I mean, the title really says it all. It occurs seemingly at random, but not all the time and I’ve been unable to determine any pattern to it… I’m using the latest proton stable version and pipewire-pulse for audio. Any ideas on how to fix it?
You didn’t list your distro, but I had the same issue on Pop!_OS. I fixed it by modifying the ALSA properties in
/usr/share/wireplumber/main.lua.d/50-alsa-config.lua. I’d first try uncommentingheadroomand changing it to 1024, then logging out and back in. If that doesn’t work, go 2048. If that still doesn’t work, then I’d maybe try adjustingperiod-size.For me, a value in the ~1200 range for headroom fixed it completely. But it will entirely depend on your sound card/hardware. And note, these values will probably be overwritten with any wireplummer updates.
Also keep in mind, increasing headroom will increase audio latency, so try not to increase it too drastically.
I’m running alpine with the steam flatpak on plasma 6 Wayland, I just didn’t think it mattered that much…
I was running Bazzite on my Deck, which uses pipewire(-pulse?), and it had intermittent audio crackling. I swapped back to SteamOS some time ago, which I believe uses just PulseAudio, and the audio crackling is gone. I suspect either there’s something funky going on with the default config, or there’s something wrong with pipewire-pulse itself.
Either way, hopefully someone can corroborate or that can help point you in the right direction.
SteamOS uses PipeWire, Pulse Audio isn’t even installed
Weird, because there’s a GUI settings app for Pulse. Anyway, if that’s the case, it’s probably the configuration.
Yes. Pipewire handles pulse apps like Pavucontrol.
TIL
After I installed my new graphics card, I started having audio issues in games, crackling, stuttering, etc. Had been using X without issue prior to the upgrade. Switching to Wayland fixed it. Never figured out why. Was (still am) on Nobara 38 I believe.
