PulseAudio doesn't work when pipewire is installed (ie. KDE)

[Gannet]

No sound after login.

$ LC_ALL=C systemctl --user status pulseaudio.service
* pulseaudio.service - Sound Service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pulseaudio.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Wed 2020-09-30 22:46:51 EEST; 8min ago
TriggeredBy: * pulseaudio.socket
   Main PID: 1088 (pulseaudio)
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/[e-mail]/pulseaudio.service
             |-1088 /usr/bin/pulseaudio --daemonize=no --log-target=journal
             `-1126 /usr/libexec/pulse/gsettings-helper

Sep 30 22:46:51 p5q3 systemd[1080]: Starting Sound Service...
Sep 30 22:46:51 p5q3 pulseaudio[1088]: No UCM verb is valid for hw:0
Sep 30 22:46:51 p5q3 systemd[1080]: Started Sound Service.
Sep 30 22:46:52 p5q3 pulseaudio[1088]: Failed to load module "module-alsa-card" (argument: "device_id="1" name="pci-0000_01_00.1" card_name="alsa_card.pci-0000_01_00.1" namereg_fail=false tsched=yes fixed_laten>
Sep 30 22:47:11 p5q3 pulseaudio[1088]: GetManagedObjects() failed: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.TimedOut: Failed to activate service 'org.bluez': timed out (service_start_timeout=25000ms)

Workaround found: 'pulseaudio -k' seems solves the problem, sound appears and working well, but some errors still present:

$ LC_ALL=C systemctl --user status pulseaudio.service
* pulseaudio.service - Sound Service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pulseaudio.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Wed 2020-09-30 22:55:49 EEST; 7min ago
TriggeredBy: * pulseaudio.socket
   Main PID: 12198 (pulseaudio)
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/[e-mail]/pulseaudio.service
             |-12198 /usr/bin/pulseaudio --daemonize=no --log-target=journal
             `-12212 /usr/libexec/pulse/gsettings-helper

Sep 30 22:55:49 p5q3 systemd[1080]: Starting Sound Service...
Sep 30 22:55:49 p5q3 pulseaudio[12198]: No UCM verb is valid for hw:1
Sep 30 22:55:49 p5q3 pulseaudio[12198]: No UCM verb is valid for hw:0
Sep 30 22:55:49 p5q3 systemd[1080]: Started Sound Service.
Sep 30 22:56:14 p5q3 pulseaudio[12198]: GetManagedObjects() failed: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NoReply: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.10
Package: pulseaudio 1:13.99.1-1ubuntu11
Uname: Linux 5.8.12-050812-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu48
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: eugene 1088 F.... pulseaudio
                      eugene 1092 F.... pipewire-media-
 /dev/snd/controlC1: eugene 1092 F.... pipewire-media-
 /dev/snd/seq: eugene 1087 F.... pipewire
CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
CurrentDesktop: KDE
Date: Wed Sep 30 22:50:58 2020
InstallationDate: Installed on 2019-04-13 (536 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 19.04 "Disco Dingo" - Alpha amd64 (20190326.1)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=uk_UA.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: pulseaudio
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to groovy on 2020-09-06 (23 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 06/11/2010
dmi.bios.release: 11.2
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 1102
dmi.board.asset.tag: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.board.name: P5Q3
dmi.board.vendor: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
dmi.board.version: Rev 1.xx
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: Asset-1234567890
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: Chassis Manufacture
dmi.chassis.version: Chassis Version
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvr1102:bd06/11/2010:br11.2:svnSystemmanufacturer:pnSystemProductName:pvrSystemVersion:rvnASUSTeKComputerINC.:rnP5Q3:rvrRev1.xx:cvnChassisManufacture:ct3:cvrChassisVersion:
dmi.product.family: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.product.name: System Product Name
dmi.product.sku: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.product.version: System Version
dmi.sys.vendor: System manufacturer

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

It looks like 'pipewire' has stolen the audio devices so pulseaudio may not work properly. Please try uninstalling or reconfiguring 'pipewire'.

