I'm trying to look for differences in two machines that show some different behavior related to audio. I have intended that they be set up the same. However, in the system settings>>startup and shutdown>>service manager list, one of them shows that "Sound Policy" is running, and the other shows that it is not. I would appreciate it if anyone can clue me in as to what causes this service to run or not??
thanks

I've checked the Sound Policy service code, and it appears to monitor for the presence of ALSA devices.
On my system it is not running - which is not surprising as I use Pulseaudio.

Which system is functional - and do you use Pulseaudio?

This is related to my other thread about audio in kde 4.10. Both machines are running pulseaudio. The one on which Sound Policy is running behaves better.

I see, that is not what I expected. Can you provide a brief summary of the problems?
One thing I can think of is that the necessary module to apply sound preferences is not loaded in Pulseaudio.

Dealing w/ this stuff is enough to make me think I'm hallucinating. Sound Policy is now not running on either machine (no clue why) , and I can't reproduce the original condition.

Okay. If the issue reoccurs, please feel free to reopen the topic. It was likely a Pulseaudio issue of some description, which has now resolved itself.

Actually, as I look for it more, it seems to come and go, sometimes running, sometimes not. It seems to be related to ~/.kde/share/config/phonondevicesrc. If this file is not present (i.e. I've deleted or moved it), I have never seen Sound Policy running. If it is there, Sound Policy may or may not be running. I think it may actually be created by Sound Policy if it's not there, but I'm not 100% sure. Anyway, as far as I can tell Sound Policy has no effect on anything else, so I guess it's a moot point.