, first be sure securityfs
is mounted,
# mount -t securityfs securityfs /sys/kernel/security
Load the profile by the command,
# apparmor_parser -r /etc/apparmor.d/usr.bin.skype
Now you can run Skype restricted but as your own user. Denials are logged in messages.log
.
TOMOYO
Please note that this section describes using TOMOYO 2.5. See TOMOYO Linux#TOMOYO Linux 2.x for installation.
/etc/tomoyo
directory running: /usr/lib/tomoyo/init_policy
- Open
/etc/tomoyo/exception_policy.conf
file and add these lines:
path_group SKYPE_DIRS /home/\*/.Skype/ path_group SKYPE_DIRS /home/\*/.Skype/\{\*\}/ path_group SKYPE_DIRS /home/\*/.config/Skype/\{\*\}/ path_group SKYPE_DIRS /usr/share/skype/\{\*\}/ path_group SKYPE_DIRS /tmp/skype-\*/ path_group SKYPE_DIRS /tmp/skype-\*/\{\*\}/ path_group SKYPE_DIRS /home/\*/Downloads/tmp/\{\*\}/ path_group SKYPE_FILES /home/\*/.Skype/\{\*\}/\* path_group SKYPE_FILES /home/\*/.config/Skype/\{\*\}/\* path_group SKYPE_FILES /usr/share/skype/\{\*\}/\* path_group SKYPE_FILES /home/\*/.Skype/\* path_group SKYPE_FILES /home/\*/.config/Skype/\* path_group SKYPE_FILES /usr/share/skype/\* path_group SKYPE_FILES /tmp/skype-\*/\{\*\}/\* path_group SKYPE_FILES /home/\*/Downloads/tmp/\{\*\}/\* path_group SKYPE_FILES /home/\*/Downloads/tmp/\* path_group ICONS_DIRS /usr/share/icons/\{\*\}/ path_group ICONS_FILES /usr/share/icons/\{\*\}/\* path_group ICONS_FILES /usr/share/icons/\* initialize_domain /usr/bin/skype from any initialize_domain /usr/lib32/skype/skype from any
Note that /home/*/Downloads/tmp
folders are the only folders to which Skype will be able to save received files and from which it will be able to send all files.
- Then open
/etc/tomoyo/domain_policy.conf
and add the following lines:
<kernel> /usr/bin/skype use_profile 3 use_group 0 misc env \* file read /bin/bash file read /usr/bin/bash file read/write /dev/tty file read /usr/lib/locale/locale-archive file read /usr/lib/gconv/gconv-modules file read /usr/bin/skype file read /usr/lib32/skype/skype file execute /usr/lib32/skype/skype exec.realpath="/usr/lib32/skype/skype" exec.argv[0]="/usr/lib32/skype/skype" <kernel> /usr/lib32/skype/skype use_profile 3 use_group 0 file append /dev/snd/pcm\* file chmod /home/\*/.Skype/ 0700 file create /home/\*/.cache/fontconfig/\* 0600-0666 file create /tmp/qtsingleapp-\*-lockfile 0600-0666 file create @SKYPE_FILES 0600-0666 file create /dev/shm/pulse-shm-\* 0700-0777 file execute /usr/bin/firefox file execute /usr/bin/gnome-open file execute /usr/bin/notify-send file execute /usr/bin/opera file execute /usr/bin/xdg-open file ioctl /dev/snd/\* 0-0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF file ioctl /dev/video0 0-0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF file ioctl anon_inode:inotify 0x541B file ioctl socket:[family=1:type=2:protocol=0] 0x8910 file ioctl socket:[family=1:type=2:protocol=0] 0x8933 file ioctl socket:[family=2:type=1:protocol=6] 0x541B file ioctl socket:[family=2:type=2:protocol=17] 0x541B file ioctl socket:[family=2:type=2:protocol=17] 0x8912 file ioctl socket:[family=2:type=2:protocol=17] 0x8927 file ioctl socket:[family=2:type=2:protocol=17] 0x8B01 file ioctl socket:[family=2:type=2:protocol=17] 0x8B1B file ioctl socket:[family=2:type=2:protocol=17] 0x8B15 file ioctl socket:[family=2:type=2:protocol=17] 0x8B05 file link/rename /home/\*/.cache/fontconfig/\* /home/\*/.cache/fontconfig/\* file mkdir /home/\*/.cache/fontconfig/\* 0600 file mkdir @SKYPE_DIRS 0700-0777 file mksock /tmp/qtsingleapp-\* 0755 file read /dev/urandom file read/write/unlink/truncate /dev/shm/pulse-shm-\* file read /etc/fonts/conf.avail/\*.conf file read /etc/fonts/conf.d/\*.conf file read /etc/fonts/fonts.conf file read /etc/group file read /etc/host.conf file read /etc/hosts file read /etc/machine-id file read /etc/nsswitch.conf file read /etc/resolv.conf file read /home/\*/.ICEauthority file read /home/\*/.XCompose file read /home/\*/.Xauthority file read /home/\*/.Xdefaults file read /home/\*/.fontconfig/\* file read /home/\*/.config/fontconfig/\* file read /home/\*/.config/pulse/cookie file read /usr/lib/locale/locale-archive file read /usr/lib32/gconv/UTF-16.so file read /usr/lib32/gconv/gconv-modules file read /usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l2convert.so file read /usr/lib32/libv4l/plugins/libv4l-mplane.so file read /usr/lib32/pulseaudio/libpulsecommon-5.0.so file read /usr/lib32/qt/plugins/bearer/libq\*bearer.so file read /usr/lib32/qt/plugins/iconengines/libqsvgicon.so file read /usr/lib32/qt/plugins/imageformats/libq\*.so file read /usr/lib32/qt/plugins/inputmethods/libqimsw-multi.so file read /usr/lib32/skype/skype file read /usr/share/X11/locale/\*/Compose file read /usr/share/X11/locale/\*/XLC_LOCALE file read /usr/share/X11/locale/compose.dir file read /usr/share/X11/locale/locale.alias file read /usr/share/X11/locale/locale.dir file read /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf file read /usr/share/alsa/cards/\*.conf file read /usr/share/alsa/pcm/\*.conf file read /usr/share/fonts/\*/\*/\* file read /usr/share/locale/\*/LC_MESSAGES/\*.mo file read /usr/share/ca-certificates/mozilla/\*.crt file read /var/cache/fontconfig/\*.cache-4 file read @ICONS_FILES file read proc:/sys/vm/overcommit_memory file read /sys/devices/\*/\*/\*/\*/\*/modalias file read /sys/devices/\*/\*/\*/\*/\*/video4linux/video0/dev file read /sys/devices/\*/\*/\*/\*/idProduct file read /sys/devices/\*/\*/\*/\*/idVendor file read /sys/devices/\*/\*/\*/\*/speed file read /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq file read /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_max_freq file read /sys/devices/system/cpu/online file read/write /dev/snd/\* file read/write /dev/video0 file read/write/truncate /home/\*/.config/Trolltech.conf file read/write/unlink /home/\*/.cache/fontconfig/\* file read/write/unlink /tmp/qtsingleapp-\* file read/write/unlink/truncate @SKYPE_FILES file rename @SKYPE_DIRS @SKYPE_DIRS file rename @SKYPE_FILES @SKYPE_FILES file rmdir @SKYPE_DIRS misc env \* network inet dgram bind 0.0.0.0 0-65535 network inet dgram bind 127.0.0.1 0 network inet dgram bind/send 0.0.0.0-255.255.255.255 0-65535 network inet stream bind/listen 0.0.0.0 0-65535 network inet stream connect 0.0.0.0-255.255.255.255 0-65535 network unix stream bind/listen/connect /tmp/qtsingleapp-\* network unix stream connect /tmp/.ICE-unix/\* network unix stream connect /var/run/dbus/system_bus_socket network unix stream connect /var/run/nscd/socket network unix stream connect \000/tmp/.ICE-unix/\* network unix stream connect \000/tmp/.X11-unix/X0 network unix stream connect \000/tmp/dbus-\* network unix stream connect /run/user/1000/pulse/native <kernel> /usr/lib32/skype/skype /usr/bin/xdg-open use_profile 0 use_group 0 <kernel> /usr/lib32/skype/skype /usr/bin/gnome-open use_profile 0 use_group 0 <kernel> /usr/lib32/skype/skype /usr/bin/notify-send use_profile 0 use_group 0
- After finishing editing reload TOMOYO config files by executing these commands:
# tomoyo-loadpolicy -df < /etc/tomoyo/domain_policy.conf # tomoyo-loadpolicy -ef < /etc/tomoyo/exception_policy.conf
Skype is now sandboxed.
