Dear Experts, where shall I look or what shall I install for having my Gnome Settings becoming again responsive on toggle to a different Output Device?
Background:
Using Leap 15.5 on Gnome all was fine with Sound in the Settings.
I was able to toggle from Sound on Tele to Sound on Speakers or
to Sound on Headset in a second and reliable. But something
changed over the last month. Not just that my Linux became more
sluggish – maybe because more games added and so keeping the
Indexer entertained, which results into Micro-Freezes especially
when having exited a game.
Worst is now that the Gnome Settings do now struggle to activate
other Sound Hardware e.g. if I toggle the Output Device in Settings
from ‘Line Out Starship/Matisse HD Audio Controller’ to
‘HDMI DisplayPort - Navi 10 HDMI Audio’, the Setting’s display in
the drop down menu does change, but not the actual sound output.
For some time I just had to flip forth and back a few times across
multiple Output Devices in the Settings for making the targeted
devise finally work, but now even that stopped.
Like yesterday evening where suddenly the Headset did not receive
any sound for a long time and Skype did not even detect that Headset
in the Jack anymore, which is a first one.
In panic and being a Newbie I simply uninstalled all sound and
audio thingies via YaST, including pipewire and pulseaudio,
which successfully completely killed my Gnome Desktop.
My Installation-USB saved the day once more via Update followed
by massive Online Updates – so all is back and functional at the
latest – except the Sound Settings still struggle to toggle to
other Output Devices (which are selectable in the drop down but
do nothing.)
FYI: All works fine regards sound on same PC with Windows 11.
Therefore, I assume it’s a Software and not a Hardware problem.
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I am using these Repositories as Enabled and Autorefresh:
50 - Main Repository
51 - Main Update Repository
52 - Update Repository (Non-Oss)
53 - Non-OSS Repository
60 - Update repository of openSUSE Backports
61 - Update repository with updates from SUSE Linux Enterprise 15
70 - Open H.264 Codec (openSUSE Leap)
71 - packman
90 - Debug Repository
91 - Update Repository (Debug)
92 - Debug Repository (Non-OSS)
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pactl info:
Server String: /run/user/1001/pulse/native
Library Protocol Version: 35
Server Protocol Version: 35
Is Local: yes
Client Index: 4
Tile Size: 65472
User Name: bierpizzachips
Host Name: [...]
Server Name: pulseaudio
Server Version: 15.0
Default Sample Specification: s16le 2ch 44100Hz
Default Channel Map: front-left,front-right
Default Sink: alsa_output.pci-0000_2a_00.4.analog-stereo
Default Source: alsa_input.usb-Blue_Microphones_Yeti_Nano_2044SG00NAC8_888-000154040606-00.analog-stereo
Cookie: bcac:705a
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pactl list (only some lines pasted here):
Client #0
Driver: module-systemd-login.c
Owner Module: 19
Client #1
Driver: protocol-native.c
Owner Module: 12
Client #2
Driver: protocol-native.c
Owner Module: 12
Client #5
Driver: protocol-native.c
Owner Module: 12
Client #7
Driver: protocol-native.c
Owner Module: 12
Card #0
Name: alsa_card.pci-0000_28_00.1
Driver: module-alsa-card.c
Owner Module: 6
Card #1
Name: alsa_card.usb-Blue_Microphones_Yeti_Nano_2044SG00NAC8_888-000154040606-00
Driver: module-alsa-card.c
Owner Module: 7
Card #2
Name: alsa_card.pci-0000_2a_00.4
Driver: module-alsa-card.c
Owner Module: 8
Your pactl output indicates that you’re using PulseAudio, which should be ok. However, most desktop users are now using PipeWire with the ‘pipewire-pulse’ API (for applications that may still require PulseAudio support). If the ‘pipewire-pulseaudio’ package is installed, it will replace the ‘pulseaudio’ package (along with some other packages).
It’s just a workaround with having the headset in the jack on boot.
Trusting the experts here aka you, i just installed via YaST the pipewire-pulseaudio package (pipewire-alsa, pipewire-pulseaudio, wireplumber-audio), which indeed removed pulseaudio, pulseaudio-gdm-hooks, pulseaudio-lang, pulseaudio-module-bluetooth, pulseaudio-module-gsettings, pulseaudio-module-x11, pulseaudio-module-zeroconf.
I need a day or two for switching between different output devices, Coming back when i have a better understanding of the effects of that change.
Switching between Tele (HDMI) and main Speaker at the PC’s desk works fine again and immediate. Awesome. I hope, it will stay that way.
Lesson learned for a Newbie like me:
If some applications demand Pipewire and some other applications want Pulseaudio, it is INCORRECT to install both such packages by same name. Instead - as you explained - the combo has to be: 1. pipewire 2. pipewire-pulseaudio 3. pipewire-libjack-0_3
