Ubuntu 24.04 sound issues

Support and Help
1

Since I upgraded from Ubuntu 18.4 Bionic Beaver to 24.4 I have been affected by issues with sound. To me, it looks like the whole hardware stack is broken and it is incapable of properly managing multiple hardware devices and software inputs (chrome, VLC etc). Back in 18.4, there was a GUI that allowed you to manage multiple devices and set their pecking order (or priority). It was maybe a bit lackluster but it was there. Now it is non-existent.

I think the biggest change was the transition from PulseAudio to PipeWire. When I upgraded to 24.4, the upgrade was kind of “half-assed” with some PulseAudio packages still there. So I wiped out all PulseAudio and ALSA and installed the PipeWire, Pulse Effects was replaced with Easy Effects, so now I’m all-in on PipeWire but it still doesn’t work.

As a basic user, I have no sound whatsoever on my computer. What it means is that the sound driver stack fails to route the audio to my laptop speakers, the headphone output of my laptop and the HDMI output to my external monitor (that has audio). It is a dead-end basicly.

Now, I route my audio through an external DAC (FiiO Q5) that is connected through USB and it works. Until it automatically powers off due to idle and I want to get it back on. The remedies I have found to get it back on-line is to either rescan the hardware using

inxi -FAxz

which is a gamble. Sometimes it works and sometimes it can freeze the whole computer. I can also try to restart all pipewire services preferrably through the command:

systemctl --user restart pipewire pipewire-pulse wireplumber

which is also a gamble. If successful, I will get audio back on my USB DAC, if unsuccessful, the KDE sound volume widget fails to detect any hardware whatsoever. I’m lucky to have an external audio device, for those who rely on the internal hardware they have no sound whatsoever.

I looked into the website of PipeWire:

https://pipewire.org/

While it looks impressive, it also looks very complicated. There seems to be quite a set of tools there to manage the flow of sound of the computer. However, I’m confused when looking it through. I thought PipeWire was supposed to be a more “lightweight” solution to the PulseAudio driver stack which was claimed to be ‘a mess’.

For many Ubuntu users this is a dire situation as there is no sound whatsoever. I’m willing to supply bug reports and some troubleshooting assistance but I thought a good start is to make a post about it here.

For reference I made an initial post about it here which contains more detailed information with logs and terminal outputs:

2

Can you include this Please:

less /usr/share/pipewire/pipewire.conf | grep module.jackdbus-detect
3

Yes sure, here it is:

   # enables autoloading of module-jackdbus-detect
   module.jackdbus-detect = true
   { name = libpipewire-module-jackdbus-detect
       condition = [ { module.jackdbus-detect = true } ]
4

Thank You but my hunch was wrong, I had to change it to “true”.

# enables autoloading of module-jackdbus-detect
    module.jackdbus-detect = true
    { name = libpipewire-module-jackdbus-detect
        condition = [ { module.jackdbus-detect = true } ]

But yes I sympathize for those affected on sound. on 24.04

For myself it has been a nice addition to my sound stack.

And for others like yourself an Utter Frustration. :frowning:

apt policy qjackctl jackd
qjackctl:
  Installed: 1.0.3-1
  Candidate: 1.0.3-1
  Version table:
 *** 1.0.3-1 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu plucky/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
jackd:
  Installed: 5+nmu1
  Candidate: 5+nmu1
  Version table:
 *** 5+nmu1 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu plucky/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

wpctl status | grep combined
│ * 97. combined [Audio/Sink]
│ 98. output.combined_alsa_output.usb-DisplayLink_UOEOS_Laptop_Dock_4307293310436-02.analog-surround-51 [Stream/Output/Audio]
│ 99. output.combined_alsa_output.pci-0000_06_00.6.analog-stereo [Stream/Output/Audio]
86. output_FR > combined:playback_FR [active]
87. output_FL > combined:playback_FL [active]
0. Audio/Sink combined
1 Like
5

Could you clue me in about qjackctl and jackd and what they are? It appears that I have none of those packages installed.

The wpctl command grepped returns nothing on my computer btw.

6

I do not think that the J Audio Connection Kit (JACK) is installed in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.

It is not on my 24.04

graham@graham-Hybris-Devlopment:~$ apt policy qjackctl jackd
qjackctl:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 0.9.13-1build3
  Version table:
     0.9.13-1build3 500
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble/universe amd64 Packages
jackd:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 5+nmu1
  Version table:
     5+nmu1 500
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble/universe amd64 Packages
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble/universe i386 Packages"

[https://jackaudio.org/]

Regards

1 Like
7

I’m thinking out loud ATM and they are useless currently.

Let me play around a bit and I’ll return.

