Speaker output is flaky & stops working

Support Audio
,
1

Hi,

My laptop speaker has a flaky behavior. It often stops working randomly (often after sleep, but not only). Sometimes pavucontrol does not detect any outputs (then nothing works), sometimes it detects the outputs but only the external monitor (HDMI) speaker works, and the laptop begins heating quickly. I am using the pipewire suite, and if it makes a difference, I am on i3.
When it does not work, I get the following error messages

systemctl --user status pipewire pipewire-pulse wireplumber
● pipewire.service - PipeWire Multimedia Service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pipewire.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Mon 2026-03-23 19:09:01 CET; 17h ago
 Invocation: f06a30bbf53b418e97ce2065c1d3968c
TriggeredBy: ● pipewire.socket
   Main PID: 18281 (pipewire)
      Tasks: 4 (limit: 37689)
     Memory: 24.4M (peak: 27.8M)
        CPU: 55.201s
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/pipewire.service
             └─18281 /usr/bin/pipewire

Mar 24 12:09:01 simon-x2 pipewire[18281]: pw.node: (alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1f.3-platform-sof_sdw.HiFi__Mic__source-64) suspended -> error ((null))
Mar 24 12:09:01 simon-x2 pipewire[18281]: spa.alsa: set_hw_params: Invalid argument
Mar 24 12:09:06 simon-x2 pipewire[18281]: pw.node: (alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1f.3-platform-sof_sdw.HiFi__Mic__source-64) suspended -> error ((null))
Mar 24 12:09:06 simon-x2 pipewire[18281]: spa.alsa: set_hw_params: Invalid argument
Mar 24 12:09:11 simon-x2 pipewire[18281]: pw.node: (alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1f.3-platform-sof_sdw.HiFi__Mic__source-64) suspended -> error ((null))
Mar 24 12:09:11 simon-x2 pipewire[18281]: spa.alsa: set_hw_params: Invalid argument
Mar 24 12:09:16 simon-x2 pipewire[18281]: pw.node: (alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1f.3-platform-sof_sdw.HiFi__Mic__source-64) suspended -> error ((null))
Mar 24 12:09:16 simon-x2 pipewire[18281]: spa.alsa: set_hw_params: Invalid argument
Mar 24 12:09:21 simon-x2 pipewire[18281]: pw.node: (alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1f.3-platform-sof_sdw.HiFi__Mic__source-64) suspended -> error ((null))
Mar 24 12:09:21 simon-x2 pipewire[18281]: spa.alsa: set_hw_params: Invalid argument

● pipewire-pulse.service - PipeWire PulseAudio
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pipewire-pulse.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Tue 2026-03-24 12:01:40 CET; 7min ago
 Invocation: a6ae0b6c0c944b04a74213cceaafb86a
TriggeredBy: ● pipewire-pulse.socket
   Main PID: 40257 (pipewire-pulse)
      Tasks: 3 (limit: 37689)
     Memory: 21.1M (peak: 22M)
        CPU: 6.555s
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/pipewire-pulse.service
             └─40257 /usr/bin/pipewire-pulse

Mar 24 12:01:40 simon-x2 systemd[1680]: pipewire-pulse.service: Main process exited, code=dumped, status=11/SEGV
Mar 24 12:01:40 simon-x2 systemd[1680]: pipewire-pulse.service: Failed with result 'core-dump'.
Mar 24 12:01:40 simon-x2 systemd[1680]: pipewire-pulse.service: Consumed 1min 13.342s CPU time over 3h 6min 2.766s wall clock time, 37.7M memory peak.
Mar 24 12:01:40 simon-x2 systemd[1680]: pipewire-pulse.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 1.
Mar 24 12:01:40 simon-x2 systemd[1680]: Started PipeWire PulseAudio.
Mar 24 12:02:20 simon-x2 pipewire-pulse[40257]: mod.protocol-pulse: [PulseAudio Volume Control] timeout on stream 0x5561e2277400 channel:0
Mar 24 12:02:20 simon-x2 pipewire-pulse[40257]: mod.protocol-pulse: [PulseAudio Volume Control] timeout on stream 0x5561e22c1170 channel:1
Mar 24 12:02:20 simon-x2 pipewire-pulse[40257]: mod.protocol-pulse: [PulseAudio Volume Control] timeout on stream 0x5561e23c69b0 channel:4

● wireplumber.service - Multimedia Service Session Manager
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/wireplumber.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Mon 2026-03-23 19:09:01 CET; 17h ago
 Invocation: 071dd0f896424719a2109814592d3654
   Main PID: 18282 (wireplumber)
      Tasks: 6 (limit: 37689)
     Memory: 7.4M (peak: 8.9M)
        CPU: 1.290s
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/wireplumber.service
             └─18282 /usr/bin/wireplumber

Mar 23 19:09:01 simon-x2 systemd[1680]: Started Multimedia Service Session Manager.
Mar 23 19:09:02 simon-x2 wireplumber[18282]: wp-device: SPA handle 'api.libcamera.enum.manager' could not be loaded; is it installed?
Mar 23 19:09:02 simon-x2 wireplumber[18282]: s-monitors-libcamera: PipeWire's libcamera SPA plugin is missing or broken. Some camera types may not be supported.
Mar 23 19:09:03 simon-x2 wireplumber[18282]: m-portal-permissionstore: <WpPortalPermissionStorePlugin:0x563ab8993360> Lookup: The name is not activatable (org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown)
Mar 23 19:09:03 simon-x2 wireplumber[18282]: m-portal-permissionstore: <WpPortalPermissionStorePlugin:0x563ab8993360> Lookup: The name is not activatable (org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown)

I could not find this error online nor fix it despite tinkering. Could it be related to the sof-firmware ?

pacman -Q sof-firmware linux-firmware
sof-firmware 2025.12.2-1
linux-firmware-meta 20260309-1

here is my hardware detail

inxi -Azaa
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Lunar Lake-M HD Audio vendor: Lenovo
    driver: sof-audio-pci-intel-lnl bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:a828
    class-ID: 0401
  API: ALSA v: k6.12.73-1-MANJARO status: kernel-api with: aoss
    type: oss-emulator tools: alsactl,alsamixer,amixer
  Server-1: sndiod v: N/A status: off tools: aucat,midicat,sndioctl
  Server-2: PipeWire v: 1.6.2 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
1 Like
2

Not sure if this applies to your hardware, but I had to blacklist snd_soc_avs for similar reasons.

As per discussion here: https://superuser.com/questions/1845508/dell-xps-9550-speakers-only-detected-some-of-the-time-when-booting-arch-linux

3

Seems unlikely, I do not appear to have any race condition with snd_soc_avs as I have

sudo dmesg | grep soc
[68785.200437]  DMIC Raw: ASoC: error at __soc_pcm_hw_params on DMIC Raw: -22
[68790.201546] sof-audio-pci-intel-lnl 0000:00:1f.3: ASoC: error at snd_soc_pcm_component_hw_params on 0000:00:1f.3: -22
... (repeated 100+ times)

and sudo dmesg | grep avs produces no output.
Setting the hw_params really seems to be the core issue, but again I couldn’t find a way to fix it yet.

4

Please post more information about audio devices detected in PipeWire when audio is working:

pactl list cards

and also when speakers do not work.
Comparing both data sets might show if PipeWire is not working as expected

Please also post more information about System and Manufacturer/Model of Laptop:

inxi -SMa
1 Like
5

I think that switching to a more recent kernel did the trick.
I’ll wait for a bit before accepting this as the answer, to rule out sheer luck of it working in the past half hour.

6

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