[SOLVED] Elisa not playing through bluetooth earbuds

HisDudeness · 2025-10-26 08:09:50

Hi everybody! I'm running a Wayland Plasma system, and I wanted to have one application managing my music library instead of manually opening files through the file explorer, so my natural choice fell on Elisa.

I have a problem, though. My bluetooth earphones work just fine with everything I've tried so far (from mpv to Steam to Firefox), but Elisa seems irremovable about playing through my speakers.
Selecting “Play all audio through this device” in my audio widget does nothing (the selection dot even stays on the previous option).
Elisa does not show in the "Application" tab of said widget, not even while actively outputting audio.

These are the packages I have installed regarding audio (I queried alsa, jack, pipewire, pulse).

alsa-card-profiles alsa-lib alsa-plugins alsa-topology-conf alsa-ucm-conf kpipewire lib32-alsa-lib lib32-alsa-plugins lib32-libpipewire lib32-pipewire libpipewire libwireplumber pipewire pipewire-audio pipewire-jack pipewire-pulse pipewire-session-manager plasma-pa pulseaudio-qt vlc-plugin-alsa wireplumber

One problem seem to be that, despite having pipewire-jack installed, I can't find its related service.

systemctl --user status wireplumber pipewire{,-pulse,-jack}
● wireplumber.service - Multimedia Service Session Manager
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/wireplumber.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sun 2025-10-26 08:50:38 CET; 19min ago
 Invocation: eb58cab0e7494fa0bcd5d532780ce74e
   Main PID: 720 (wireplumber)
      Tasks: 6 (limit: 9265)
     Memory: 45M (peak: 47M)
        CPU: 3.346s
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/wireplumber.service
             └─720 /usr/bin/wireplumber

ott 26 08:50:38 Sisto systemd[607]: Started Multimedia Service Session Manager.
ott 26 08:50:38 Sisto wireplumber[720]: wp-event-dispatcher: wp_event_dispatcher_unregister_hook: assertion 'already_registered_dispatcher == self' failed
ott 26 08:50:38 Sisto wireplumber[720]: wp-event-dispatcher: wp_event_dispatcher_unregister_hook: assertion 'already_registered_dispatcher == self' failed
ott 26 08:50:38 Sisto wireplumber[720]: wp-event-dispatcher: wp_event_dispatcher_unregister_hook: assertion 'already_registered_dispatcher == self' failed
ott 26 08:50:38 Sisto wireplumber[720]: wp-event-dispatcher: wp_event_dispatcher_unregister_hook: assertion 'already_registered_dispatcher == self' failed
ott 26 08:50:38 Sisto wireplumber[720]: wp-device: SPA handle 'api.libcamera.enum.manager' could not be loaded; is it installed?
ott 26 08:50:38 Sisto wireplumber[720]: s-monitors-libcamera: PipeWire's libcamera SPA plugin is missing or broken. Some camera types may not be supported.

● pipewire.service - PipeWire Multimedia Service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pipewire.service; disabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sun 2025-10-26 08:50:38 CET; 19min ago
 Invocation: 0ade271e4a5944e29329e857807dafaf
TriggeredBy: ● pipewire.socket
   Main PID: 719 (pipewire)
      Tasks: 3 (limit: 9265)
     Memory: 13.1M (peak: 15.4M)
        CPU: 504ms
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/pipewire.service
             └─719 /usr/bin/pipewire

ott 26 08:51:25 Sisto pipewire[719]: spa.alsa: 'front:0': playback open failed: Device or resource busy
ott 26 08:51:25 Sisto pipewire[719]: spa.alsa: 'front:0': playback open failed: Device or resource busy
ott 26 08:51:25 Sisto pipewire[719]: spa.alsa: 'front:0': playback open failed: Device or resource busy
ott 26 08:51:25 Sisto pipewire[719]: spa.alsa: 'front:0': playback open failed: Device or resource busy
ott 26 08:51:25 Sisto pipewire[719]: spa.alsa: 'front:0': playback open failed: Device or resource busy
ott 26 08:51:25 Sisto pipewire[719]: spa.alsa: 'front:0': playback open failed: Device or resource busy
ott 26 08:51:25 Sisto pipewire[719]: spa.alsa: 'front:0': playback open failed: Device or resource busy
ott 26 08:51:25 Sisto pipewire[719]: spa.alsa: 'front:0': playback open failed: Device or resource busy
ott 26 08:51:27 Sisto pipewire[719]: pw.link: 0x556e3b64bdc0: one of the nodes is in error out:error in:suspended
ott 26 08:51:27 Sisto pipewire[719]: pw.link: 0x556e3b3f23b0: one of the nodes is in error out:error in:suspended

● pipewire-pulse.service - PipeWire PulseAudio
     Loaded: loaded (Unit pipewire-jack.service could not be found.
ib/systemd/user/pipewire-pulse.service/usr/lib/systemd/user/pipewire-pulse.service; disabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sun 2025-10-26 08:50:40 CET; 19min ago
 Invocation: 42328d728c4741c6bdfbd490a4586016
TriggeredBy: ● pipewire-pulse.socket
   Main PID: 844 (pipewire-pulse)
      Tasks: 3 (limit: 9265)
     Memory: 15.1M (peak: 19.8M)
        CPU: 608ms
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/pipewire-pulse.service
             └─844 /usr/bin/pipewire-pulse

ott 26 08:50:40 Sisto systemd[607]: Started PipeWire PulseAudio.

Any specific direction I should be looking towards? Thanks!

Last edited by HisDudeness (2025-10-28 21:59:38)

V1del · 2025-10-26 19:34:21

Since elisa uses vlc as it's playback engine, make sure vlc-plugin-pulse is installed (or opt for vlc-plugins-all to make sure you have everything that might be necessary for various forms of playback) so that pulseaudio can be used and routed via pipewire like the rest of the system.

FWIW another way to indirectly avoid this which is what you might want to consider doing regardless is installing pipewire-alsa so that ALSA only applications can be routed to pipewire as well (but in this case the above will be the "correct" fix)

HisDudeness · 2025-10-28 21:59:07

V1del, I thank you immensely. Indeed, just the vlc-plugin-pulse package solved the issue. Didn't know elisa plays through vlc, that is very interesting to learn too. And, obviously, I will follow your advice and install pipewire-alsa as well.

I still have a few issues to fix on elisa, like gapless playback and lyrics visualization, and those will be crucial in determining whether or not the application suits me, but regardless you solved this which was another important requirement.

I'll edit the title.

Last edited by HisDudeness (2025-10-28 22:00:22)

Arch Linux

#1 2025-10-26 08:09:50

[SOLVED] Elisa not playing through bluetooth earbuds

#2 2025-10-26 19:34:21

Re: [SOLVED] Elisa not playing through bluetooth earbuds

#3 2025-10-28 21:59:07

Re: [SOLVED] Elisa not playing through bluetooth earbuds

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