Qjackctl freezes when shutting down, have to force kill processes [Solved]

[babythem]

Qjackctl starts JACK server properly, but every time I try to shut the server the window freezes, stops responding and I have to manually kill processes to restart. (I usually run `ps ax | grep jack` and kill all relevant processes.) This is quite annoying and time consuming, what could be the problem with my JACK install? I have tried reinstalling Qjackctl but it did not work. Please help troubleshoot, thanks!

EDIT: Should also mention I have following script executing after startup:

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pactl load-module module-jack-sink channels=2; pactl load-module module-jack-source; pacmd set-default-sink jack_out; a2jmidid -e

Also problem seems to occur no matter what preset or settings I use.

System specs:
QjackCtl 0.9.9
Qt 6.4.2
MX Linux 23.2 "Libretto"
Xfce 4.18

[Eadwine Rose]

Please share your full Quick System Info, found in the menu. Press the Copy for forum button, then click paste in a reply.. thanks.

[AVLinux]

Hi,

Any reason you are using jackd instead of PipeWire's 'pw-jack' implementation since Libretto comes with PipeWire by default?

[babythem]

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Snapshot created on: 20231215_1232
System:
  Kernel: 6.1.0-18-amd64 [6.1.76-1] arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 12.2.0
    parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-6.1.0-18-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-23.2_x64 Libretto December 15  2023 base: Debian GNU/Linux 12
    (bookworm)
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Dell product: Inspiron 13-5378 v: N/A serial: <superuser required> Chassis:
    type: 9 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Dell model: 0P380W v: A00 serial: <superuser required> UEFI: Dell v: 1.6.1
    date: 02/13/2017
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 22.0 Wh (100.0%) condition: 22.0/42.0 Wh (52.5%) volts: 12.7 min: 11.4
    model: SMP DELL Y3F7Y6B type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: full
CPU:
  Info: model: Intel Core i7-7500U bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Amber/Kaby Lake note: check
    gen: core 7 level: v3 note: check built: 2017 process: Intel 14nm family: 6 model-id: 0x8E (142)
    stepping: 9 microcode: 0xF4
  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: 2035 high: 2172 min/max: 400/3500 scaling: driver: intel_pstate
    governor: powersave cores: 1: 2014 2: 1956 3: 2172 4: 1999 bogomips: 23199
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
  Vulnerabilities:
  Type: gather_data_sampling mitigation: 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 status: Not affected
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 620 vendor: Dell driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Gen-9.5
    process: Intel 14nm built: 2016-20 ports: active: eDP-1 empty: HDMI-A-1 bus-ID: 00:02.0
    chip-ID: 8086:5916 class-ID: 0300
  Device-2: Realtek Integrated Webcam HD type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-5:4
    chip-ID: 0bda:58c2 class-ID: 0e02 serial: <filter>
  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: BOE Display 0x06a7 built: 2015 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 166
    gamma: 1.2 size: 294x165mm (11.57x6.5") diag: 337mm (13.3") ratio: 16:9 modes: 1920x1080
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 Mesa 22.3.6 renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 620 (KBL GT2)
    direct-render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
    bus-ID: 1-2:14 alternate: snd_soc_skl,snd_sof_pci_intel_skl chip-ID: 2573:0032 bus-ID: 00:1f.3
    class-ID: 0102 chip-ID: 8086:9d71 class-ID: 0403
  Device-2: ESI Audiotechnik GmbH NEVA DUO type: USB driver: snd-usb-audio
  API: ALSA v: k6.1.0-18-amd64 status: kernel-api tools: alsamixer,amixer
  Server-1: JACK v: 1.9.21 status: off with: a2jmidid status: off tools: jack_control,qjackctl
  Server-2: PipeWire v: 1.0.0 status: off with: 1: pipewire-pulse status: off 2: wireplumber
    status: off tools: pw-cat,pw-cli,wpctl
  Server-3: PulseAudio v: 16.1 status: active with: pulseaudio-jack type: module
    tools: pacat,pactl,pavucontrol
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Wireless 3165 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel modules: wl pcie: gen: 1 speed: 2.5 GT/s
    lanes: 1 bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:3165 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: 1-6:5
    chip-ID: 8087:0a2a class-ID: e001
  Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 2.1 lmp-v: 4.2
    sub-v: 1000 hci-v: 4.2 rev: 1000
  Info: acl-mtu: 1021:5 sco-mtu: 96:6 link-policy: rswitch hold sniff
    link-mode: peripheral accept service-classes: object transfer
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 238.47 GiB used: 141.02 GiB (59.1%)
  SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
  ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Toshiba model: THNSNK256GCS8 SATA 256GB size: 238.47 GiB
    block-size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 4101
    scheme: MBR
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 238.22 GiB size: 233.43 GiB (97.99%) used: 141.02 GiB (60.4%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/sda2 maj-min: 8:2
  ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 256 MiB size: 252 MiB (98.46%) used: 274 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 15 (default 60) cache-pressure: 100 (default)
  ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 3 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 file: /swap/swap
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 69.0 C pch: 50.5 C mobo: 50.0 C sodimm: SODIMM C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 3984
Repos:
  Packages: pm: dpkg pkgs: 2997 libs: 1447 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/brave-browser-release.list
    1: deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/brave-browser-archive-keyring.gpg] https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/ stable main
  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/mx.list
    1: deb http://kartolo.sby.datautama.net.id/mx-packages/mx/repo/ bookworm main non-free
Info:
  Processes: 224 Uptime: 1h 0m wakeups: 39120 Memory: 7.63 GiB used: 2.61 GiB (34.2%)
  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: UEFI

