Leap 15.6 convert to tumbleweed -- no audio afterward

After multiple failed atempts to get a good running update to leap 16.0 from leap 15.6, I decided to try a move to tumbleweed. I did conversion by altering repos and run “zypper dup”. System is functioning pretty well.

I have no audio though. On leap 15.6 I was using alsa, pipewire, and wireplumber and bluetooth which worked well. I have no speakers. I have both wired and wireless (bluetooth) headphones.

On tumbleweed, with the wired headphones I can get sound only from:

“speaker-test -Dplug:front -c2 -l5 -twav”.

Youtube videos and vlc run but give no audio.

alsamixer says “This sound device has no controls”.

I think sound card is not configured. Yast now has no sound configuration module.

Need some guidance. First want to get wired headphones functioning then go on to the bluetooth.

thanks, tom kosvic

You raised a similar topic here

If you are abandoning it we can close it out.

It is deprecated and in any case of no value with resolving audio issues.

Ok so your sound is working at the ALSA layer at least.

Show the results from

systemctl --user status pipewire.service pipewire-pulse.service wireplumber.service

and
pactl info

(base) tom@mydesktop: ~ $ systemctl --user status pipewire.service pipewire-pulse.service wireplumber.service
● pipewire.service - PipeWire Multimedia Service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pipewire.service; enabled; preset: disabled)
     Active: active (running) since Mon 2026-03-02 14:30:29 CST; 1h 52min ago
 Invocation: 66e7365e1e364ef7b90522ede100e23e
TriggeredBy: ● pipewire.socket
   Main PID: 2216 (pipewire)
      Tasks: 2 (limit: 38116)
        CPU: 66ms
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/pipewire.service
             └─2216 /usr/bin/pipewire

Mar 02 14:30:29 mydesktop systemd[2040]: Started PipeWire Multimedia Service.
Mar 02 14:30:30 mydesktop pipewire[2216]: pw.context: vm.overrides in context.properties are deprecated, use context.properties.rules instead

● pipewire-pulse.service - PipeWire PulseAudio
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pipewire-pulse.service; enabled; preset: disabled)
     Active: active (running) since Mon 2026-03-02 14:30:29 CST; 1h 52min ago
 Invocation: c495f344daa9494b91001fc2ba41eb7b
TriggeredBy: ● pipewire-pulse.socket
   Main PID: 2219 (pipewire-pulse)
      Tasks: 2 (limit: 38116)
        CPU: 103ms
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/pipewire-pulse.service
             └─2219 /usr/bin/pipewire-pulse

Mar 02 14:30:29 mydesktop systemd[2040]: Started PipeWire PulseAudio.
Mar 02 14:30:30 mydesktop pipewire-pulse[2219]: mod.protocol-pulse: vm.overrides in pulse.properties are deprecated, use pulse.properties.rules inst>
Mar 02 14:36:52 mydesktop pipewire-pulse[2219]: mod.protocol-pulse: [Firefox] timeout on stream 0x564cca6ee900 channel:0
Mar 02 14:40:34 mydesktop pipewire-pulse[2219]: mod.protocol-pulse: [Firefox] timeout on stream 0x564cca6ee900 channel:0
Mar 02 15:19:26 mydesktop pipewire-pulse[2219]: mod.protocol-pulse: [VLC media player (LibVLC 3.0.23)] timeout on stream 0x564cca6ee900 channel:0
Mar 02 15:26:36 mydesktop pipewire-pulse[2219]: mod.protocol-pulse: [Konsole] timeout on stream 0x564cca72d4e0 channel:0

× wireplumber.service - Multimedia Service Session Manager
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/wireplumber.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Mon 2026-03-02 14:30:32 CST; 1h 52min ago
   Duration: 36ms
 Invocation: d29869edc14541b68c5d169d72c99481
    Process: 2327 ExecStart=/usr/bin/wireplumber -p $WIREPLUMBER_PROFILE (code=exited, status=78)
   Main PID: 2327 (code=exited, status=78)
        CPU: 21ms

Mar 02 14:30:32 mydesktop systemd[2040]: wireplumber.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5.
Mar 02 14:30:32 mydesktop systemd[2040]: wireplumber.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Mar 02 14:30:32 mydesktop systemd[2040]: wireplumber.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Mar 02 14:30:32 mydesktop systemd[2040]: Failed to start Multimedia Service Session Manager.
lines 20-45/45 (END)
base) tom@mydesktop: ~ $ pactl info
Server String: /run/user/1000/pulse/native
Library Protocol Version: 35
Server Protocol Version: 35
Is Local: yes
Client Index: 113
Tile Size: 65472
User Name: tom
Host Name: mydesktop
Server Name: PulseAudio (on PipeWire 1.6.0)
Server Version: 15.0.0
Default Sample Specification: float32le 2ch 48000Hz
Default Channel Map: front-left,front-right
Default Sink: @DEFAULT_SINK@
Default Source: @DEFAULT_SOURCE@
Cookie: a7e2:cc59
(base) tom@mydesktop: ~ $ 

The Yast sound module did let you configure sound cards though.