But will this return anything?

wpctl status
PipeWire 'pipewire-0' [1.2.7, me@Plucky-Puffin, cookie:1091927937]
 └─ Clients:
        33. xdg-desktop-portal                  [1.2.7, me@Plucky-Puffin, pid:2994]
        34. WirePlumber                         [1.2.7, me@Plucky-Puffin, pid:105680]
        35. pipewire                            [1.2.7, me@Plucky-Puffin, pid:105681]
        48. WirePlumber [export]                [1.2.7, me@Plucky-Puffin, pid:105680]
        78. Blueman                             [1.2.7, me@Plucky-Puffin, pid:3190]
        79. xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin             [1.2.7, me@Plucky-Puffin, pid:3091]
        80. Strawberry                          [1.2.7, me@Plucky-Puffin, pid:94424]
        95. pipewire                            [1.2.7, me@Plucky-Puffin, pid:105681]
        96. pipewire                            [1.2.7, me@Plucky-Puffin, pid:105681]
        98. wpctl                               [1.2.7, me@Plucky-Puffin, pid:147536]

Audio
 ├─ Devices:
 │      49. HDA NVidia                          [alsa]
 │      51. Family 17h/19h HD Audio Controller  [alsa]
 │  
 ├─ Sinks:
 │      45. Family 17h/19h HD Audio Controller Analog Stereo [vol: 0.50]
 │  
 ├─ Sources:
 │  *   46. Family 17h/19h HD Audio Controller Analog Stereo [vol: 1.00 MUTED]
 │  
 ├─ Filters:
 │    - combine-sink-105681-13                                      
 │  *   97. combined                                                     [Audio/Sink]
 │      99. output.combined_alsa_output.pci-0000_06_00.6.analog-stereo   [Stream/Output/Audio]
 │  
 └─ Streams:
        81. Strawberry                                                  
             86. output_FR       > combined:playback_FR	[active]
             87. output_FL       > combined:playback_FL	[active]

Video
 ├─ Devices:
 │      36. Integrated Camera                   [v4l2]
 │      47. Integrated Camera                   [v4l2]
 │  
 ├─ Sinks:
 │  
 ├─ Sources:
 │  *   76. Integrated Camera (V4L2)           
 │  
 ├─ Filters:
 │  
 └─ Streams:

Settings
 └─ Default Configured Devices:
         0. Audio/Sink    combined
8

Yes I do get some output from wpctl status:

PipeWire 'pipewire-0' [1.0.5, me@Strawberry-Cake, cookie:2440846366]
 └─ Clients:
        32. pipewire                            [1.0.5, bot@pod, pid:1690]
        34. WirePlumber                         [1.0.5, bot@pod, pid:1689]
        35. WirePlumber [export]                [1.0.5, bot@pod, pid:1689]
        39. Plasma PA                           [1.0.5, bot@pod, pid:1967]
        48. xdg-desktop-portal                  [1.0.5, bot@pod, pid:2906]
        49. Google Chrome input                 [1.0.5, bot@pod, pid:3356]
        50. Google Chrome                       [1.0.5, bot@pod, pid:3356]
        64. easyeffects                         [1.0.5, bot@pod, pid:7346]
       105. wpctl                               [1.0.5, bot@pod, pid:14790]

Audio
 ├─ Devices:
 │      46. FiiO Q5                             [alsa]
 │  
 ├─ Sinks:
 │  *   47. FiiO Q5 Analog Stereo               [vol: 1.00]
 │      76. Easy Effects Sink                   [vol: 1.00]
 │  
 ├─ Sink endpoints:
 │  
 ├─ Sources:
 │      75. Easy Effects Source                 [vol: 1.00]
 │  
 ├─ Source endpoints:
 │  
 └─ Streams:
        51. Google Chrome                                               
             52. output_FL       > Easy Effects Sink:playback_FL        [active]
             53. output_FR       > Easy Effects Sink:playback_FR        [active]

Video
 ├─ Devices:
 │  
 ├─ Sinks:
 │  
 ├─ Sink endpoints:
 │  
 ├─ Sources:
 │  
 ├─ Source endpoints:
 │  
 └─ Streams:

Settings
 └─ Default Configured Node Names:
         0. Audio/Sink    PulseEffects_mic

(haha at the vertical bars that fail to connect…)

I do note that the sound card of the computer is absent here. So is the Audio as provided by the GPU. I think it is an Intel based GPU on my lappie. The camera device is absent here but it is a bit of a surprise that it would be managed by an audio driver stack.

So the devices missing here are:
Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio (which is using intel_hda_driver)
Intel UHD Graphics 620 Audio (no known driver associated with it)

I see that you use a lot newer version of Pipewire. Mine is 1.0.5 and yours is 1.2.7.

9

Yep I’m a tester. (Not suggesting you do though)

I have a friend that is just a Pw Genius I’m currently spending time now with him (Arch Developer)
Give me sometime to see if I can provide “you” with something good, or at best a decent work around.

