Sound does not work outside of XFCE with other WMs

[pianokeyjoe]

Hello fellow MXers! I am finally upgraded with both a new computer system and MX23 and ditched my beloved MX19 that has worked for me since 2019. I have run into an issue that I did not see coming since MX has just worked for me with MX19 for years, dummy sound output with every WM and Desktop Environment not XFCE. In CDE, MaXX Desktop, CTWM, Enlightenment, Windowmaker and MWM, I can not get sound and if I call up mx-tools to select the sound card I still get silence and dummy output in pavucontrol. I am stumped. I can get alsamixer to come up in a terminal but it default to some strange Pipewire driver that does not work as I get no sound at all from the system until I default back to only XFCE desktop which uses pulse audio driver instead. Can I delete and completely remove pipewire and force my system to work like it used to in MX19 with alsa and pulse drivers? I think pipewire is a jackd style driver for realtime audio control for music production apps and not for youtube and firefox, vlc player,etc.. cause outside XFCE it is dead silent. Any help would be greatly appreciated as this issue should not be happening in a system so modern like MX23 but here it is!

Code: Select all

System:
  Kernel: 6.6.12-1-liquorix-amd64 [6.6-16~mx23ahs] arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 12.2.0 parameters: audit=0
    intel_pstate=disable rcupdate.rcu_expedited=1 BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-6.6.12-1-liquorix-amd64
    root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash
  Desktop: Xfce v: 4.18.1 tk: Gtk v: 3.24.36 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm v: 4.18.0 vt: 7
    dm: LightDM v: 1.26.0 Distro: MX-23.4_ahs_x64 Libretto January 21  2024 base: Debian GNU/Linux
    12 (bookworm)
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Dell product: Latitude 5414 v: N/A serial: <superuser required> Chassis:
    type: 9 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Dell model: 0FY1VN v: A01 serial: <superuser required> UEFI-[Legacy]: Dell v: 1.42.0
    date: 09/08/2023
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 50.2 Wh (100.0%) condition: 50.2/99.9 Wh (50.2%) volts: 12.8 min: 11.1
    model: SMP DELL W11Y75A type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: full
CPU:
  Info: model: Intel Core i7-6600U bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Skylake gen: core 6 level: v3
    note: check built: 2015 process: Intel 14nm family: 6 model-id: 0x4E (78) stepping: 3
    microcode: 0xF0
  Topology: cpus: 1x cores: 2 tpc: 2 threads: 4 smt: enabled cache: L1: 128 KiB
    desc: d-2x32 KiB; i-2x32 KiB L2: 512 KiB desc: 2x256 KiB L3: 4 MiB desc: 1x4 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 2600 high: 2601 min/max: 400/2801 boost: enabled scaling:
    driver: acpi-cpufreq governor: ondemand cores: 1: 2600 2: 2601 3: 2600 4: 2601 bogomips: 22399
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
  Vulnerabilities:
  Type: gather_data_sampling status: Vulnerable: No microcode
  Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled
  Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable
  Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
  Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI
  Type: mmio_stale_data mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
  Type: retbleed mitigation: IBRS
  Type: spec_rstack_overflow status: Not affected
  Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
  Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: IBRS, IBPB: conditional, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling,
    PBRSB-eIBRS: Not affected
  Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode
  Type: tsx_async_abort mitigation: TSX disabled
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Skylake GT2 [HD Graphics 520] vendor: Dell driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Gen-9
    process: Intel 14n built: 2015-16 ports: active: eDP-1 empty: DP-1,HDMI-A-1,HDMI-A-2
    bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:1916 class-ID: 0300
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.7 compositor: xfwm v: 4.18.0 driver: X:
    loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa dri: iris gpu: i915 display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.00x11.22") s-diag: 582mm (22.93")
  Monitor-1: eDP-1 model: AU Optronics 0x213d built: 2017 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 158
    gamma: 1.2 size: 309x173mm (12.17x6.81") diag: 354mm (13.9") ratio: 16:9 modes: 1920x1080
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 Mesa 24.2.2-1~mx23ahs renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 520 (SKL GT2)
    direct-render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