[Gannet (ken20001)]

>Please try uninstalling or reconfiguring 'pipewire'.
Didn't helped at all.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Invincible (ventsislav-mladenov)]

I had the same problem after installing 20.10, removing pipewire fixed my problem and now the sound is working.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

could you add your logs with pipewire uninstalled?

[qwe (eesnowa)]

I don't have any 'pipewire' installed. Sound gradually fades away when starting any sound (e.g. youtube). Headphones and built-in mic doesn't work. Ubuntu 20.04.

> LC_ALL=C systemctl --user status pulseaudio.service
* pulseaudio.service - Sound Service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pulseaudio.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Tue 2020-11-03 20:36:27 CET; 6min ago
TriggeredBy: * pulseaudio.socket
   Main PID: 23743 (pulseaudio)
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/[e-mail]/pulseaudio.service
             `-23743 /usr/bin/pulseaudio --daemonize=no --log-target=journal

Nov 03 20:36:26 acer systemd[1258]: Starting Sound Service...
Nov 03 20:36:26 acer pulseaudio[23743]: No UCM verb is valid for hw:0
Nov 03 20:36:27 acer systemd[1258]: Started Sound Service.

[Gannet (ken20001)]

Sebastien Bacher (seb128), which exactly logs do you need? Maybe I could upload them for you.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Comment #9 was directed at Gannet, not at qwe.

Gannet, please uninstall pipewire and tell us if the problem persists. If it does then please run:

  apport-collect 1897965

If it does not, then this is bug 1902976.

[Gannet (ken20001)]

I am already did uninstalled pipewire and sound is OK in that case. But my report has been created earlier than 1902976 (?)

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Indeed. If you're 100% sure it's the same issue as bug 1902976 then we can make this the main bug.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

It appears we need to rebuild pipewire with this DISABLED:

option('pipewire-alsa',
       description: 'Enable pipewire-alsa integration',
       type: 'boolean',
       value: true)

and keep this ENABLED:

option('pipewire-pulseaudio',
       description: 'Enable pipewire-pulseaudio integration',
       type: 'boolean',
       value: true)

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Or just disable ALSA support by config somehow.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

As another workaround/fix please try changing the last line of /etc/pipewire/pipewire.conf to:

  exec /usr/bin/pipewire-media-session -d bluez5,alsa-seq,alsa-pcm,alsa-acp

[Pablo Pedrotti (ppedrotti)]

The last configuration change fixed the issue for me.

[Alfred Aardvark (nopants)]

I suspect I figured out this problem, it is a race condition between pipewire and pulseaudio that may only affect a very small number of users and only when their system configuration times the two to make the race condition happen.

After a recent update of unrelated packages, after bootup, a sound device was not correctly working anymore. Rebooting did not fix it, however logging out of kde and back in did. At first I thought the problem was SDDM related (SDDM starting too early before sound devices are fully initialized or some such) but then noticed a simple pulseaudio -k fixes it.

Forensically, I had the offending version of pipewire (0.3.10-4) installed for 3 weeks, but the problem only popped up this week, after an unrelated system update.

I got into touch with the pulseaudio devs and they immediately suspected pipewire to be the culprit, due to a race condition between pipewire and pulseaudio. apt-removing pipewire I confirm the system works as it should again. The pulseaudio devs state that pipewire >= 0.3.13 would have fixed the problem, but warned that 0.3.14 caused problems on arch, and that 0.3.16 is "latest and greatest"

Recommended course of action: Update the repositoried version of pipewire to >=0.3.16 ASAP and observe if the problem persists. Note that any change to system configuration can make the race condition appear or disappear, so if the underlying problem was not successfully fixed by pipewire, this problem could show up again because it is not easily replicable.

[sp (s-p-)]

just wanted to add that I've just got an kde neon upgrade in which pipewire 0.3.15-0 has been installed. Since that moment there's no sound out of my soundcard. It is listed when doing a "cat /proc/asound/cards" but not in the system-tray icons and such.
Uninstalling pipewire is not an option, plasma-desktop and a bunch of other packages would be included in the uninstall.

[Valorie Zimmerman (valorie-zimmerman)]

Uninstalling pipewire fixed my audio problems. Now I can plug in headphones get sound, unplug them and get onboard sound, as it used to work!

