Arch Linux

Lautta

Member

Registered: 2025-07-19

Posts: 1

USB microphone doesn't work using pipewire

I have already been using  Arch for the past few weeks, but I recently found a problem trying to use Discord, and is that my USB mic doesn't seem to work. According to pavucontrol, my device appears in input audio devices, and also appears as a sound card in alsa-mixer, so it seems that it is being detected but it doesn't work, and yes, I checked and it is not muted.

I hope this output gives you some info.

$ systemctl --user status pipewire

● pipewire.service - PipeWire Multimedia Service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pipewire.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Fri 2025-07-18 23:49:22 -03; 1h 21min ago
 Invocation: 8a3f58b409e140b4a28a130cac39a62a
TriggeredBy: ● pipewire.socket
   Main PID: 559 (pipewire)
      Tasks: 3 (limit: 8940)
     Memory: 27.9M (peak: 32.6M)
        CPU: 2min 8.992s
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/pipewire.service
             └─559 /usr/bin/pipewire

jul 19 00:38:00 siniy pipewire[559]: spa.audioadapter: 0x5591273f16b8: can't send command 2: Broken pipe
jul 19 00:38:00 siniy pipewire[559]: pw.link: 0x5591280ded50: one of the nodes is in error out:error in:idle
jul 19 00:38:00 siniy pipewire[559]: spa.alsa: hw:2,0c: snd_pcm_start: Broken pipe
jul 19 00:38:00 siniy pipewire[559]: spa.audioadapter: 0x5591273f16b8: can't send command 2: Broken pipe
jul 19 00:38:00 siniy pipewire[559]: pw.link: 0x559127f6c870: one of the nodes is in error out:error in:suspended
jul 19 00:38:00 siniy pipewire[559]: spa.alsa: hw:2,0c: snd_pcm_start: Broken pipe
jul 19 00:38:00 siniy pipewire[559]: spa.audioadapter: 0x5591273f16b8: can't send command 2: Broken pipe
jul 19 00:38:05 siniy pipewire[559]: spa.alsa: hw:2,0c: snd_pcm_start: Broken pipe
jul 19 00:38:05 siniy pipewire[559]: spa.audioadapter: 0x5591273f16b8: can't send command 2: Broken pipe
jul 19 00:38:05 siniy pipewire[559]: pw.node: (alsa_input.usb-Jieli_Technology_USB_MIC-00.pro-input-0-157) suspended -> error (Start error: Broken pipe)

I have been trying to solve this for a couple of days already, but I couldn't find a solution. I think the problem is here, but I don't know how to interpret this output.

Thank you very much for your help

sipak

Member

Registered: 2019-02-03

Posts: 50

Re: USB microphone doesn't work using pipewire

Make sure these are installed: qpwgraph wireplumber pipewire-session-manager pipewire-pulse pipewire-alsa alsa-firmware
Make sure they are running: systemctl enable --user --now pipewire.socket pipewire.service pipewire-pulse.socket pipewire-pulse.service wireplumber.service

Then launch qpwgraph and see if the input shows there. I may just not be connected or connected to the wrong sink.

Try another usb cable, another usb port, check for disconnects: dmesg | grep -i usb
See if the node has errors: pw-cli ls Node
Does it even show up as input? pw-record -l

Disable autosuspend for the device:
# /etc/udev/rules.d/99-usb-audio-persist.rules:
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="XXXX", ATTR{idProduct}=="YYYY", TEST=="power/control", ATTR{power/control}="on"

There are some posts out there talking about those mics: https://forum.manjaro.org/t/audio-broke … /140793/13

Last edited by sipak (2025-08-08 06:54:50)

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A problem to do what everybody else does without questioning. A danger to go against the way things are just because. Too much or too little, ivory towers of perfection or functional mess... Balance is what this world needs. Selective, not the middle ground. Objectivity and idealism, but within a pragmatic scope. - Minimalism is achieved through efficiency, not deficiency.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 24,960

Re: USB microphone doesn't work using pipewire

Pipewire fails to probe the HW, this is usually some incompat in how it tries to talk to the device. Try to  set the default sample rate to 441kHz https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire … mple-rates and just below increase the min.quantum to 64 or 128 or so.

Does direct alsa access via

arecord -r 16000 -Dhw:2 test.wav

work?

imjustasecond

Member

Registered: 2025-01-04

Posts: 2

Re: USB microphone doesn't work using pipewire

Make sure these are installed: qpwgraph wireplumber pipewire-session-manager pipewire-pulse pipewire-alsa alsa-firmware
Make sure they are running: systemctl enable --user --now pipewire.socket pipewire.service pipewire-pulse.socket pipewire-pulse.service wireplumber.service

Then launch qpwgraph and see if the input shows there. I may just not be connected or connected to the wrong sink.

Try another usb cable, another usb port, check for disconnects: dmesg | grep -i usb
See if the node has errors: pw-cli ls Node
Does it even show up as input? pw-record -l

Disable autosuspend for the device:
# /etc/udev/rules.d/99-usb-audio-persist.rules:
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="XXXX", ATTR{idProduct}=="YYYY", TEST=="power/control", ATTR{power/control}="on"

There are some posts out there talking about those mics: https://forum.manjaro.org/t/audio-broke … /140793/13

Hey. Wanted to express my gratitude. Just basically restarting some of the units helped discord find my microphone.

system72

Member

Registered: 2025-11-22

Posts: 349

Website

Re: USB microphone doesn't work using pipewire

pipewire.service and pipewire-pulse.service are auto started by systemd socket activation, there is no reason to enable them

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