    alternate: snd_soc_skl, snd_soc_avs, snd_sof_pci_intel_skl bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:9d70
    class-ID: 0403
  API: ALSA v: k6.6.12-1-liquorix-amd64 status: kernel-api tools: alsamixer,amixer
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.0 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse status: active
    2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin 4: pw-jack type: plugin
    tools: pactl,pw-cat,pw-cli,wpctl
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Ethernet I219-LM vendor: Dell driver: e1000e v: kernel port: N/A bus-ID: 00:1f.6
    chip-ID: 8086:156f class-ID: 0200
  IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Intel Wireless 8260 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel modules: wl pcie: gen: 1
    speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:24f3 class-ID: 0280
  IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel Bluetooth wireless interface type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-8:5
    chip-ID: 8087:0a2b class-ID: e001
  Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 2.1 lmp-v: 4.2
    sub-v: 100 hci-v: 4.2 rev: 100
  Info: acl-mtu: 1021:4 sco-mtu: 96:6 link-policy: rswitch sniff link-mode: peripheral accept
    service-classes: rendering, capturing, object transfer, audio, telephony
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 465.76 GiB used: 146.55 GiB (31.5%)
  SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
  ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Seagate model: ST500LM034-2GH17A size: 465.76 GiB
    block-size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: HDD rpm: 7200 serial: <filter>
    rev: LXM3 scheme: MBR
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 29.3 GiB size: 28.67 GiB (97.86%) used: 13.61 GiB (47.5%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/sda3 maj-min: 8:3
  ID-2: /boot raw-size: 512 MiB size: 487.2 MiB (95.16%) used: 118.7 MiB (24.4%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1
  ID-3: /home raw-size: 428.15 GiB size: 420.36 GiB (98.18%) used: 132.8 GiB (31.6%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/sda4 maj-min: 8:4
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 15 (default 60) cache-pressure: 100 (default)
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 7.81 GiB used: 30.6 MiB (0.4%) priority: -2 dev: /dev/sda2
    maj-min: 8:2
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 52.0 C pch: 46.0 C mobo: 50.0 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 0
Repos:
  Packages: pm: dpkg pkgs: 2590 libs: 1294 tools: apt,apt-get,aptitude,nala,synaptic pm: rpm
    pkgs: 0 pm: flatpak pkgs: 0
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list
    1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list
    1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
    2: deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list
    1: deb [arch=amd64] https://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list
    1: deb http://mirrors.rit.edu/mxlinux/mx-packages/mx/repo/ bookworm main non-free
    2: deb http://mirrors.rit.edu/mxlinux/mx-packages/mx/repo/ bookworm ahs
Info:
  Processes: 294 Uptime: 7d 4h 36m wakeups: 2 Memory: 7.41 GiB used: 2.27 GiB (30.6%)
  Init: SysVinit v: 3.06 runlevel: 5 default: graphical tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 12.2.0
  alt: 12 Client: shell wrapper v: 5.2.15-release inxi: 3.3.26
Boot Mode: BIOS (legacy, CSM, MBR)

[AVLinux]

Hi,

PipeWire is not just for Pro Audio (it's not even particularly good at it). When installed and configured right it is a 100% compatible drop-in replacement for PulseAudio and any apps using PulseAudio will connect to PipeWire through 'pipewire-pulse'. 'pipewire-jack' is a replacement for jackd but in a regular MX install it won't even be running unless you specifically run an application with 'pw-jack' prepended to a command, so it's there if wanted but in most cases will not be running. Do you have 'pipewire-setup-mx' installed? That package will configure everything that PipeWire needs in MX for both systemd and sysvinit.

I can't speak for the many WM's you've listed but I can tell you that XFCE4, KDE, Fluxbox and Enlightenment normally all work very well with PipeWire.

[dolphin_oracle]

you probably just need to make sure pipewire and wireplumber is started by whatever startup file your wm uses, because unlike Xfce, WMs do not typically process the autostart entries under /etc/xdg/autostart.

alternatively, you could start with systemd as init, which will launch pipewire as a user service rather than relying on autostart entries.

if pipewire-setup-mx is still installed on your system, you can add

Code: Select all

pipewire-start

to your startup file.