Please note that this config is generated on 64-bit Arch system, and some of your ioctls and library paths may differ from mentioned above. So in order to fine-tune TOMOYO config for your Skype start tomoyo-auditd.service
.
Then go to /var/log/tomoyo
folder and start watching reject_003.log
:
$ tail -f reject_003.log
The output of this command will show you rejected actions for Skype, so you will be able to add them to domain_policy.conf
file if needed.
See [2] for a detailed guide to TOMOYO configuration.
Skype plugin for Pidgin
See Pidgin#Skype plugin.
Troubleshooting
GUI does not match GTK Theme
See Uniform look for Qt and GTK applications for information about theming Qt based applications like VirtualBox or Skype. Also, you may need to install the lib32-gtk-enginesAUR package.
Test call fails
Call to Echo Test Service can fail with error "call failed" when the user profiles are usually corrupt. Solution is to remove the profile and file and re-add your account in Skype as seen in Ubuntu Forums.
# rm ~/.Skype/ -rf
No video with GSPCA webcams
Firstly, remove the Skype configuration directory. Otherwise preloading V4L libraries (see below) will not help, because old settings will override preloaded libraries. Note that all personal account settings will be lost.
rm -rf ~/.Skype
For i686, install v4l-utils, userspace tools and conversion library for Video 4 Linux, and run Skype with
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype
to start Skype with v4l1 compatibility.
For x86_64, install lib32-v4l-utils from [multilib] repository and run Skype with
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype
To make it running from DE menus and independent of Skype updates, you can add alias (e.g. in ~/.bashrc
):
alias skype='LD_PRELOAD=/usr/libxx/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype'
where libxx should be edited as appropriate.
No video with Compiz
Try launching Skype setting an environment variable like this:
$ XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1 skype
Skype does not use a GTK+ theme, even though other Qt apps do
Recent versions of Skype allow you to change the theme via the Options menu. However, selecting the GTK+ option may not work properly. This is probably because you do not have a 32-bit theme engine installed. Try to find the engine your theme uses in the multilib repository or the AUR. If you have no idea which engine your theme is using, the easiest fix is to install lib32-gtk-enginesAUR. This does however contain quite a lot of packages, so the best would be to find and install only the needed package.
Once installed, it will still not work unless you have a 32-bit version of GConf installed. You could build and install lib32-gconfAUR if desired, but there is an easier workaround. First, create or edit ~/.gtkrc-2.0
so that it contains the following line:
$ gtk-theme-name = "My theme"
Replace My theme by the name of your theme, but leave the quotes. Second, run Skype like this:
$ export GTK2_RC_FILES="/etc/gtk-2.0/gtkrc:$HOME/.gtkrc-2.0" $ skype
The GTK+ theme should now appear correctly. You can make this permanent either by running Skype from a script containing the above 2 lines, or by exporting GTK2_RC_FILES in ~/.xprofile
or ~/.xinitrc
, depending on how you start X.
