Arch Linux

LittleSandra

Member

Registered: 2021-01-25

Posts: 86

[SOLVED] Is this a Pipewire / Pulseaudio conflict?

Dear all

After doing an update and reboot, I don't have any audio. If I however open pavucontrol and in Configuration change Profile to something random and then back to "Analog Stereo Output" then sound works. If I close pavucontrol, the no sound.

~> systemctl --user status pipewire
● pipewire.service - PipeWire Multimedia Service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pipewire.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Thu 2025-04-10 00:31:07 CEST; 49min ago
 Invocation: 33df30cf3c1842b8b3bb569a12b9dc69
TriggeredBy: ● pipewire.socket
   Main PID: 1329 (pipewire)
      Tasks: 3 (limit: 28242)
     Memory: 4.8M (peak: 5.6M)
        CPU: 39ms
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/pipewire.service
             └─1329 /usr/bin/pipewire

Apr 10 00:31:07 t470s systemd[986]: Started PipeWire Multimedia Service.
~> systemctl --user status pulseaudio
● pulseaudio.service - Sound Service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pulseaudio.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Thu 2025-04-10 00:30:58 CEST; 49min ago
 Invocation: 02a627b10b904924b630cdc3c0076bee
TriggeredBy: ● pulseaudio.socket
   Main PID: 1003 (pulseaudio)
      Tasks: 7 (limit: 28242)
     Memory: 21.5M (peak: 23M)
        CPU: 3min 44.103s
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/pulseaudio.service
             ├─1003 /usr/bin/pulseaudio --daemonize=no --log-target=journal
             └─1205 /usr/lib/pulse/gsettings-helper

I see both pipewire and pulseaudio are enabled. Could that be the problem?

Should I remove one of them, and if so, which?

Hugs,
Sandra

Last edited by LittleSandra (2025-04-19 03:20:05)

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 13,725

Re: [SOLVED] Is this a Pipewire / Pulseaudio conflict?

No, that is not a problem.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,157

Re: [SOLVED] Is this a Pipewire / Pulseaudio conflict?

That isn't a problem, but if you have wireplumber installed and running as well then you are going to have one, unless you configure wireplumber to not initialize the audio stack: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/WirePl … ntegration

A better way to determine whether you have a potentially conflicting situation would be e.g.

sudo fuser -v /dev/snd/*

that "should" only show either pulseaudio or wireplumber trying to deal with devices (pipewire might be there, though it also shouldn't if you set up the above)

If you're not tied to pulseaudio and want to switch to pipewire completely installing pipewire-pulse and saying yes to the replacements would take care of that as well.

LittleSandra

Member

Registered: 2021-01-25

Posts: 86

Re: [SOLVED] Is this a Pipewire / Pulseaudio conflict?

I think it now works I also noticed there were major audio lack when using mplayer. Below is what I did.

From what I can figure out pipewire is somehow related to Wayland, and since I am using Sway VM, I tried to make a screen recording, and it get audio but the video is just black. I am pretty sure that used for work.

Can that be related to this?

~> sudo fuser -v /dev/snd/*

                     USER        PID ACCESS COMMAND
/dev/snd/controlC0:  a           927 F.... pulseaudio
                     a          2398 F.... alsamixer
/dev/snd/pcmC0D0p:   a           927 F...m pulseaudio
/dev/snd/seq:        a           926 F.... pipewire


~> sudo systemctl --global disable --now wireplumber
Removed '/etc/systemd/user/pipewire-session-manager.service'.
Removed '/etc/systemd/user/pipewire.service.wants/wireplumber.service'.
--now cannot be used when systemd is not running or in conjunction with --root=/--global, refusing.
~> 
~> sudo systemctl --global enable wireplumber@video-only.service
Created symlink '/etc/systemd/user/pipewire.service.wants/wireplumber@video-only.service' → '/usr/lib/systemd/user/wireplumber@.service'.
~> sudo fuser -v /dev/snd/*

                     USER        PID ACCESS COMMAND
/dev/snd/controlC0:  a           927 F.... pulseaudio
                     a          2398 F.... alsamixer
/dev/snd/pcmC0D0p:   a           927 F...m pulseaudio


~> ffmpeg -video_size 2560x1440 -framerate 25 -f x11grab -i :0.0 -f pulse -ac 2 -i default output.mkv