Only with respect to driver options (and nothing more). Seldom required and not the issue here.

Anyway, as with your other thread (that you abandoned), I’m going to advise you to follow up on my suggestion made here, which you did not appear to have acknowledged or tried…

Thanks for the reminder. I will remove/backup those files, reboot and try again.
I did a reinstall of wireplumber and rebooted that had now effect.

None of the files that were listed for removal exist on my system.

Show what is reported
zypper se -si pipewire wireplumber

Also confirm
zypper lr -u
and output returned from
journalctl --user -u wireplumber -b -n 50

I saw in one thread someone just deleted both pipewire and wireplumber and just used alsa. alsa looks to be working. Is that a solution?

(base) tom@mydesktop: ~ $ sudo zypper lr -u
Repository priorities in effect:                                                                                     (See 'zypper lr -P' for details)
      90 (raised priority)  :  1 repository
      95 (raised priority)  :  1 repository
      99 (default priority) :  7 repositories

#  | Alias                                  | Name                    | Enabled | GPG Check | Refresh | URI
---+----------------------------------------+-------------------------+---------+-----------+---------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1 | NVIDIA:repo-non-free                   | repo-non-free           | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     | https://download.nvidia.com/opensuse/tumbleweed
 2 | download.nvidia.com-tumbleweed         | nVidia Graphics Drivers | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     | https://download.nvidia.com/opensuse/tumbleweed
 3 | ftp.gwdg.de-Essentials                 | packman-essentials      | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     | http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/Essentials
 4 | ftp.gwdg.de-openSUSE_Tumbleweed        | packman                 | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     | http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/
 5 | openSUSE:repo-non-oss                  | repo-non-oss            | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     | http://cdn.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/repo/non-oss
 6 | openSUSE:repo-openh264                 | repo-openh264           | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     | https://codecs.opensuse.org/openh264/openSUSE_Tumbleweed
 7 | openSUSE:repo-oss                      | repo-oss                | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     | http://cdn.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/repo/oss
 8 | openSUSE:repo-oss-debug                | repo-oss-debug          | No      | ----      | ----    | http://cdn.opensuse.org/debug/tumbleweed/repo/oss
 9 | openSUSE:repo-oss-source               | repo-oss-source         | No      | ----      | ----    | http://cdn.opensuse.org/source/tumbleweed/repo/oss
10 | openSUSE:update-tumbleweed             | update-tumbleweed       | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     | http://cdn.opensuse.org/update/tumbleweed
11 | opensuse-guide.org-openSUSE_Tumbleweed | libdvdcss repository    | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     | http://opensuse-guide.org/repo/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/
(base) tom@mydesktop: ~ $ 

(base) tom@mydesktop: ~ $ journalctl --user -u wireplumber -b -n 50
Mar 02 17:15:56 mydesktop systemd[2047]: Started Multimedia Service Session Manager.
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop wireplumber[2232]: failed to load components: no component provides 'monitor.alsa', wanted by 'hardware.audio [virtual]'
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=78/CONFIG
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 1.
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop systemd[2047]: Started Multimedia Service Session Manager.
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop wireplumber[2323]: failed to load components: no component provides 'monitor.alsa', wanted by 'hardware.audio [virtual]'
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=78/CONFIG
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 2.
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop systemd[2047]: Started Multimedia Service Session Manager.
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop wireplumber[2327]: failed to load components: no component provides 'monitor.alsa', wanted by 'hardware.audio [virtual]'
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=78/CONFIG
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 3.
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop systemd[2047]: Started Multimedia Service Session Manager.
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop wireplumber[2331]: failed to load components: no component provides 'monitor.alsa', wanted by 'hardware.audio [virtual]'
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=78/CONFIG
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 4.
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop systemd[2047]: Started Multimedia Service Session Manager.
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop wireplumber[2335]: failed to load components: no component provides 'monitor.alsa', wanted by 'hardware.audio [virtual]'
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=78/CONFIG
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5.
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop systemd[2047]: Failed to start Multimedia Service Session Manager.
(base) tom@mydesktop: ~ $ 

These installed items were what “zypper dup” inherited from leap 15.6 where all was working.