If you cannot change the theme in the Options menu, run Skype using the following command:
$ /usr/bin/skype --disable-cleanlooks -style GTK
If you wish menus within desktop environments to load Skype with a GTK+ theme by default then modify the 'Exec' line of /usr/share/applications/skype.desktop
so that it reads:
$ Exec=/usr/bin/skype --disable-cleanlooks -style GTK
Similarly if you have set Skype to autostart then modify ~/.config/autostart/skype.desktop
in the same way.
No incoming video stream
If skype shows a black square for the video preview, but something else (like xawtv -c /dev/video0
) shows video correctly, you might need to start Skype with:
export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1 && skype
Another possible workaround is to preload v4l1compat.so:
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype
A further alternative is:
cd /usr/lib/lib32/libv4l && LD_PRELOAD=v4l1compat.so skype;
Monster/low-octave "growling" distortion over mic
Some users with newer kernels are experiencing a monster-like growling distortion of their sound stream on the other end of Skype. This can be fixed by creating a dummy ALSA device or by removing ~/.Skype/shared.xml
. See https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=819500#p819500 for more information.
Crackling/noisy sound (mainly using 64-bit OS)
Solution 1
With root privileges, edit the /usr/bin/skype
script to add the PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC
variable, changing this line:
exec "$LIBDIR/skype/skype" "$@"
to this:
PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=60 exec "$LIBDIR/skype/skype" "$@"
Solution 2
Edit /etc/pulse/default.pa
and change the following line
load-module module-udev-detect
to
load-module module-udev-detect tsched=0
See also: PulseAudio/Troubleshooting#Glitches, skips or crackling.
Skype sounds stops media player or other sound sources
You can try commenting out the following modules in /etc/pulse/default.pa
#load-module module-role-cork
Finally you have to restart pulseaudio:
$ pulseaudio --kill $ pulseaudio --start
If restarting does not solve the sound problem try to log out and log in again.
If that does not help, you can try changing flat-volumes to no in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf
.
flat-volumes = no
If that still does not work, you can manually unload the module:
$ pactl unload-module module-role-cork
Skype does not start after upgrade to 4.3.
After upgrading Skype, you may see the welcome screen and contact list appear very briefly (or not at all), followed by Skype crashing. Should you run it from the terminal, the behaviour will be the same, except the message 'Aborted' will be displayed after it crashes.
This issue affects users that upgrade from versions prior to 4.3, and is related to database changes which are incompatible with the old version of the database.
Make sure Skype is not running, and run:
$ cd ~/.Skype/yourskypeusername $ cp main.db main.db.backup $ sqlite3 main.db update Messages set body_xml=substr(body_xml,instr(body_xml,'<files'),12)|| substr(body_xml,0,instr(body_xml,'<files'))|| substr(body_xml,instr(body_xml,'alt=')+5) where type=68 and body_xml not like '<file%'; .quit
Now you can upgrade Skype. [3]
Note that Skype 4.3 requires a processor with SSE2 support. Otherwise Skype will crash with an 'Aborted' message. In that case use skype42AUR[broken link: archived in aur-mirror] instead.
You are already signed in on this computer
If Skype is closed without the dc.lock file being deleted, it will fail to log back in.
To fix this, close Skype and run:
$ rm ~/.Skype/shared_dynco/dc.lock
Empty white screen window
If you get a white empty window when launching skype, try to autologin like this instead:
$ echo username password | skype --pipelogin
Skype doesn't output any sound after upgrading PulseAudio
Currently, Skype doesn't work PulseAudio 9.0, the only solution is to downgrade to 8.0 and to prevent future updates you may add all pulse-related packages to pacman.conf.
IgnorePkg = lib32-libpulse libpulse pulseaudio pulseaudio-bluetooth pulseaudio-equalizer pulseaudio-gconf