Crackling sound at random intervals while Virtualbox is running

[Rick van den Bergh]

Recently I'm having an issue where the audio playback from my HDMI output starts crackling at random intervals in Ubuntu 22.04. It is not sure if Virtualbox is causing this issue, but it's a possible cause. I dug up a forum post from 2 years ago on AskUbuntu where someone implies Virtualbox causes their issue. Since Virtualbox runs in the background all the time for me, I cannot be certain about this. I run my Home Asisstant server inside Virtualbox.

If any audio playback starts crackling, executing pulseaudio -k always fixes it. Then the applications producing sound need to be restarted in order to get any sound out of them. After that the crackling will take hours to show up again.

In that AskUbuntu forum post that I referred to earlier, the user fixed this by setting resample-method = speex-float-10 in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf. So I did the same thing just before filling this bug report to see if that would fix it. I do not have enough data yet to draw any conclusions.

I can be sure that the crackling is from the HDMI sound output and not from malfunctioning speakers, since no other devices connected to the same speakers/TV have this issue.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 22.04
Package: pulseaudio 1:15.99.1+dfsg1-1ubuntu2.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 6.2.0-36.37~22.04.1-generic 6.2.16
Uname: Linux 6.2.0-36-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu82.5
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC1: rick 90340 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC0: rick 90340 F.... pulseaudio
CasperMD5CheckResult: pass
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Sun Nov 5 14:01:41 2023
InstallationDate: Installed on 2023-10-28 (8 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS "Jammy Jellyfish" - Release amd64 (20230807.2)
SourcePackage: pulseaudio
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 10/13/2023
dmi.bios.release: 5.17
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends International, LLC.
dmi.bios.version: 1.H0
dmi.board.asset.tag: To be filled by O.E.M.
dmi.board.name: MAG B550M MORTAR WIFI (MS-7C94)
dmi.board.vendor: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd.
dmi.board.version: 1.0
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: To be filled by O.E.M.
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd.
dmi.chassis.version: 1.0
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInternational,LLC.:bvr1.H0:bd10/13/2023:br5.17:svnMicro-StarInternationalCo.,Ltd.:pnMS-7C94:pvr1.0:rvnMicro-StarInternationalCo.,Ltd.:rnMAGB550MMORTARWIFI(MS-7C94):rvr1.0:cvnMicro-StarInternationalCo.,Ltd.:ct3:cvr1.0:skuTobefilledbyO.E.M.:
dmi.product.family: To be filled by O.E.M.
dmi.product.name: MS-7C94
dmi.product.sku: To be filled by O.E.M.
dmi.product.version: 1.0
dmi.sys.vendor: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd.
modified.conffile..etc.pulse.daemon.conf: [modified]
mtime.conffile..etc.pulse.daemon.conf: 2023-11-05T11:50:19.891182