Opening a browser shuts off audio

[ingridofcrows]

Not yet; I 'll do so today, after seeing if restarting PulseAudio works

[ingridofcrows]

Somehow, restarting PulseAudio a number of times got it to work. I’m not sure how.

I’ll update this thread in the future if the error recurs, or if this doesn’t fix it in future sessions.

[ingridofcrows]

The problem recurs after pausing; restarting PulseAudio, closing the audio-playing windows (Firefox tabs, Spotify &c) and starting it again allows one to hear something; older windows can’t continue to play.

[chriseggroll]

I am having a similar problem with pulseaudio but I can get it to work usually by changing the Configuration from Analog Stereo to Digital stereo and back. I don’t know what that works, but it’s still pretty annoying. When this happens pacmd says suspend cause: APPLICATION

I’m using vanilla arch, might try a new profile as a troubleshooting step.

edit: i think this fixed it for me: i had an asound.conf file in /etc that i just renamed to asound.conf.old forgot i had done that at one point when I was trying to ditch pulseaudio. After doing that and rebooting, everything seems to work without having to change the configuration in pavucontrol!

[ingridofcrows]

This just occurred to me upon reading the most recent response: I have a file /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf.d/99-pulseaudio-default.conf with the contents that you’ve listed, but I also have 50-pulseaudio.conf, whose contents are:

# Add a specific named PulseAudio pcm and ctl (typically useful for testing)

pcm.pulse {
	@args [ DEVICE ]
	@args.DEVICE {
		type string
		default ""
	}
	type pulse
	device $DEVICE
	hint {
		show {
			@func refer
			name defaults.namehint.basic
		}
		description "PulseAudio Sound Server"
	}
}

ctl.pulse {
	@args [ DEVICE ]
	@args.DEVICE {
		type string
		default ""
	}
	type pulse
	device $DEVICE
}

as well as 99-pipewire-default.conf:

pcm.!default {
    type pipewire
    playback_node "-1"
    capture_node  "-1"
    hint {
        show on
        description "Default ALSA Output (currently PipeWire Media Server)"
    }
}

ctl.!default {
    type pipewire
}

and 50-pipewire.conf:

# Add a specific named PipeWire pcm

defaults.pipewire.server "pipewire-0"
defaults.pipewire.node "-1"
defaults.pipewire.exclusive false
defaults.pipewire.role ""

pcm.pipewire {
	@args [ SERVER NODE EXCLUSIVE ROLE ]
	@args.SERVER {
		type string
		default {
			@func refer
			name defaults.pipewire.server
		}
	}
	@args.NODE {
		type string
		default {
			@func refer
			name defaults.pipewire.node
		}
	}
	@args.EXCLUSIVE {
		type integer
		default {
			@func refer
			name defaults.pipewire.exclusive
		}
	}
	@args.ROLE {
		type string
		default {
			@func refer
			name defaults.pipewire.role
		}
	}


	type pipewire
	server $SERVER
	playback_node $NODE
	capture_node $NODE
	exclusive $EXCLUSIVE
	role $ROLE
	hint {
		show on
		description "PipeWire Sound Server"
	}
}

ctl.pipewire {
        @args.SERVER {
                type string
                default {
                        @func refer
                        name defaults.pipewire.server
                }
        }
        type pipewire
        server $SERVER
}

Is this at all significant or helpful?

[ingridofcrows]

Update: switching to Pipewire seems to have fixed the problem in toto.