Arch Linux

cranesbill

Member

Registered: 2022-05-19

Posts: 6

Sound issue - no USB-C sound

Hi everyone,

Here is my question:

This started about a week ago, probably after an update.
Sound no longer plays properly while doing anything on this computer. For example, sound does not work when playing videos or .mp3 files.

On youtube, if youtube's sound is turned off, the video will play.
If youtube's sound is turned on, the video will freeze, and time on the video will not advance.

Using VLC, if I play an .mp3 file, the file loads, and the time advances, but there is no sound.

I'm running kernel:
5.17.8-arch1-1

My speakers have a male 3.5mm speaker plug, which connect to an adapter.
The adapter is a female 3.5mm speaker-jack to male USB-C.
Then the male USB-C plug connects to the female USB-C slot on the computer.

The video driver is:
snd_hda_intel

I tried another set of speakers with a 3.5mm plug. This did not correct the issue.
I tried unmuting all the sound channels using alsamixer. This did not fix the issue.

I can temporarily correct this sound problem by unplugging the adapter from the computer (which disconnects the speakers) - and then plugging it back in.
Then the sound and video both play properly.

However, if I switch to another application, like for example, a text editor, and then switch back to youtube, the problem resumes as before - and there's no sound.

If possible, I would like to fix this issue without rolling back the kernel.
Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Slithery

Administrator

From: Norfolk, UK

Registered: 2013-12-01

Posts: 5,776

Re: Sound issue - no USB-C sound

Did you read the news article on the home page?
https://archlinux.org/news/undone-repla … replumber/

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No, it didn't "fix" anything. It just shifted the brokeness one space to the right. - jasonwryan
Closing -- for deletion; Banning -- for muppetry. - jasonwryan

aur - dotfiles

cranesbill

Member

Registered: 2022-05-19

Posts: 6

Re: Sound issue - no USB-C sound

Slithery: Thank you. Due in part to your response, I switched from pulseaudio to pipewire, and it solved the problem.

pradtf

Member

Registered: 2009-06-10

Posts: 134

Re: Sound issue - no USB-C sound

Did you read the news article on the home page?
https://archlinux.org/news/undone-repla … replumber/

so this:

Our pipewire audio packages (pipewire-alsa, pipewire-jack and pipewire-pulse) ship configuration that prompt media-session to activate PipeWire's audio features. When these packages are not installed and the configuration is missing, PipeWire can be used for screen recording without interfering with ALSA or PulseAudio.

WirePlumber disregards this mechanism and always configures PipeWire to grab audio devices, meaning users of PulseAudio or bare ALSA experience broken audio.

must explain why
aplaymidi -p128:0 file.midi
doesn't work anymore.

it does nothing - not even error messages (which i found a bit surprising).

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in friendship,
prad