BTW I had problems on Plasma as well, but it is rare that I reach him this quickly, so please let me see what I can come up with.

2024-12-12_15-38
2024-12-12_15-381129×939 276 KB

1 Like
10

The first thing I noticed was after installing easy-effects is all sound stopped and I lost my USB DAC.

I could not get it back with a logout or back-in I had to reboot to see my USB DAC.
Do you need easy-effects?

Also have you checked you have the lasted firmware?

11

I have struggled too with the changeover, particularly with sinks. My issue is I have poor hearing (misspent youth playing in a rock band) and require higher volumes of sound my wife just cannot tolerate.
Before pipewire it all “just worked”, I created a combined sink and switched my bluetooth headphones on and had dual sound speakers for the wife and my headphones, all was sweet in the Brown household.

Along comes pipewire and much gnashing of teeth, many hours of frustration, trying to match sinks to outputs and inputs via the CLI having no idea of the correct syntax or proper code to use before I stumbled on this nifty little programme.

It’s called Qpwgraph, and is a brilliant little QT answer to my prayers.
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/rncbc/qpwgraph

Unfortunately it is only available as a flatpack (sigh) yet another layer of programmes to do a simple task like installing new programmes.

Give it a spin.

Tony

1 Like
12

We have something in common. :slight_smile:
I have it Plucky:

apt policy qpwgraph
qpwgraph:
  Installed: 0.7.2-1
  Candidate: 0.7.2-1
  Version table:
 *** 0.7.2-1 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu plucky/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

That is my last screenshot, but yes a very nifty application.

I think this is one to use on KDE.

 flatpak search qpwgraph
Name        Description                          Application ID        Version    Branch   Remotes
qpwgraph    A PipeWire Graph Qt GUI Interface    org.rncbc.qpwgraph    0.8.0      stable   flathub
1 Like
13

image
image1920×1080 381 KB

Here is my example of the sink/sound/system by Qpwgraph. And yes, I use Kubuntu KDE. I have heard that Gnome is gradually catching up to KDE in terms of practicality and facilities, but I’ve been happy with KDE for 10 years or more.

14

Yes, I need Easy Effects as it allows me to use the equalizer to calibrate the output for a better sound experience. If you google “frequency response curve” for headphones you will see that it is a curve. The ideal frequency response would be a straight line across all frequencies but it never is in practice as many headphones are poor at producing sound at the very lowest frequencies as well as the highest and generally have internal resonance(s) which may make them have elevated response at certain frequencies in the mid range. Sure, this is partially compensated for using builtin filters, but it never is perfectly balanced. Add on top of that the sound perceptibility of the human ear which is certainly not a straight line across all frequencies which makes it even more complicated. In any case, when using an equalizer you can choose to amplify certain frequencies while suppressing others in order to enhance your sound experience with your equipment.

Regarding firmware, yes it is the latest. In any case, it wasn’t a problem on Bionic Beaver to run this device. The issues are new for me with the update to 24.04 and switch to PipeWire.

15

I understand that, but a lot of things have changed in particular PipeWire && WirePlumber.

I have another Laptop that uses Audio very close to your Specs, Lenovo X1 Carbon, and I still have no issues, until easyeffects comes in then it fails badly.

i can say easyeffects from flatpak seems to be a better fit.

wpctl status|grep easyeffects
       150. easyeffects                         [0.3.69, me@tuxedo-os-btrfs, pid:2]
 │     166. output.combined_easyeffects_sink                             [Stream/Output/Audio]
 │     167. output.combined_easyeffects_sink                             [Stream/Output/Audio]
16

Well, I tried rebooting and starting up without Easy Effects and it still fails to detect my built in sound card and the audio channels of the HDMI outputs:

PipeWire 'pipewire-0' [1.0.5, bot@pod, cookie:1737913179]
 └─ Clients:
        32. pipewire                            [1.0.5, bot@pod, pid:1695]
        34. WirePlumber                         [1.0.5, bot@pod, pid:1694]
        35. WirePlumber [export]                [1.0.5, bot@pod, pid:1694]
        39. Plasma PA                           [1.0.5, bot@pod, pid:1962]
        48. wpctl                               [1.0.5, bot@pod, pid:3050]

Audio
 ├─ Devices:
 │      46. FiiO Q5                             [alsa]
 │  
 ├─ Sinks:
 │  *   47. FiiO Q5 Analog Stereo               [vol: 1.00]
 │  
 ├─ Sink endpoints:
 │  
 ├─ Sources:
 │  
 ├─ Source endpoints:
 │  
 └─ Streams:

Video
 ├─ Devices:
 │  
 ├─ Sinks:
 │  
 ├─ Sink endpoints:
 │  
 ├─ Sources:
 │  
 ├─ Source endpoints:
 │  
 └─ Streams:

Settings
 └─ Default Configured Node Names:
         0. Audio/Sink    PulseEffects_mic

So it seems unrelated with Easy Effects. I’m not sure what is “flatpack”, the version installed is 7.1.6. Btw I find the entry “0. Audio/Sink PulseEffects_mic” a bit strange. PulseEffects is no longer installed.

