PulseAudio vs PipeWire. Both installed at once = audio issues?

General system Gaming, sound and video
1

Hi!

Are these two performing the same function, or are both needed? I have started having audio issues upon boot and wake from sleep. If I change between stereo and duplex, it comes back.

Uncertain how to troubleshoot this, so any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks :smiley:

inxi -A

Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Radeon High Definition Audio
[Rembrandt/Strix] driver: snd_hda_intel
Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Audio Coprocessor
driver: snd_pci_ps
Device-3: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 17h/19h/1ah HD Audio
driver: snd_hda_intel
API: ALSA v: k6.12.53-1-lts status: kernel-api
Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.4.9 status: active
Server-2: PulseAudio v: 17.0-88-geee0 status: active

2

Hello,

pactl info

should tell you what you’re using, in my case, it’s Pulseaudio on Pipewire :

Server Name: PulseAudio (on PipeWire 1.4.9)

meaning it can use Pulseaudio clients on a Pipewire server.

3

Yes, only install one of them, usually it should be pipewire nowadays.

Reinstall the pipewire wireplumber pipewire-pulse pipewire-jack pipewire-alsa packages for a minimal pipewire audio stack, it should automatically conflict with pulseaudio and ask to remove it.

4

Thanks for your reply! Figured it out based on the packages you mentioned. Appreciate it.

I’ll leave what I did for anyone else having a similar issue.

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Ok, I removed the dependencies and installed the packages you mentioned. Upon reboot my audio output is completely gone. I suppose the services are not running.

I removed pulseaudio, and it’s showing server name: PulseAudio (on PipeWire 1.4.9) now.

Issue now is I have no audio device :joy:

systemctl start pipewire-pulse.socket gives error:
Failed to start pipewire-pulse.service: Unit pipewire-pulse.service not found.

Which confuses me, since it is installed.

Update:
systemctl status –user pipewire-* wireplumber lists pipewire-pulse.service and .socket running.

aplay -l lists the output devices. HD-Audio Generic x3. One HDMI, one ALC287 Analogue.

Still, got no audio tab in settings menu after I removed the pulseaudio and reinstalled pipewire + dependencies. Nor any output in task tray.

Update 2:
alsamixer works! So I can adjust the volume and I get audio now, but I have lost the interface in the Os. Any idea on how to get that back? Vol hotkeys on keyboard doesn’t work either.

Update 3:
Reinstalled plasma-pa. GUI for audio in tray and in settings is now back. Though I got a bunch of audio units I am not using, so will have to figure out how to remove those. Seems to be working now though.

Source: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PipeWire / https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Advanced_Linux_Sound_Architecture /

5

Thanks! I guess there was a conflict with both trying to run at the same time as the main audio service.