Hi,

Any reason you are using jackd instead of PipeWire's 'pw-jack' implementation since Libretto comes with PipeWire by default?

Is that available to launch via qjackctl? How should I get that?

[AVLinux]

Let's backtrack a bit... which application are you wanting to run with JACK?

[babythem]

I am using it for Ardour 8.4.

[AVLinux]

OK,

Well a few things... For reference I maintain AV Linux MX Edition which is based on MX and it is more completely set up for this kind of thing than regular MX so for Audio work with Ardour there are a few other things to consider..

1. Do you need JACK at all? Even the Ardour developers recommend using Ardour with it's direct ALSA backend and that way cutting out JACK, PulseAudio and PipeWire completely. Now if you are connecting JACK Audio apps together, ie using Ardour with Hydrogen or Guitarix then you will want JACK (or PipeWire-JACK) but if you are just using Ardour by itself it is by far simpler and more effective to simply use the ALSA backend (I personally do this all the time)

2. If you really want/need JACK and you are running a PipeWire system that doesn't have PipeWire's JACK server linked with ldconfig (AV Linux does this for you) then you need to run a specific command prepended with 'pw-jack' to tell Audio apps to use PipeWire's JACK server. With Ardour this would probably be something like running:

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pw-jack ardour8

in a Terminal, or modifying Ardour's launcher to say 'pw-jack ardour8' in it's "Exec=' line

Lastly, Ardour 8.4 has some some problems and it also breaks compatibility with Calf-Plugins and other GTK2-based Plugins if that matters to you at all... They are working on fixing some of these issues, I am still using Ardour 8.2 until the dust settles..

[babythem]

Oh wow, I was not aware that Ardour can be used with just ALSA backend! Long ago I guess I needed JACK since I was also using Hydrogen, and moreover I remember when I started using Ardour it was taught that you must also use with Qjackctl as this is the best way... but I guess now I have not so much need. I was using AVLinux until recently when I tried out MX 23, maybe switching back will make these things smoother...

And yes I noticed none of Calf pluginsn are displaying now! It allow me to look for + try other plugins for a change. Good to know its a detected bug that is being worked on. Thanks for the help!

[AVLinux]

Oh wow, I was not aware that Ardour can be used with just ALSA backend! Long ago I guess I needed JACK since I was also using Hydrogen, and moreover I remember when I started using Ardour it was taught that you must also use with Qjackctl as this is the best way... but I guess now I have not so much need. I was using AVLinux until recently when I tried out MX 23, maybe switching back will make these things smoother...

And yes I noticed none of Calf pluginsn are displaying now! It allow me to look for + try other plugins for a change. Good to know its a detected bug that is being worked on. Thanks for the help!

Actually better find an alternative for the Calf Plugins because that is NOT getting fixed:
https://discourse.ardour.org/t/ardour-8 ... gui/109936

[babythem]

Just to be sure, when using Ardour with ALSA backend we cannot allow media playback in other applications (e.g. Firefox or VLC) right? This is one advantage of JACK I can see that I used to run after startup commands which allow for simultaneous pulseaudio use in browser etc:
`pactl load-module module-jack-sink channels=2; pactl load-module module-jack-source; pacmd set-default-sink jack_out`

Is there anythign similar I can tweak PipeWire/ALSA setup to allow for this? Or should I just use "PulseAudio" backend option in Ardour... though I guess that does not allow for me to confgure soundcard and I/O.