Arch Linux

v3nver

Member

Registered: 2025-04-06

Posts: 3

Bluetooth audio stuttering during streaming audio buffering

I’ve been experiencing periodic bluetooth audio stuttering for the past two weeks (ever since I installed arch). About every 15–30 seconds, audio playback briefly glitches during youtube videos in any browser I’ve tried (chrome and firefox). I found out that stuttering correlates with youtube video buffering, when video’s progress bar shows new buffered sections turning gray. Streaming apple music via the web also has stutters, but they’re much shorter (~0.1seconds, at random periods), whereas in Firefox, they can last up to a full second and occur regularly.

The set-up:
OS: Arch Linux, Wayland (hyprland)
bluetooth toolkit: bluez
Audio drivers: alsa
Sound server: pipewire
Session manager: wireplumber
GUI sound control: pwvucontrol
Browser: firefox, chrome
headphones: AirPods Max
Codecs: AAC (SBC, SBC-XQ were tried as well)
rtkit is installed

What I have tried to fix it?
- journalctl showed that wpa_supplicant (which I use with NetworkManager) sent a CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE right after slutter occured, so I bound NetworkManager to bssid of an AP to disable background scanning, event disappeared, slutter remained.
- Tried Bluetooth coexistence
- Tried turning off power_save mode on the network interface, in case it was causing interference
- Reviewed systemctl status for audio components (no errors)
- Tried disabling hardware acceleration in firefox, in case of slutter in video decoding.

Audio services status:

systemctl --user status pipewire wireplumber
● pipewire.service - PipeWire Multimedia Service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pipewire.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sun 2025-04-06 20:26:05 EEST; 1min 4s ago
 Invocation: 390b6a778f924f7d81a8496a444831a6
TriggeredBy: ● pipewire.socket
   Main PID: 1115 (pipewire)
      Tasks: 3 (limit: 37999)
     Memory: 6.9M (peak: 8.4M)
        CPU: 43ms
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/pipewire.service
             └─1115 /usr/bin/pipewire

Apr 06 20:26:05 HOST02 systemd[1105]: Started PipeWire Multimedia Service.


● wireplumber.service - Multimedia Service Session Manager
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/wireplumber.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sun 2025-04-06 20:26:05 EEST; 1min 4s ago
 Invocation: e71a2193ae00475ea134de91bb380609
   Main PID: 1116 (wireplumber)
      Tasks: 6 (limit: 37999)
     Memory: 16.9M (peak: 17.1M)
        CPU: 302ms
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/wireplumber.service
             └─1116 /usr/bin/wireplumber

Apr 06 20:26:05 HOST systemd[1105]: Started Multimedia Service Session Manager.
Apr 06 20:26:05 HOST wireplumber[1116]: wp-internal-comp-loader: Loading profile 'main'
Apr 06 20:26:05 HOST wireplumber[1116]: default: Failed to get percentage from UPower: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner
Apr 06 20:26:05 HOST wireplumber[1116]: wp-device: SPA handle 'api.libcamera.enum.manager' could not be loaded; is it installed?
Apr 06 20:26:05 HOST wireplumber[1116]: s-monitors-libcamera: PipeWire's libcamera SPA plugin is missing or broken. Some camera types may not be suppor
ted.
Apr 06 20:26:06 HOST wireplumber[1116]: m-portal-permissionstore: <WpPortalPermissionStorePlugin:0x5bda11aa0380> Lookup: The name is not ac
tivatable (org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown)
Apr 06 20:27:01 HOST wireplumber[1116]: spa.bluez5.native: RFCOMM receive command but modem not available: AT+NREC=0


systemctl status bluetooth                  
● bluetooth.service - Bluetooth service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service; enabled; preset: disable
d)
     Active: active (running) since Sun 2025-04-06 20:25:59 EEST; 2min 17s ago
 Invocation: c21ed4753cbe4d18bd8c846bf3570be5
       Docs: man:bluetoothd(8)
   Main PID: 998 (bluetoothd)
     Status: "Running"
      Tasks: 1 (limit: 37999)
     Memory: 3.1M (peak: 4.3M)
        CPU: 64ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/bluetooth.service
             └─998 /usr/lib/bluetooth/bluetoothd

Apr 06 20:26:05 HOST bluetoothd[998]: Endpoint registered: sender=:1.18 path=/MediaEndpoint/A2DPSource/aptx_ll_0
Apr 06 20:26:05 HOST bluetoothd[998]: Endpoint registered: sender=:1.18 path=/MediaEndpoint/A2DPSource/aptx_ll_duplex_1
Apr 06 20:26:05 HOST bluetoothd[998]: Endpoint registered: sender=:1.18 path=/MediaEndpoint/A2DPSource/aptx_ll_duplex_0
Apr 06 20:26:05 HOST bluetoothd[998]: Endpoint registered: sender=:1.18 path=/MediaEndpoint/A2DPSource/faststream
Apr 06 20:26:05 HOST bluetoothd[998]: Endpoint registered: sender=:1.18 path=/MediaEndpoint/A2DPSource/faststream_duplex
Apr 06 20:26:05 HOST bluetoothd[998]: Endpoint registered: sender=:1.18 path=/MediaEndpoint/A2DPSink/opus_05
Apr 06 20:26:05 HOST bluetoothd[998]: Endpoint registered: sender=:1.18 path=/MediaEndpoint/A2DPSource/opus_05
Apr 06 20:26:05 HOST bluetoothd[998]: Endpoint registered: sender=:1.18 path=/MediaEndpoint/A2DPSink/opus_05_duplex
Apr 06 20:26:05 HOST bluetoothd[998]: Endpoint registered: sender=:1.18 path=/MediaEndpoint/A2DPSource/opus_05_duplex
Apr 06 20:27:04 HOST bluetoothd[998]: /org/bluez/hci0/dev_09_FC_42_2B_A1_53/sep1/fd1: fd(28) ready

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 24,960

Re: Bluetooth audio stuttering during streaming audio buffering

Normal interference with wifi signals and BT... your best bet is switching your wifi to the 5Ghz band if you have control over that.

v3nver

Member

Registered: 2025-04-06

Posts: 3

Re: Bluetooth audio stuttering during streaming audio buffering

I am connected to 5Ghz AP and even bound NetworkManager to BSSID of this 5Ghz AP to make wpa_supplicant stop background scanning for new APs with better signal.

Last edited by v3nver (2025-04-08 20:51:22)

v3nver

Member

Registered: 2025-04-06

Posts: 3

Re: Bluetooth audio stuttering during streaming audio buffering

The problem is related to rtw8852ce wi-fi driver's newer firmware.
The workaround found on the following repository helped.
The discussion of the issue could be found on Fedora forum.

Last edited by v3nver (2025-04-25 20:12:27)