Arch Linux

W54J04S07T

Member

Registered: 2016-06-27

Posts: 107

(Fixed) Kodi causes sound to fail system wide.

The last 2 updates to kodi on Arch have caused sound to cut out on a system wide basis.

Only a reboot restores sound.  Sound driver is pipewire.

All other sound using apps work, but if you start up kodi and then start up a tv/video/music output,
then sound hangs and does so until a reboot.  This has been seen on 3 different
systems, with either openbox or plasma destop environments. 

Any attempt to downgrade kodi to last working config seems to cause issues with libdisplay-info

Any ideas?

Last edited by W54J04S07T (2024-07-12 16:58:33)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 23,888

Re: (Fixed) Kodi causes sound to fail system wide.

Use the pulse backend instead. Afaik pipewire is still quite experimental. Start it with the --audio-backend=pulseaudio parameter.

Edit: Hmm not sure what kind of a weird interaction kodi triggers here, but I can repro this, even with the pulse backend... FWIW rebooting isn't necessary, a simple restart of pipewire is sufficient

systemctl --user restart pipewire{,-pulse}

Last edited by V1del (2024-07-06 22:19:02)

zaxdan69

Member

Registered: 2016-06-04

Posts: 296

Re: (Fixed) Kodi causes sound to fail system wide.

I have the same problem, and using the backend parameter(either pulse or alsa) it didn't make any difference and also produced an error on kodi start. But the "env KODI_AE_SINK=ALSA" seems that works fine.

W54J04S07T

Member

Registered: 2016-06-27

Posts: 107

Re: (Fixed) Kodi causes sound to fail system wide.

But the "env KODI_AE_SINK=ALSA" seems that works fine.

Where do we insert this variable???

V1Del:  Thanx... systemctl does beat a reboot.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 23,888

Re: (Fixed) Kodi causes sound to fail system wide.

env KODI_AE_SINK=ALSA kodi

for example

akb825

Member

Registered: 2011-03-27

Posts: 87

Re: (Fixed) Kodi causes sound to fail system wide.

Some time ago Kodi audio was rather unstable with pipewire (I think once it was enabled through the build config), so I uninstalled pipewire and installed pulse. Then somewhat recently I think it broke with pulse, then re-installed pipewire. Now it seems broken with pipewire again... The alsa workaround does seem to work at least.

If you're using the desktop launcher, you can likely edit the properties and add the environment variable. Otherwise, the easiest way to set it system-wide is to put

KODI_AE_SINK=ALSA

in /etc/environment, though you may need to log out and back in to have it take effect.

Last edited by akb825 (2024-07-07 21:49:57)

zaxdan69

Member

Registered: 2016-06-04

Posts: 296

Re: (Fixed) Kodi causes sound to fail system wide.

I just copied the .desktop file from /usr/share/applications to ~/.local/share/applications and edited it to add the variable to exec line

exec=env KODI_AE_SINK=ALSA kodi 

W54J04S07T

Member

Registered: 2016-06-27

Posts: 107

Re: (Fixed) Kodi causes sound to fail system wide.

Well. I guess Kodi has a hit and miss relationship with sound drivers.

I have pipewire and pipewire-pulse and pipewire-alsa installed
and then I installed the KODI_AE_SINK variable and ... nothing...

Whats really annoying here, is that when you start Kodi, sound
( at least the various beeps/etc that inform you that its doing something )
all work.  As soon as you trigger a video/media/etc... then sound cuts out.

Last edited by W54J04S07T (2024-07-09 19:52:07)

TheSgtBilko

Member

Registered: 2013-08-13

Posts: 88

Re: (Fixed) Kodi causes sound to fail system wide.

Might be related to this:
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire … ssues/4087

W54J04S07T

Member

Registered: 2016-06-27

Posts: 107

Re: (Fixed) Kodi causes sound to fail system wide.

Might be related to this:
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire … ssues/4087

Now this is going to be interesting.  according to the devs,
Kodi and Pipewire have little glitches that do the same thing.
Interesting to see how they are dealing with it.

Wait and see I guess.

W54J04S07T

Member

Registered: 2016-06-27

Posts: 107

Re: (Fixed) Kodi causes sound to fail system wide.

New pipewire release today.

Kodi now seems to work.

Patience my friends...