17

This really should just work OTB…
This is Flatpak and how to install it;
https://flathub.org/setup/Ubuntu

However This is mute point (no pun intended) if Noble can’t find your internal card, and it really should.

One more thought here, what returns with:

apt policy timidity-daemon

Also fire up “alsamixer” and hit key [F6] select the card shown (Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio) and check if shows and is not Muted.

┌──────────────────────────────────────── AlsaMixer v1.2.9 ────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Card: HD-Audio Generic                                                   F1:  Help               │
│ Chip: Realtek ALC287                                                     F2:  System information │
│ View: F3:[Playback] F4: Capture  F5: All                                 F6:  Select sound card  │
│ Item: Master [dB gain: -23.25]                                           Esc: Exit               │
│                                                                                                  │
│        ┌──┐         ┌──┐         ┌──┐         ┌──┐         ┌──┐                      ┌──┐        │
│        │  │         │  │         │▒▒│         │▒▒│         │  │                      │▒▒│        │
│        │  │         │  │         │▒▒│         │▒▒│         │  │                      │▒▒│        │
│        │  │         │  │         │▒▒│         │▒▒│         │  │                      │▒▒│        │
│        │  │         │  │         │▒▒│         │▒▒│         │  │                      │▒▒│        │
│        │  │         │  │         │▒▒│         │▒▒│         │  │                      │▒▒│        │
│        │  │         │  │         │▒▒│         │▒▒│         │  │                      │▒▒│        │
│        │  │         │  │         │▒▒│         │▒▒│         │  │                      │▒▒│        │
│        │▒▒│         │  │         │▒▒│         │▒▒│         │  │                      │▒▒│        │
│        │▒▒│         │  │         │▒▒│         │▒▒│         │  │                      │▒▒│        │
│        │▒▒│         │  │         │▒▒│         │▒▒│         │  │                      │▒▒│        │
│        │▒▒│         │  │         │▒▒│         │▒▒│         │  │                      │▒▒│        │
│        ├──┤         ├──┤         ├──┤         └──┘         └──┘       Disabled       └──┘        │
│        │OO│         │MM│         │OO│                                                            │
│        └──┘         └──┘         └──┘                                                            │
│         36          0<>0       100<>100      97<>97        0<>0                    100<>100      │
│   <   Master   > Headphone     Speaker        PCM       Mic Boost   Auto-Mute Mo Internal Mic    │
│                                                                                                  │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Then we can address easyeffects.

18

Timidity daemon is not installed:

timidity-daemon:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 2.14.0-8.2ubuntu1
  Version table:
     2.14.0-8.2ubuntu1 500
        500 http://se.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble/universe amd64 Packages
        500 http://se.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble/universe i386 Packages

When opening alsa-mixer there is no sound card to choose.

PipeWire_troubleshooting1
PipeWire_troubleshooting11920×1016 75.4 KB

But at least the sunrise point device is detected with inxi:

Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics 620 driver: i915 v: kernel
    arch: Gen-9.5 bus-ID: 00:02.0
  Device-2: Realtek Integrated_Webcam_HD driver: uvcvideo type: USB
    bus-ID: 1-5:3
  Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.21.1.11 with: Xwayland v: 23.2.6
    compositor: kwin_wayland driver: X: loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa
    dri: iris gpu: i915 resolution: 1: 1920x1080 2: 1920x1080
  API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: iris,swrast platforms:
    active: wayland,x11,surfaceless,device inactive: gbm
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: intel mesa v: 24.0.9-0ubuntu0.3
    glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics 620 (KBL
    GT2)
  API: Vulkan v: 1.3.275 drivers: N/A surfaces: xcb,xlib,wayland devices: 2
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1f.3
  API: ALSA v: k6.8.0-49-generic status: kernel-api
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.5 status: active

The USB_DAC is now turned off, and I don’t see that it detects the HDMI audio output.

I’ve also noticed that if I play a video with VLC and then pause it for a moment and then resume, the audio gets choppy during the first 5 - 10 seconds. I don’t have this issue with YouTube and I don’t have this issue if there is another audio source in the background but if it is VLC only I have these issues

19

I’m flat running out of Idea’s, but please try this:

sudo alsa force-reload

Then reboot and try to play something.

20

if there is no sound card, there should be some detect program probably alsa-base…