I’ve gone the MycroftOS way of dealing with streams: Pulses’ module combine_sinks.
That setup seems stable in regards of my broken (or misguided) stream problem. And the streams seem to duck just right, instead of warping into each other with the ducking one respond too late (most of the time).
I still consider this as a kind of bandaid, yet remedied my problem that i dragged over several weeks with no conclusion.
Disableing vlc ducking wouldn’t have been an option since i want my node-red reporting my sensory stuff as they trigger (with music playing most of the time)
Another thing: After applying the MycroftOS approach (combine_sinks) i realized that due to vlc pre-flags cork i’ve ended up with a corked (Filter START_CORKED; to 40% vol) stream (despite unload cork on my end), which was overcome by commenting out load-module module-stream-restore. Also, the stream is sent with a video role applied.
Maybe this is throwing things off, so maybe a useful lead