Sound (and → Video playback) issue (possibly due to an incomplete pulse → pipewire migration?)

[nitja]

My desktop runs an older (but almost up-to-date) Manjaro-Gnome with above issue.
My laptop (same brand) has a fresh installation without any sound (or video) problems.

Since ~ January, videos on the desktop “play” like slide shows (of screenshots taken every other second),
but play normally as soon as they’re muted.
The utter ugly work around is to open Gnome Settings, switch the output device to a different one and back.
And this works then only as long as that very Gnome Settings window stays open.

After reading every post in the Support and Announcements categories from July 9 on I suspect my poorer-than-thought maintenance of that desktop system as alleged culprit.
… esp. an incomplete migration form pulse to pipewire.

pacman -Qs pulse (desktop | laptop) (diffuse)

desktop                                                                             ▒ laptop                                                                             
   ~  pacman -Qs pulse                                                      ✔ ▒    ~  pacman -Qs pulse                                                     ✔ 
                                                                                    ▒ local/gtk-vnc 1.5.0-1
                                                                                    ▒     VNC viewer widget for GTK
local/libcanberra 1:0.30+r2+gc0620e4-4                                              ▒ local/libcanberra 1:0.30+r2+gc0620e4-4
    A small and lightweight implementation of the XDG Sound Theme Specification     ▒     A small and lightweight implementation of the XDG Sound Theme Specification
local/libpulse 17.0+r43+g3e2bb8a1e-1                                                ▒ local/libpulse 17.0+r43+g3e2bb8a1e-1
    A featureful, general-purpose sound server (client library)                     ▒     A featureful, general-purpose sound server (client library)
local/pulseaudio 17.0+r43+g3e2bb8a1e-1                                              ▒
    A featureful, general-purpose sound server                                      ▒
                                                                                    ▒ local/pipewire-pulse 1:1.4.5-1
                                                                                    ▒     Low-latency audio/video router and processor - PulseAudio replacement
                                                                                    ▒ local/qemu-audio-pa 10.0.0-7
                                                                                    ▒     QEMU PulseAudio audio driver
    ~                                                                       ✔ ▒    ~                                                                       ✔ 


(no idea how that unsolicited VNC came to the laptop)

Trying to install pipewire-pulse, requiring the removal of pulseaudio, led down a rabbit hole of convoluted inter-dependencies, a jungle that quickly forced me to give that route up.

Is there a way to get pipewire-pulse (and qemu-audio-pa (whatever that is (?)) ?) onto the desktop without untying the Gordian knot of dependencies manually?

[megavolt]

@nitja

Since ~ January, videos on the desktop “play” like slide shows (of screenshots taken every other second),
but play normally as soon as they’re muted.
The utter ugly work around is to open Gnome Settings, switch the output device to a different one and back.
And this works then only as long as that very Gnome Settings window stays open.

Yeah, sounds pretty much like a conflict between pulseaudio and pipewire when suspending the audio device.

@nitja

Is there a way to get pipewire-pulse (and qemu-audio-pa (whatever that is (?)) ?) onto the desktop without untying the Gordian knot of dependencies manually?

Share the output of the terminal when you try to install it and someone will help you. It is not that hard when you understand the logic behind it.

pamac install manjaro-pipewire

[nitja]

“manjaro-pipewire” sounds much better than what I’ve tried!

   ~  pamac install manjaro-pipewire                                                                                                                            ✔ 
Vorbereitung...
==== AUTHENTICATING FOR org.manjaro.pamac.commit ====
Authentifizierung wird zur Installation, Aktualisierung oder Entfernung von Paketen benötigt
Authenticating as: tn
Password: 
==== AUTHENTICATION COMPLETE ====
Synchronisiere Paketdatenbanken...

Wähle die optionalen Abhängigkeiten für manjaro-pipewire:
1:  easyeffects: advanced equalizer and effects
2:  pipewire-jack: Jack support
3:  pipewire-v4l2: V4L2 interceptor
4:  pipewire-x11-bell: X11 bell
5:  pipewire-zeroconf: Zeroconf support
6:  realtime-privileges: Realtime privileges for users

Auswahl eingeben (Standard=keine): 

Which optional dependency to choose?
1: “easyeffects” sounds usefull
1: “jack” ? What’s that meant to be?
3-6: ???

And: “WOW” that worked indeed!
Even without re-booting …
(which I avoid @ that machine as long as possible - panel shows a daunting Firefox update pending).
Check for repair of issue pending …

First checks successfully passed - and survived a suspend to hibernate …