[siamhie]

Can I delete and completely remove pipewire and force my system to work like it used to in MX19 with alsa and pulse drivers?

Try dolphin's suggestion first but if you really want to go back to using pulseaudio, follow the steps in this thread.

MX 23 Going back to pulseaudio (step-by-step tutorial)
viewtopic.php?t=76405

[davidy]

I had constant audio drop outs when running the mx23 iso. It's super easy to go back to pulse which just works. Synaptic will handle it easily. The xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin is the tray module you might need to install manually, at least in xfce.

[pianokeyjoe]

Thankyou guys for the quick and informative answers! So i do have pipewire-setup-mx installed as well as all the required packages that come with the MX23.2AHS iso. In the past, sound in WMs worked under pure alsa or pulse and the way I tested it was with the alsamixer command in a terminal which will tell you what audio device is running at the time. Sadly Alsamixer will not keep your settings oce you exit the app or the system so i end up back with pipewire as my default sound server and no sound output but dummy output on firefox,vlc,pavucontrol and audacity. Also, when i try to play a youtube video the video do not play back, they just circle and circle and circle until a message pops up saying that if video does not start please reset your device. Very angering. So I will try Dolphin's suggestion first cause yes all the required packages are installed, I just did not dare touch them because I do not know what pipewire was and did not want to ruffle feathers on my new system but seems ruffle them feathers I must! Thankyou again.. Worst comes to worst, I will remove all pipewire and restore pulse and alsa instead..

[pianokeyjoe]

@AVLinux The app pipewire-setup-mx is command not found in my terminal when I type it but it is installed according to synaptic. I did not see a GUI version of this app to configure anything pipewire related. Seems unless there is a path that I am missing, this can not be called up. Ahh the days of fussing with Linux to get it to work with sound are back baby!!

[AVLinux]

@AVLinux The app pipewire-setup-mx is command not found in my terminal when I type it but it is installed according to synaptic. I did not see a GUI version of this app to configure anything pipewire related. Seems unless there is a path that I am missing, this can not be called up. Ahh the days of fussing with Linux to get it to work with sound are back baby!!

Hi,

pipewire-setup-mx is simply a metapackage to tell the package manager what to install for a complete PipeWire setup, there is no GUI or anything that you will run. If you have it installed then that's good and all that is required..

So you do have sound in XFCE4 right? And the sound in XFCE4 works in all your apps like VLC etc. correct? It is Enlightenment and the Window Managers that have no sound?

Like @dolphin_oracle has said if XFCE4 works and the others don't and you are booting sysvinit it is because the others are not telling PipeWire and WirePlumber to start.. MX Devs have designed the PipeWire setup to work in XFCE4, KDE and Fluxbox if you install something on your own and it doesn't work it doesn't mean there is anything wrong with PipeWire... new systems have new methods and if you color outside the lines then you will have to make some adjustments..

In the case of Enlightenment it really isn't set up to be booted with sysvinit, it's developer and Debian make it so it is intentionally set up for systemd so if you haven't added the specific startup script for PipeWire sysvinit to you Enlightenment 'startup apps' it won't start at Login. You CAN use Enlightenment with sysvinit but everything may not work right... To get PipeWire to run in Enlightenment with sysvinit go to Settings Panel-->Apps-->Startup Applications and in the 'System' tab you should Add and enable 'pipewire (Sysvinit)'. On the next login Enlightenment should start PipeWire and work like XFCE4 does..

[CharlesV]

Also, when i try to play a youtube video the video do not play back, they just circle and circle and circle until a message pops up saying that if video does not start please reset your device.

This may not be the fix, but I just resolved a problem like this (youtube video would not play, circled and circled and then says to reset your device) ... the issue was the clock was WAY off from real internet time. Set it to auto get time and the issue resolved. You might check your time - make sure it is right, then try to play youtube.

[dolphin_oracle]

pipewire-start

Is the command