If running quodlibet over forwarded ssh session, when trying to play tune, I receive the message: Output Error: Gstreamer output pipeline could not be initialized. The pipeline might be invalid, or the device may be in use. Check the player preferences.

I have set the Output pipeline to: alsasink device=default or other hw:0,0 settings, and the Output device to my analog device. FYI which works for console login or also vnc/fluxbox/w gnome stuff.

I this some udev or polkit thing?

I don't have a lot of resources on this box and would like to just run ssh -X machine /usr/bin/quodlibet. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

What about other gstreamer players? You can try to run "GST_DEBUG=3 quodlibet" to get gstreamer debugging output (needs 2.5 I think) Also, 2.5 gives you a list in the GUI for available output devices for the active sink.

No Problem. I knew this was not directly related to quodlibet but figured this out. It seems that pulseaudio's default behaviour if you ssh -X from a to b is to try and play on a if pulseaudio is already running there. I wanted to simply ssh to b (with the display forwarded to a) and play the sound at the destination. This worked: pulseaudio -k & ssh -X 10.2.2.142 "pulseaudio --start;quodlibet" && pulseaudio --start There may be a much better way to do this, but not very many howto's. Thanks for a great music player!