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iestynapmwg

Member

Registered: 2021-09-27

Posts: 27

Pipewire and "stuck" audio

I recently switched from pulseaudio to pipewire and for the most part it was pretty straight forward. There has been just one issue: some programs' audio output gets "stuck", for want of a better description. There is no output from my speakers until some other program tries to output audio, at which point the "stuck" sound comes out first.

As an example, terminology has an audible bell. If i press backspace on an empty command line, i should hear it ding, along with a visual flash. I now only see the flash, there's no sound. But if i then start a YouTube video in a browser, i'll hear the ding as the sound starts. It also gets unstuck simply by opening the volume/mixer pop-up in Enlightenment. Curiously, if i open up the full mixer panel (emixer), the sound never gets stuck and terminology dings merrily away. As soon as i close the panel, though, it's back to being stuck again.

Besides terminology's bell, the other sound that gets similarly stuck is the start-up sound that Enlightenment makes when i log in. There's no sound at all now until i open the volume pop-up, at which point the start-up sound plays.

I've verified pipewire and pipewire-pulse services are running, and other sounds play just fine. I tried switching to wireplumber from the default media-session in case that made a difference, but still no luck.

Any suggestions on how to start figuring out what's up?

Last edited by iestynapmwg (2021-12-23 00:08:59)

Maniaxx

Member

Registered: 2014-05-14

Posts: 738

Re: Pipewire and "stuck" audio

Looks like some audio sources are not auto-connecting. If you have config files in /etc/pipewire or ~/.config/pipewire remove them and reboot.
Also check with 'pavucontrol' that you're using the correct 'profile'.

Last edited by Maniaxx (2021-12-23 08:36:57)

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sys2064

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,728

Re: Pipewire and "stuck" audio

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire … ssues/1549 - allegedly fixed on master.

Last edited by V1del (2021-12-23 14:10:24)

iestynapmwg

Member

Registered: 2021-09-27

Posts: 27

Re: Pipewire and "stuck" audio

Looks like some audio sources are not auto-connecting. If you have config files in /etc/pipewire or ~/.config/pipewire remove them and reboot.
Also check with 'pavucontrol' that you're using the correct 'profile'.

I did check to make sure there were no leftover pulseaudio config files. I've just verified there are no pipewire ones, either. I don't have pavucontrol installed, and so no profiles for it.

iestynapmwg

Member

Registered: 2021-09-27

Posts: 27

Re: Pipewire and "stuck" audio

allegedly fixed on master.

Thanks, yes, this does sound similar to what i'm experiencing. It says the fix was committed 5 days ago, and my pipewire (0.3.42) is a week old... I'll wait to see if the next update fixes things.

iestynapmwg

Member

Registered: 2021-09-27

Posts: 27

Re: Pipewire and "stuck" audio

Well, just updated from 0.3.42-1 to 0.3.42-2, and the problem is still there. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to track down where the hold-up is happening? Anything i can try with the low level pa-* or pw-* commands?

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,728

Re: Pipewire and "stuck" audio

The issue mentioned has been fixed upstream but is not yet part of an official release. Either wait for the official release, build the package with a cherry picked commit (like it was done for 0.3.42-2  or try a build of pipewire-git to get the latest changes.

iestynapmwg

Member

Registered: 2021-09-27

Posts: 27

Re: Pipewire and "stuck" audio

Re-visiting this now, as pipewire and pipewire-pulse have been updated since i last posted (to 0.3.43). Wireplumber has also been updated, to 0.4.7.

I'm still seeing the same problems, with the slight change that the very first sound that is played now plays back at half speed (after it has become "unstuck" by opening another sound-related app). So this is perhaps not related to the previously-mentioned bug? Any ideas on how to track down what is causing this?

Thanks!