(base) tom@mydesktop: ~ $ zypper se -si pipewire wireplumber
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...

S  | Name                           | Type    | Version    | Arch   | Repository
---+--------------------------------+---------+------------+--------+-----------
i  | audaspace-plugin-pipewire      | package | 1.8.0-1.1  | x86_64 | repo-oss
i+ | gstreamer-plugin-pipewire      | package | 1.6.0-2.1  | x86_64 | repo-oss
i  | kpipewire6-imports             | package | 6.6.0-1.1  | x86_64 | repo-oss
i  | libKPipeWire6                  | package | 6.6.0-1.1  | x86_64 | repo-oss
i  | libKPipeWireDmaBuf6            | package | 6.6.0-1.1  | x86_64 | repo-oss
i  | libKPipeWireRecord6            | package | 6.6.0-1.1  | x86_64 | repo-oss
i  | libpipewire-0_3-0              | package | 1.6.0-2.1  | x86_64 | repo-oss
i  | libpipewire-0_3-0-32bit        | package | 1.6.0-2.1  | x86_64 | repo-oss
i+ | libwireplumber-0_5-0           | package | 0.5.13-2.1 | x86_64 | repo-oss
i+ | pipewire                       | package | 1.6.0-2.1  | x86_64 | repo-oss
i+ | pipewire-alsa                  | package | 1.6.0-2.1  | x86_64 | repo-oss
i  | pipewire-alsa-32bit            | package | 1.6.0-2.1  | x86_64 | repo-oss
i+ | pipewire-jack                  | package | 1.6.0-2.1  | x86_64 | repo-oss
i  | pipewire-lang                  | package | 1.6.0-2.1  | noarch | repo-oss
i+ | pipewire-libjack-0_3           | package | 1.6.0-2.1  | x86_64 | repo-oss
i+ | pipewire-modules-0_3           | package | 1.6.0-2.1  | x86_64 | repo-oss
i+ | pipewire-modules-0_3-32bit     | package | 1.6.0-2.1  | x86_64 | repo-oss
i  | pipewire-pulseaudio            | package | 1.6.0-2.1  | x86_64 | repo-oss
i  | pipewire-spa-plugins-0_2       | package | 1.6.0-2.1  | x86_64 | repo-oss
i  | pipewire-spa-plugins-0_2-32bit | package | 1.6.0-2.1  | x86_64 | repo-oss
i  | pipewire-spa-tools             | package | 1.6.0-2.1  | x86_64 | repo-oss
i+ | pipewire-tools                 | package | 1.6.0-2.1  | x86_64 | repo-oss
i+ | wireplumber                    | package | 0.5.13-2.1 | x86_64 | repo-oss
i+ | wireplumber-bash-completion    | package | 0.5.13-2.1 | x86_64 | repo-oss
i+ | wireplumber-lang               | package | 0.5.13-2.1 | noarch | repo-oss
i+ | wireplumber-zsh-completion     | package | 0.5.13-2.1 | noarch | repo-oss
(base) tom@mydesktop: ~ $ 

I see more problems so I am thinking about reverting back to leap 15.6. The qemu/libvirt vms don’t work anymore. qemu crashes after the vm gets through opening screen. I’ve seen this on 4 of the 12 I run. I use these alot.

No, it is not a solution for modern Linux desktop audio stacks.

If you’re going to continue to jump all over the place, it’s going to be impossible for others to assists you. Becomes a moving target and topics can get messy. I’ll stop assisting here.

ok, I understand about jumping around. I will stay with the tumbleweed and concentrate first on the sound issue we had started on.

What do you think about just running alsa to get some sound going. Then adding back the pipewire and wireplumber?

tom kosvic

Well, ALSA is running already. Otherwise the speaker-test command would not work. We need to understand the root problem causing WirePlumber to fail.

Show what is returned from
journalctl --user -u wireplumber -b --no-pager | tail -n 50