Running Kubuntu 20.10, installed pipewire :

apt show pipewire
Package: pipewire
Version: 0.3.10-4

[Victor Bayas (geminis3)]

Device: Acer Predator G3-571
OS: Kubuntu 20.10
Kernel: 5.8.0-31-generic
Nvidia Version (Intel mode): 455.38-0ubuntu0.20.10.1
Pipewire: 0.3.10-4

Symptoms:
Complete audio loss after a reboot with headphones plugged in, sometimes audio output works but people can't hear me through the mic.

Less nuclear workaround:
sudo systemctl disable --global pipewire
Remove pulse folder from home/.config and reboot

PD: I attach some information about my hardware setup
PD2: the bug is also present on latest KDE Neon which is based on Ubuntu 20.04

[jamie pate (jamie-pate)]

Distributor ID: Pop
Description: Pop!_OS 20.10
Release: 20.10
Codename: groovy
pipewire version: 0.3.10-4

Unable to use USB headset. When I plug in the headset I sometimes get this error:

Dec 11 14:54:10 pop-os pulseaudio[1710]: Failed to load module "module-alsa-card" (argument: "device_id="2" name="usb-Kingston_HyperX_7.1_Audio_00000000-00" card_name="alsa_card.usb-Kingston_HyperX_7.1_Audio_00000000-00" namereg_fail=false tsched=yes fixed_latency_range=no ignore_dB=no deferred_volume=yes use_ucm=yes avoid_resampling=no card_properties="module-udev-detect.discovered=1""): initialization failed.

Other times the device initializes, but there's no output e.g. in MS Teams (even though the Settings > Sound App shows input over that device...

above workaround fixes the problem immediately without rebooting or removing config:
sudo systemctl stop --user pipewire
# disable permanently:
sudo systemctl disable --global pipewire

[shag00 (shag00)]

I am author of bug 1909791

I have the pipewire libraries installed but not the application so I assume it cannot be pipewire. I also upgraded another PC to Kubuntu 20.10 this week and it also has similar issues. I now have 3 Kubuntu PCs (all with AMD Ryzon CPUs and Nvidia GPUs) where there is a problem with sound, specifically the output sinks are either not shown or changed from configured values by Pulse on each log in.

[Victor Bayas (geminis3)]

KDE Neon has a newer pipewire package which doesn't has this bug.

[Kevin Ogden (ogdenkev)]

Changing the last line of /etc/pipewire/pipewire.conf to:

  exec /usr/bin/pipewire-media-session -d bluez5,alsa-seq,alsa-pcm,alsa-acp

and then rebooting, as suggested by Daniel van Vugt in comment #18, fixed this problem for me.

[soredake (soredake)]

Any progress on this?

[Ken VanDine (ken-vandine)]

Can anyone confirm if this is an issue on hirsute?

[Ken VanDine (ken-vandine)]

Looking at the changelog for 0.3.19-3 which is in hirsute it shouldn't be an issue there.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Yeah the changelog sounds like it's talking about this issue being fixed:

pipewire (0.3.19-3) unstable; urgency=medium

  * Team upload
  * Don't enable audio-related plugins by default.
    Using pipewire for audio is considered experimental for Debian 11,
    and in particular the with-pulseaudio flag file will result in
    PulseAudio and Pipewire fighting over Bluetooth devices.
    - If you're experimenting with pipewire-pulse, please see
      /usr/share/doc/pipewire-audio-client-libraries/README.Debian
      for details of how to re-enable these.

but looking deeper at the debdiff I don't understand how it was done.

Let's assume this is indeed fixed in hirsute...

[Vương Tử Hà (vuongtuha)]

Please help me! Im using Kubuntu 2110 and normally audio with Pulse and Alsa
After update to this version pipewire, input signal is gone, only Easy Sink still shown
And every sound is gone, too. Please update any fix , i can go back to Pulse but i wanna use EasyEffect so on i need Pipewire

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

This bug is closed. Please open a new bug for any ongoing issue by running:

  ubuntu-bug pipewire