Arch Linux

hurrrtin

Member

From: USA, Ohio

Registered: 2006-12-13

Posts: 17

Pulseaudio sound and video issue after update?

After updating yesterday and restarting, I have a strange issue:

Trying to stream a video or play a local video, the player just sits buffering while showing a still image. I have found it's something related to pulseaudio. If I do

systemctl restart --user pulseaudio

then the videos begin to play. But if there is a few seconds where sound is not playing, the issue repeats itself. Getting status during the event looks like this:

systemctl status --user pulseaudio
● pulseaudio.service - Sound Service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pulseaudio.service; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Wed 2022-05-11 09:21:20 EDT; 8min ago
TriggeredBy: ● pulseaudio.socket
   Main PID: 3014 (pulseaudio)
      Tasks: 9 (limit: 38376)
     Memory: 12.2M
        CPU: 601ms
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/pulseaudio.service
             ├─ 3014 /usr/bin/pulseaudio --daemonize=no --log-target=journal
             └─ 3019 /usr/lib/pulse/gsettings-helper

May 11 09:21:19 Behemoth systemd[1025]: Starting Sound Service...
May 11 09:21:20 Behemoth pulseaudio[3014]: stat('/etc/pulse/default.pa.d'): No such file or directory
May 11 09:21:20 Behemoth systemd[1025]: Started Sound Service.
May 11 09:23:12 Behemoth pulseaudio[3014]: Failed to create sink input: sink is suspended.
May 11 09:23:12 Behemoth pulseaudio[3014]: Failed to create sink input: sink is suspended.
May 11 09:23:12 Behemoth pulseaudio[3014]: Failed to create sink input: sink is suspended.

EDIT:
I have found that if I unplug and replug the aux cable on the back of my PC, that also temporarily fixes it, until it's idle again and the problem happens again.

Last edited by hurrrtin (2022-05-11 13:51:48)

Jason P.

Member

Registered: 2015-02-26

Posts: 171

Re: Pulseaudio sound and video issue after update?

Please take a look at this other post: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 9#p2035399

hurrrtin

Member

From: USA, Ohio

Registered: 2006-12-13

Posts: 17

Re: Pulseaudio sound and video issue after update?

Thanks for the post! I read through it and found that commenting out this line in /etc/pulse/default.pa worked for some:

#load-module module-suspend-on-idle

Seems to be working for me now. Thanks!

arcstur

Member

Registered: 2022-05-11

Posts: 1

Re: Pulseaudio sound and video issue after update?

That worked for me too, after rebooting. It all stopped working after the update that changed to wireplumber, but after commenting out this line, it's working again. Thanks.

ozmartian

Member

From: Sydney, Australia

Registered: 2015-08-19

Posts: 6

Website

Re: Pulseaudio sound and video issue after update?

FYI,

Was just having the same issue on my setup, currently using AUX/Line Out audio too. Commenting out that line fixed the issue. Was only happening when streaming video vias Chrome/browser and then the audio sink would become unavailable and ffmpeg codecs all fail etc.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 22,844

Re: Pulseaudio sound and video issue after update?

Switch wireplumber for pipewire-media-session which got briefly replaced before noticing how much it would break should generally be the preferable approach here.

ozmartian

Member

From: Sydney, Australia

Registered: 2015-08-19

Posts: 6

Website

Re: Pulseaudio sound and video issue after update?

Switch wireplumber for pipewire-media-session which got briefly replaced before noticing how much it would break should generally be the preferable approach here.

This is the way. Thx!

Joe S

Member

Registered: 2013-01-18

Posts: 15

Re: Pulseaudio sound and video issue after update?

Who is responsible for this pipewire-media-session / wireplumber clusterf*?

I've been using linux for 20+ years, work in IT and couldn't figure out how to enable the hdmi output of my desktop using wireplumber which I was forced to install. Either it's too complicated to setup or I'm just plain stupid. Luckily wireplumber was dropped and I could re-install pipewire-media-session which just works.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 22,844

Re: Pulseaudio sound and video issue after update?

The packagers who assumed that you could do this replacement without repercussions (its generally "intended" that pipewire-media-session is replaced with wireplumber eventually) the problem should only arise in that form if you are using pulseaudio while using wireplumber as wireplumber wants to handle the audio devices which leads to a logical conflict with pulseaudio. Technically speaking wireplumber should have configuration options now that allow you to disable it's handling of audio so you can keep using pulseaudio. You'd ideally not notice much change if you were to replace pulseaudio with pipewire-pulse from the get go, but there are still a few usecases pulseaudio fares better in (though with the comparative development pace of the two projects it's likely pipewire will eventually cover all of the features pulse has and being much more actively maintained)

surf.bluecrab

Member

From: Halifax, NS, Canada

Registered: 2014-04-19

Posts: 20

Re: Pulseaudio sound and video issue after update?

Switch wireplumber for pipewire-media-session which got briefly replaced before noticing how much it would break should generally be the preferable approach here.

I have a specific setup where I use alsa directly for mpd and retroarch and pulseaudio for everything else.

Obviously when mpd runs no other process can access the audio, which is what I like.

I started having audio issues when chrome would start for the last 2 days pushing the volume up and messing up my setup but V1del answer fixed my problem:

1- Install pipewire-media-session
2- Remove wireplumber

I do not know for how long I will be able to keep things has they are but for now problem fixed, thank you!

Last edited by surf.bluecrab (2022-05-13 03:58:35)

mettacrawler

Member

Registered: 2020-09-26

Posts: 26

Re: Pulseaudio sound and video issue after update?

Sorry to necro, Googling on the error message sent me here as a search for: "pulseaudio" "Failed to create sink input" "sink is suspended"
returns this thread as the #1 result for me.

Rather than blindly accept the "switch to the older package" solution I looked at how Fedora gets away with using PipeWire and it turns out there are using pipewire-pulse - The PipeWire PulseAudio replacement.

The wiki describes it here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PipeWi … io_clients

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 22,844

Re: Pulseaudio sound and video issue after update?

That's nothing really new and also mentioned over the course of the thread. The switching suggestion arises from people wanting to use pulseaudio explicitly instead of the pipewire implementation in which case opting for pipewire-media-session is the more appropriate fix since that will not needlessly occupy the audio devices.