[SOLVED] WirePlumber suddenly just dies (~amd64)

[ruby_R53]

About a week ago, I got an update for media-video/pipewire and media-video/wireplumber.

Audio still worked normally right after I emerged those packages, but then on the next day my audio just stopped working several minutes after I booted my PC.

I then tried different versions of media-video/pipewire — the live ebuild and the normal amd64 one. Still, no difference. Audio was working normally for just a day.

That was because I initially thought it was PipeWire's fault, but then I noticed that when that happens, I see PipeWire still running in htop.

Then, yesterday I tried a different build of media-video/wireplumber — the normal amd64 ebuild. Well, today I ran into the same issue, no luck.

And that's because I realized that WirePlumber is the one that disappears from the process list. Since it started happening after I got that update, I just assumed it could be fixed by downgrading it to a previously-working one. Seems like that's not the case, so I have no idea.

The issue seems to happen only while I'm playing something, be it a video on my web browser, a game, any app at all, and I really can't tell what exactly from that triggers it.

[pietinger]

You are using pipewire with the Use-flag "sound-server" enabled ... so please make sure you dont have two sound servers. Please read more here:
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/PipeWire#USE_flags

If you need more help please provide the output of:

- emerge --info
- grep -r --exclude-dir=savedconfig --exclude-dir=repos.conf "" /etc/portage
_________________
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:Pietinger

[ruby_R53]

[pietinger]

I see you already have a lot of experience with configuring Gentoo using customized use-flags. I would never recommend a beginner to globally enable the use-flag “minimal”; similarly, “udev” and “nls” should never be globally disabled. After reviewing your configuration, I will have to pass this problem on to experts, as your configuration is beyond my knowledge.

Some of the lines I looked at:

[ruby_R53]

hmm i see

[ruby_R53]

UPDATE: it turns out, the issue was··· my kernel configuration?

around the time i got that update for those packages, i also decided to try the new real-time preemption model on the new kernel version i've got, and that's where the issue began···

just a few days after the last response on this thread, i randomly decided to go back to the previous setting i had (Low-latency desktop) and compare it to the real-time kernel

turns out, the issue was happening on the real-time kernel and not on the low-latency one

i kept using the functional one for a few days just to make sure that was the case, and it really was

so oops x)

[pietinger]

ruby_R53,

thank you very much for your feedback!

When you use your real-time kernel are there any error messages in "dmesg" when the problem with your sound occurs?
_________________
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:Pietinger

[ruby_R53]

nothing, but that could be because i made my kernel less verbose

by the way, to be more specific i was using Zen kernel version 6.12.4 back when this was happening, not sure if the same happens on the vanilla kernel with the same settings

[FranciscoJaimes]

It sounds like the issue is with WirePlumber crashing or being terminated unexpectedly, which causes audio to stop. Since PipeWire is still running, but WirePlumber isn't, it suggests a problem specifically with the session manager (WirePlumber) rather than PipeWire itself.

You could try:

Checking WirePlumber logs (journalctl -xe | grep wireplumber) for any error messages.
Ensuring you have the latest stable version of WirePlumber and PipeWire, as the issue might have been fixed in a newer release.
Experimenting with switching to another session manager like pipewire-media-session, which might provide more stability.
If downgrading WirePlumber or switching session managers doesn't resolve the issue, there may be a deeper configuration or hardware-related conflict that needs further investigation.