Arch Linux

Kardell

Member

From: London a new Babylon

Registered: 2007-02-20

Posts: 236

Losing audio on applications

Hi All,
I hope you are well.
Since I moved to pipewire I think I am exceeding some limit on how many applications (that use audio) I can have open at a time.
If I exceed this limit the application won't start e.g. vlc or freezes.
Is my reasoning correct or is this unrelated to pipewire?
Thank you

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"Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it." Edmund Burke

xerxes_

Member

Registered: 2018-04-29

Posts: 707

Re: Losing audio on applications

If you "exceed this limit" and start some audio application from terminal, does it print some errors, something interesting? Did you see something interesting in logs (sudo journalctl -b) ? Post output of 'pactl info'.

Kardell

Member

From: London a new Babylon

Registered: 2007-02-20

Posts: 236

Re: Losing audio on applications

If you "exceed this limit" and start some audio application from terminal, does it print some errors, something interesting? Did you see something interesting in logs (sudo journalctl -b) ? Post output of 'pactl info'.

pactl info
Server String: /run/user/1000/pulse/native
Library Protocol Version: 35
Server Protocol Version: 35
Is Local: yes
Client Index: 31575
Tile Size: 65472
User Name: xx
Host Name: xxxx
Server Name: PulseAudio (on PipeWire 1.0.5)
Server Version: 15.0.0
Default Sample Specification: float32le 2ch 48000Hz
Default Channel Map: front-left,front-right
Default Sink: alsa_output.pci-0000_0d_00.4.analog-stereo
Default Source: alsa_input.usb-PC-LM1E_PC-LM1E_PC-LM1E-02.analog-stereo
Cookie: 3f21:25b7

When I start multiple instances of VLC eventually I cannot start another instance. This is what I see in the journal:

May 16 22:46:37 hostname kioworker[3344902]: qt.qpa.plugin: From 6.5.0, xcb-cursor0 or libxcb-cursor0 is needed to load the Qt xcb platform plugin.
May 16 22:46:37 hostname kioworker[3344902]: qt.qpa.plugin: Could not load the Qt platform plugin "xcb" in "" even though it was found.
May 16 22:46:37 hostname kioworker[3344902]: This application failed to start because no Qt platform plugin could be initialized. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.
                                                
                                                Available platform plugins are: eglfs, minimal, wayland-egl, minimalegl, wayland, linuxfb, vnc, offscreen, xcb, vkkhrdisplay.
May 16 22:46:37 hostname systemd-coredump[3344907]: [?] Process 3344902 (kioworker) of user 1000 dumped core.
                                                       
                                                       Stack trace of thread 3344902:
                                                       #0  0x00007d9f4c8ab32c n/a (libc.so.6 + 0x8d32c)
                                                       #1  0x00007d9f4c85a6c8 raise (libc.so.6 + 0x3c6c8)
                                                       #2  0x00007d9f4c8424b8 abort (libc.so.6 + 0x244b8)
                                                       #3  0x00007d9f4ca8c6ac n/a (libQt6Core.so.6 + 0x8c6ac)
                                                       #4  0x00007d9f4ca8cebd _ZNK14QMessageLogger5fatalEPKcz (libQt6Core.so.6 + 0x8cebd)
                                                       #5  0x00007d9f4a6dabd5 n/a (libQt6Gui.so.6 + 0xdabd5)
                                                       #6  0x00007d9f4a7771d8 _ZN22QGuiApplicationPrivate21createEventDispatcherEv (libQt6Gui.so.6 + 0x1771d8)
                                                       #7  0x00007d9f4cb41135 _ZN23QCoreApplicationPrivate4initEv (libQt6Core.so.6 + 0x141135)
                                                       #8  0x00007d9f4a777281 _ZN22QGuiApplicationPrivate4initEv (libQt6Gui.so.6 + 0x177281)
                                                       #9  0x00007d9f470f752e _ZN19QApplicationPrivate4initEv (libQt6Widgets.so.6 + 0xf752e)
                                                       #10 0x00007d9f4d302810 kdemain (thumbnail.so + 0xb810)
                                                       #11 0x000055b4f2e06220 n/a (kioworker + 0x1220)

I keep an eye on it and report back. I reckon I just guessed it relates to PipeWire, but I remember experiencing it after I moved to Pipewire definitely experienced it once before I upgraded to a new video driver.

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"Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it." Edmund Burke

xerxes_

Member

Registered: 2018-04-29

Posts: 707

Re: Losing audio on applications

Next time if you couldn't start application experiment like this:
1) start terminal and write: 'export QT.QPA.PLUGIN=minimal' (you can choose from the list: eglfs, minimal, wayland-egl, minimalegl, wayland, linuxfb, vnc, offscreen, xcb, vkkhrdisplay)
2) then start your application and see if it starts and how behaves (and if not then whether error changed). If it failed to start you can choose other options from upper list.