Updated partner’s Xfce system on stable branch. No audio problems with PulseAudio
If PulseAudio playback is suspended after PipeWire update, unload module-suspend-on-idle
pactl unload module module-suspend-on-idle
If that works create a custom default.pa configuration for PulseAudio in home folder
cp /etc/pulse/default.pa ~/.config/pulse/default.pa
and comment out module-suspend-on-idle in custom configuration
sed -i '/load-module module-suspend-on-idle/s/^/#/' ~/.config/pulse/default.pa