How do I enable audio access for Flatpak applications?
I'm trying to make OpenRGB display a light show based on the music playing, however, audio device selection is unavailable in the application, and upon checking its permissions with flatpak permission-show org.openrgb.OpenRGB, there's no entry for audio access. Maybe I've glossed over some details, but upon a look at the Flatpak docs, I've tried these commands:
flatpak permission-set socket org.openrgb.OpenRGB pulseaudio
flatpak permission-set background org.openrgb.OpenRGB pulseaudio
flatpak permission-set input org.openrgb.OpenRGB pulseaudio
They all complete without errors, although they don't add any new entries to the permissions list. If prefixed with sudo, they all fail with: error: Failed to execute child process “dbus-launch” (No such file or directory).
I've also tried sudo flatpak override org.openrgb.OpenRGB --socket=pulseaudio, though that seems not to have any effect either.
I believe OpenRGB uses OpenAL to read the audio; not sure if that's relevant for the specific case.
1 answer
The following users marked this post as Works for me:
| User | Comment | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Andreas |
Thread: Works for me I seem not to be able to get OpenRGB to actually run the particular effects, but I have validated that OpenRGB now detects and is able to read the au... |
Mar 22, 2025 at 12:14 |
To enable access to PulseAudio for OpenRGB (or any Flatpak application for that matter) you need to add --socket=pulseaudio to the finish-args section of the application's manifest.
You can test this permission change without modifying the manifest by running the application with (a temporary permission adjustment): flatpak run --socket=pulseaudio org.openrgb.OpenRGB. If the application works correctly with this permission, you can either request a permanent change to the manifest or use a tool like Flatseal or the command line to add this permission to your installation.

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