New user here, glad to be around. I just changed from Ubuntu 24.04.1 a few days ago.
I have a really annoying up-and-running audio problem on OpenSuSE Tumbleweed which I hope someone can help with squashing out.
Hardware used: Maono PD100 XLR podmic used with the Linux compatible ESI U22 XT USB hardware audio interface.
Software used: Easy Effects 7.1.6 and vokoscreenNG 4.1.0 for video- and audio capture from my browser and simultaneous audio from the podmic captured through the ESI U22.
Scenario 1: If I use the default installed pipewire-pulseaudio, Easy Effects works, but with- or without Easy Effects running, I get crackling audio on my screencast recordings with vokoscreenNG 4.1.0.
Scenario 2: If I ditch âpipewire-pulseaudioâ and install âpulseaudioâ instead, Easy Effects stops working, but I get clean (but then unproduced) audio on my screencast recordings with vokoscreenNG 4.1.0.
How do I get the best of both worlds here? Can I somehow adjust my way out of the crackling issue I get when using pipewire-pulseaudio? Is there alternatively something as sleek and neat as Easy Effects I can use with pulseaudio, so I can just ditch pipewire-pulseaudio?
This might just be me being retarded as Iâm just not an audio ninja, so something almost sickeningly obvious may just elude me here.
I spent a little more time messing around and decided to change the XLR cable, even though there wasnât an issue with it when PulseAudio was running the show and whatta you know, issue is now gone. Puzzled: Why is the cable only an issue with pipewire-pulseaudio and not PulseAudio? Itâs a brand new cable of above average quality with woven external shielding and I basically just unpacked it a couple of days ago.
However, âInput Sourceâ in the left side menu of Easy Effects is greyed out and EQ/filters have no effect on my sound, so I currently canât âbeautifyâ my audio. How do I make Easy Effects âgetâ my mic?
I get the same crackling audio on leap 15.6 sporadically with pipewire-pulseaudio. I have tried all the recipes I have found on the internet with no improvement. Only firm solution I have found is a reboot. Did you perchance do a reboot in the process of changing your cable?
I am not a believer in the replace a cable theory. After a reboot, my audio clears with the same cable in place. I donât think a faulty cable would cause a sporadic problem. It would be a continuous problem.
Thanks for your valuable input, tckosvic. I have rebooted a few times when I shifted back and forth between âpipewire-pulseaudioâ and âPulseAudioâ when I exclusion-logically tried to figure this thing out, so I canât rule out your suspicion.
I guess at this point, I will simply have to use my set-up as it is right now and if it happens again, just reboot right away to hear what happens then, instead of immediately going back to messing around with my hardware set-up.
Regardless, I think whoever is behind the development of pipewire-pulseaudio might find it valuable to be aware of this issue. Thereâs likely a GitHub project for it.
I promise to report back, if I get struck by it again
If you search internet for, e.g., âlinux pipewire crackling in audioâ you will find dozens of recipes. Thereâs so many that I cannot attribute this to cables. How could so many people get bad cables. Been doing home computing since it started ( I am 84 y/o) and have never had a problem where I could attribute the cause to a cable.
It has to be the software that needs to be evaluated. But, in defense, sporadic problems are very very difficult until someone detects the specific combination of things that leads to the problem.
Glad you got it fixed. Having to reboot is awfully inconvenient.
Not fixed. I just experienced the issue again when trying to use vokoscreenNG to record myself commenting on a Youtube video running in Brave. This time using a Plugable (yes, thatâs the brand name) USB microphone to simultaneously record my own commenting. I restarted the computer right away, but the issue persists post-reboot
I just donât think pipewire-pulseaudio is ready for prime time action as lots of other people seem to have issues. I have work to do, so I donât wanna have to spend hours and hours trying to fix something that should âjust workâ plug-and-play style like it does with PulseAudio, so Pulseaudio it is. Too bad.
Publish if you get a repeat of crackling after you have switched from pipewire back to pulse audio. I might consider going back.
Do you use bluetooth for headphones? I switched to pipewire when bluetooth was giving connection problems with pulseaudio. Would like to know if that is working well.
I, too, am annoyed that the crackling problem on linux goes on and on and never seems to get any attention.
I have dual boot system but I donât use windows enough to know if the problem is the same on windows using the same hardware.
Thx, but the involved paths are different on Manjaro (good argument for standardized file placement on âeverything Linuxâ to avoid needless âdistro translation hassleâ like this) and he suggests a bunch of different things to just try and then see what happens, no golden bullet. I also suspect itâs just one specific thing that needs changing somewhere. I found some âLinux audio guysâ with channels on YT. I asked on this in their comment sections too. If one of them delivers the golden bullet on this. Iâll pass it on here. I really wish I still had the time to ânerd outâ on things like this like I used to, but I just donât.
I canât believe this still happens to so many Linux users in now almost 2025. Should have been seriously addressed a long time ago now. Honestly a bit embarrassing.
I build pipewire from the git tree basically every day, package and test it. Iâve been doing that a few years now. I donât know if Iâm an audio ninja, but I do know pw better than most. Iâll try and help.
Iâll spare you the long explanation unless you really want it, but, in addition to other problems, that guide is quite outdated and attempts to fix that have made it kinda broken.
As a result, itâs quite probable that the rule you changed does not even apply to your machine, so a positive result raises concerns about your testing methodology. Youâll want to have a reliable testing method (ie, a way to break it 100% of the time) before you try to fix it.
I would advise you to roll back any changes you made based on that guide.
Having logs of the problem will help a lot. The very first thing Iâd check with crackling, is to run pw-top as per the xrun section. Presuming that this is an xrun (very likely it is), is this a type 1 or type 2 problem? If itâs not, then youâll very likely have something interesting in the journal.
Once you have a reliable test (so that you can actually tell if anything you do, works) and once you have info from pipewire (so that you can tell whatâs broken) itâll be way easier to fix this.
I donât like just saying "guide bad, undoâ without any explanation, but I donât want to get too verbose, so just rapidly:
alsa-vm.conf has one rule which only applies to VM guests. So step 2, 4 and 5 do nothing unless this is a VM. Ignoring that and pretending weâre changing a rule that applies to usâŚ
Step 3 changes the graph rate, which has no effect on the clients. Even if you locked the graph to 48k, a client can run at 44k1, pipewire will perform sample rate conversion. The intended effect is default, anyway. This step either does nothing or breaks stuff.
Steps 4 and 5 make global changes to device drivers, which stands to break something as much as fix something. If there is cause to change the headroom or period, it would be indicated as an xrun (ERR) in pw-top (rather than by experiment) and should be done only to the device in question, not all of them.
Steps 6 and 7 are useful for working around client bugs but you donât need to try those, just run pw-top.
Pardon me if my attempt at brevity appears abrupt.
Itâs all good, pallaswept - and thx a bunch for engaging in this. I merely try whatever has been suggested and/or tried by others who have arm-wrestled the same issue before me and so have trodden where I still havenât. Last time I messed with anything external audio on Linux was getting a SoundBlaster Live 5.1 card working back in 2004-06 somewhere, so itâs been, well⌠a while.
And youâre right. Just came back from work an unsuspended my PC, did a test with vokoscreenNG and the crackling is back. Here is the output of my pw-top:
I will delete those dirs that I created. They are pointless according to your insight. What âfixedâ my audio yesterday was likely just restarting pipewire-pulse. But then again, that didnât fix anything just now, still crackling.
Things have changed a bit. When doing a recording of just my own voice with vokoscreenNG, I get no crackle. However, if I stream a YouTube video with audio and simultaneously comment over it by the mic, I get crackle.
