FAQ

Here are listed the most common questions about SFLphone

Audio

Is SFLphone 0.9.1 compatible with pulse audio on Ubuntu 8.04 ( Hardy Heron )?

Not yet. Although this will be soon available, SFLphone is not PulseAudio? compatible right now. If you launch SFLphone while PA is running, the application can not open the audio device. SFLphone is an ALSA application, so it won't difficult to be compatible. But, as for now,

killall pulseaudio

You can also startup the daemon in the terminal with:

pasuspender sflphoned

It will suspend pulseaudio and every applications connected to it so sflphoned could open the audio devices.

I have no sound using my USB sound card with the default plugin. What should I do?

The default plugin selects your default sound card. If you edited the alsa configuration file (~/.soundrc), it will be the device you set in this file; otherwise it is always the internal sound card of your computer. So, if you want to use your USB sound card, you have to select either plughw plugin, or dmix plugin, and pick the right audio device in the peripheral list.

SFLphone doesn't manage to open the audio device. What is wrong?

If SFLphone can't open the audio devices with the default plugin, it means that :

• either PulseAudio is running:

The solution is to stop it and restart SFLphone.

• or an other instance sflphoned is running:

try

ps aux | grep sfl 

If an other daemon is running, it conflicts with the current one. So kill it and restart SFLphone

• or an other application doesn't share the audio stream

When I am calling, I have got many underrun messages on the terminal and the sound is quite choppy. What can I do?

Underrun messages mean that no enough data is shipped to the sound card. It is not a disfunctionnement but it can result in a choppy sound. One of the solution is to switch the audio plugin. Plughw will be probably result in the best sound quality. You can also override the plugin parameters in the Alsa configuration file (~/.asoundrc; if it doesn't exist, you can create it). Here is an example of a configuration file, which may improve the sound quality for the default plugin:

pcm.snd_card {
  type hw
    card 0
}

pcm.dmixer {
  type dmix
    ipc_key 1024
    slave.pcm "snd_card"
    slave {
      period_size 1760
        buffer_size 7040
        rate 44100
    }
}

pcm.dsnooper {
  type dsnoop
    ipc_key 2048
    slave.pcm "snd_card"
    slave {
      period_size 1024
        buffer_size 4096
        rate 44100
    }
}

pcm.duplex {
  type asym
    playback.pcm "dmixer"
    capture.pcm "dsnooper"
}

pcm.!default {
  type plug
    slave.pcm "duplex"
}

System

In which directory the audio codecs should be saved so that the application could work?

Audio codecs are loaded in memory at startup. The two directories scanned by the application are:

/usr/lib/sflphone/codecs 

and

$HOME/.sflphone

Can I listen to my music while SFLphone is running?

Yes. SFLphone provides the ALSA dmix plugin, which enables the software sound mixing.

If you select the dmix or the default plugin in the preferences window (this one also implements the sound mixing), you will be able to get your email notification for instance or use your favorite sound application.

Can I add my own audio codec?

SFLphone architecture allows you to add your own codec. You have to use our API though to make it works. All you have to do is extend our API (audiocodec.h), implementing the necessary virtual methods (encode / decode) and compiling your codec as a dynamic library. You can find HOWTO examples in the source code (src/audio/codec). Then drop it the dedicated directory and restart SFLphone.

How can I get the debug messages?

To get the debug messages, you have to launch executables from a terminal. First, start up the daemon:

sflphoned

, then, in an other terminal, the GTK+ client:

sflphone-gtk

There is no SFLphone icon in the system tray!

The notification area of the system tray is probably not activated.

To do so: right-click on the system tray, in the menu, select Add to panel..., then add the notification area option.

User settings

Where are saved my preferences?

SFLphone creates an hidden directory .sflphone in your home directory. All the user preferences and accounts details are saved in the sflphonedrc file in this directory.

How can I reset my preferences to the default settings?

To reset the settings, you can remove the user file sflphonedrc, but everything will be removed and you may want to keep your account settings. An other way is to edit the user file and remove for example the preferences section. By doing so, the parameters you erased will be overwritten by the default one's when you will start over SFLphone. You should do that when no daemon is running.

Can I set up multiple accounts?

You can set up at most one SIP account and one IAX account. Multiple SIP accounts and multiple IAX accounts are not supported by SFLphone 0.9.1. But in the version 0.9.2, sflphone will support multiple SIP accounts.

Can I apply different stun server on different sip accounts?

Yes, you can specify different stun servers on different sip accounts. But actually, only the last stun server will be used which means the last stun sever will be applied on all sip accounts.

Can I register multiple sip accounts that some need stun and some doesn't?

If you are in such a network, you can only register successfully with the accounts that need stun. It's the limitation of pjsip library.

Can I register with multiple accounts with different sip port?

No, you cannot. You can only apply the same sip port on all sip accounts. You can modify sip port number in "preferece" configuration page.

Why I cannot register my sip account successfully?

There are many factors may affect the registration. Please make sure that

• Your username/password and sip server are correct.
• Check your current network configuration to determine whether to use stun or not.
• In some local or private network, you may need to change the sip port number to enable the registration.