#1100943 pipewire: Sporadic audio crackling/distortion with pipewire 1.4.1-1

Package:
pipewire
Source:
pipewire
Description:
audio and video processing engine multimedia server
Submitter:
Alejandro Rosso
Date:
2026-01-29 19:03:09 UTC
Severity:
normal
#1100943#5
Date:
2025-03-20 18:36:57 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

After updating pipewire to version 1.4.1-1, I've been experiencing audio glitches that occur repeatedly a few seconds apart. I don't know the appropriet way to describe them but they are kind of distortion, like if samples were missing or being played out of order.
As a workaround, I restart pipewire service, e.g.:

```
systemctl --user restart pipewire.service
```
#1100943#10
Date:
2025-03-20 19:52:51 UTC
From:
To:
It seems that the issue has something to do with the fluidsynth package,
when I remove it the issue goes away. So maybe this is a fluidsynth issue
as it was updated along with pipewire.
#1100943#15
Date:
2025-03-21 08:47:10 UTC
From:
To:
Le jeu. 20 mars 2025 à 20:57, Alejandro Rosso <deltalejo@gmail.com> a écrit :

So, let's decrease the severity for now.

Best regards,
Dylan
#1100943#22
Date:
2025-03-23 14:27:33 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

since a recent package upgrade I had intermittent distorted sound when
watching videos, both via Firefox and mpv.

Thanks a lot to Alejandro, both the temporary workaround
systemctl --user restart pipewire.service
as well as the permanent workaround
sudo apt remove fluidsynth
worked for me on my Thinkpad P15v G3 AMD.

Let me know what I can test to help debugging the issue.

Regards

Richard
#1100943#27
Date:
2025-03-28 16:13:52 UTC
From:
To:
I also have the audio cracks, and I have fluidsynth installed. This
setup worked fine with pipewire 1.2.7-1+b2 without audio glitches.

One thing I notice with pw-top is that fluidsynth uses a sample rate of
44100 Hz, while everything else seems to be using a sample rate of
48000 Hz.

Cheers,
-Paul
#1100943#32
Date:
2025-04-04 03:40:01 UTC
From:
To:
Also happening on my end with combination of this and fluidsynth. I
independently stumbled upon the workaround. As I don't want to get rid of
fluidsynth, I've put the workaround in my session startup for now.

Thank you for your time.
#1100943#37
Date:
2025-05-29 09:37:09 UTC
From:
To:
Hi,

Would you check if this issue persists with pipewire 1.4.4-1 in
experimental that I 'm preparing, thus it should be available in the
repo in few hours.

Thank you.

Best regards,
Dylan
#1100943#42
Date:
2025-05-29 16:37:30 UTC
From:
To:
Hi Dylan,

It seems to be marginally better with 1.4.4-1, but I can still hear
cracks and glitches.

Cheers,
-Paul
#1100943#47
Date:
2026-01-29 18:42:38 UTC
From:
To:
  Have those affected tried applying the pipewire user config as per,
e.g.

	<https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=450701>

I ended up setting:

	default.clock.quantum       = 512
	default.clock.min-quantum   = 512

in my ~/.config/pipewire/pipewire.conf to fix such intermittent audio
crackling.

  It's possible that the Debian system-level defaults for these settings
should be reconsidered.  I don't know how prevalent this issue is.

  In my case this is on an ASRock PG Lightning X670E motherboard, using
its built-in audio.  The CPU is a Ryzen 7 7700X at stock clocks (well,
modulo whatever PBO is doing, along with the 'powersave' CPU governor).