Still shows same messages about not starting Multimeadia service

(base) tom@mydesktop: ~ $ journalctl --user -u wireplumber -b --no-pager | tail -n 50
Mar 02 17:15:56 mydesktop systemd[2047]: Started Multimedia Service Session Manager.
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop wireplumber[2232]: failed to load components: no component provides 'monitor.alsa', wanted by 'hardware.audio [virtual]'
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=78/CONFIG
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 1.
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop systemd[2047]: Started Multimedia Service Session Manager.
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop wireplumber[2323]: failed to load components: no component provides 'monitor.alsa', wanted by 'hardware.audio [virtual]'
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=78/CONFIG
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 2.
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop systemd[2047]: Started Multimedia Service Session Manager.
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop wireplumber[2327]: failed to load components: no component provides 'monitor.alsa', wanted by 'hardware.audio [virtual]'
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=78/CONFIG
Mar 02 17:15:58 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 3.
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop systemd[2047]: Started Multimedia Service Session Manager.
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop wireplumber[2331]: failed to load components: no component provides 'monitor.alsa', wanted by 'hardware.audio [virtual]'
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=78/CONFIG
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 4.
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop systemd[2047]: Started Multimedia Service Session Manager.
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop wireplumber[2335]: failed to load components: no component provides 'monitor.alsa', wanted by 'hardware.audio [virtual]'
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=78/CONFIG
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5.
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop systemd[2047]: wireplumber.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Mar 02 17:15:59 mydesktop systemd[2047]: Failed to start Multimedia Service Session Manager.
(base) tom@mydesktop: ~ $ 

Show
ls -la /usr/lib64/pipewire-0.3/spa-0.2/alsa/

Try

sudo zypper refresh
sudo zypper install --force pipewire pipewire-alsa pipewire-pulseaudio wireplumber pipewire-spa-plugins

No -spa- plugins available. See below.

(base) tom@mydesktop: ~ $ ls -la /usr/lib64/pipewire-0.3/spa-0.2/alsa/
ls: cannot access '/usr/lib64/pipewire-0.3/spa-0.2/alsa/': No such file or directory
(base) tom@mydesktop: ~ $
base) tom@mydesktop: ~ $ sudo zypper install --force pipewire pipewire-alsa pipewire-pulseaudio wireplumber pipewire-spa-plugins
Refreshing service 'NVIDIA'.
Refreshing service 'openSUSE'.
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
Package 'pipewire-spa-plugins' not found.
Forcing installation of 'pipewire-1.6.0-2.1.x86_64' from repository 'repo-oss'.
Forcing installation of 'wireplumber-0.5.13-2.1.x86_64' from repository 'repo-oss'.
Forcing installation of 'pipewire-pulseaudio-1.6.0-2.1.x86_64' from repository 'repo-oss'.
Forcing installation of 'pipewire-alsa-1.6.0-2.1.x86_64' from repository 'repo-oss'.
Resolving package dependencies...

The following 4 packages are going to be reinstalled:
  pipewire pipewire-alsa pipewire-pulseaudio wireplumber

4 packages to reinstall.

Package download size:     1.3 MiB

Package install size change:
            |       1.8 MiB  required by packages that will be installed
       0 B  |  -    1.8 MiB  released by packages that will be removed

Backend:  classic_rpmtrans
Continue? [y/n/v/...? shows all options] (y): y
Preloading: wireplumber-0.5.13-2.1.x86_64.rpm [done]
Preloading: pipewire-1.6.0-2.1.x86_64.rpm [done]
Preloading: pipewire-pulseaudio-1.6.0-2.1.x86_64.rpm [done]
Preloading: pipewire-alsa-1.6.0-2.1.x86_64.rpm [done]
Preload finished. [success (640.5 KiB/s) ] ....................................................................................................[done]
Retrieving: wireplumber-0.5.13-2.1.x86_64 (repo-oss)                                                                             (1/4), 308.3 KiB    
Retrieving: pipewire-1.6.0-2.1.x86_64 (repo-oss)                                                                                 (2/4), 316.5 KiB    
Retrieving: pipewire-pulseaudio-1.6.0-2.1.x86_64 (repo-oss)                                                                      (3/4), 443.3 KiB    
Retrieving: pipewire-alsa-1.6.0-2.1.x86_64 (repo-oss)                                                                            (4/4), 296.8 KiB    

Checking for file conflicts: ..................................................................................................................[done]
(1/4) Installing: wireplumber-0.5.13-2.1.x86_64 ...............................................................................................[done]
(2/4) Installing: pipewire-1.6.0-2.1.x86_64 ...................................................................................................[done]
No such key “picture-uri-dark” in schema “org.cinnamon.desktop.background” as specified in override file “/usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/20_libcinnamon-desktop-branding.gschema.override”; ignoring override for this key.
No such key “screensaver-uses-logind” in schema “org.cinnamon.desktop.session” as specified in override file “/usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/org.cinnamon.desktop.session.gschema.override”; ignoring override for this key.
(3/4) Installing: pipewire-pulseaudio-1.6.0-2.1.x86_64 ........................................................................................[done]
(4/4) Installing: pipewire-alsa-1.6.0-2.1.x86_64 ..............................................................................................[done]
Running post-transaction scripts ..............................................................................................................[done]
Installation has completed with error.
(base) tom@mydesktop: ~ $