Arch Linux

Mezzy12

Member

Registered: 2022-01-14

Posts: 47

Pipewire grabbing audio interface, interfering with jack

Hello!

I just started back up my USB audio interface (Steinberg UR22mkII) for the first time in ages in order to get back in to music making. Unfortunately, jack2 now seems to no longer work the same as when I last used it, despite not touching any config files. When I start jack from qjackctl, I have to start it twice because the first time it gives the error

D-BUS: JACK server could not be started. Sorry
Could not connect to JACK server as client. - Overall operation failed. - Unable to connect to server.
Cannot connect to server socket err = No such file or directory
Cannot connect to server request channel
jack server is not running or cannot be started
JackShmReadWritePtr::~JackShmReadWritePtr - Init not done for -1, skipping unlock
JackShmReadWritePtr::~JackShmReadWritePtr - Init not done for -1, skipping unlock
Sun Nov  1 23:43:14 2026: Starting jack server...
Sun Nov  1 23:43:14 2026: JACK server starting in realtime mode with priority 10
Sun Nov  1 23:43:14 2026: self-connect-mode is "Don't restrict self connect requests"
Sun Nov  1 23:43:14 2026: Acquired audio card Audio3
Sun Nov  1 23:43:14 2026: creating alsa driver ... hw:UR22mkII|hw:UR22mkII|128|3|96000|0|0|nomon|swmeter|-|32bit
Sun Nov  1 23:43:14 2026: ERROR: 
ATTENTION: The capture device "hw:UR22mkII" is already in use. The following applications  are using your soundcard(s) so you should  check them and stop them as necessary before  trying to start JACK again:
pipewire (process ID 2659)
Sun Nov  1 23:43:14 2026: Released audio card Audio3
Sun Nov  1 23:43:14 2026: ERROR: Cannot initialize driver
Sun Nov  1 23:43:14 2026: ERROR: JackServer::Open failed with -1
Sun Nov  1 23:43:14 2026: ERROR: Failed to open server

I then start it up for a second time and it does run this time, but the graph connections are completely messed up. I'm only seeing the MIDI ports on my USB interface – none of the audio ports – and instead everything is being routed through a block called "system." Every MIDI device is duplicated (albeit with the name stripped out and just a number representing each one) under this system block and the capture and playback connections are under this label too. Reaper can't see the actual USB midi devices and instead just has the numbered midi outputs, and configuring the inputs and outpus on a track, I don't see the audio interface name as I usually do, it's just system:capture_1 and so on.

This was highly unusual so I decided to open up helvum, going on the fact that the qjackctl log said pipewire was using my audio interface, and I see something I've never seen pipewire do before – it's grabbing all the midi inputs from my various usb devices.

So I think Jack is being run as a client of pipewire. I have no idea how this happened. I don't have pipewire-jack installed and I've always used jack2 for my "pro" audio setup.

Is there any way to reverse this configuration to how it was "before" – with pipewire handling regular system audio playing through my laptop speakers – internet browsers and the like – and with jack handling my audio interface for pro-audio applications that call for jack?

Thanks for any help.