#incessant audio crackling on (probably) all distros

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

limber fjord
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hello everyone! i need some help getting crackling to stop on linux. i've noticed that linux runs overwatch 2 better so i want to use it for gaming, especially since windows runs so slowly. however, i've been getting crackling/popping since i've started trying to do it. i am using the built in headphone jack on my laptop, bluetooth audio works fine but bluetooth itself works terribly so i don't want to use it.

things i've done:
(on pop os):
rebooted
restarted pipewire
changed pipewire quantum size, or sample rate. defaults to 256, 512. also tried 2048, 16384. problem is not as bad at higher sample rates but never goes away.
changed sample rate from 44100 to 48000 and 192000
changed headroom and period (made it worse + made the audio itself sound terrible)
tried different apps (spotify, firefox)
tried aplay to play audio directly through alsa
scarlett 2i2 over usb (100x worse)

swapped to kubuntu

(on kubuntu):
booted (issue was NOT SOLVED after a distro change on another drive)
uninstalled pipewire (masking all of pipewire pipewire-pulse pipewire-pulse.socket pipewire.socket wireplumber)
installed pulseaudio
pulseaudio -k and pulseaudio --start
disabling powersaving
enabling automute
setting high priority, nice level to -15, default and alternate sample rates to 48000, fragments to 8 and fragment size msec to 10
rebooting again
removing speech-dispatcher
sudo hda-verb /dev/snd/hwC0D0 0x20 SET_COEF_INDEX 0x67 and sudo hda-verb /dev/snd/hwC0D0 0x20 SET_PROC_COEF 0x3000
echo 0 > /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save and echo N > /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save_controller
scarlett 2i2 over usb (still 100x worse, but on pulseaudio this time)
rebooting into windows, running powercfg /H off, also resetting scarlett 2i2 settings through the windows driver. this fixed audio for about 3 minutes, once i unplugged the scarlett 2i2 it started doing it again.

i really need help getting this clicking to stop. thanks :)

limber fjord
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important update. endeavour with xfce4 seems to not have this issue as badly.

limber fjord
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another important update, linux mint doesn’t have this issue at all??? aside from the clicking when skipping in a video??

daring island
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What version of alsa on mint

limber fjord
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i’ll check that out when i get home

limber fjord
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how do i find

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aplay says 1.2.6 but alsa just shows the kernel version 5.15.0-91-generic

daring island
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where are you seeing either of those

limber fjord
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aplay --version and cat /proc/asound/version

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respectively

daring island
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look at the alsa package

limber fjord
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alsa-base is 1.0.25+dfsg

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is that right?

daring island
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What about on the ones where it doesn't work

limber fjord
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let me try ubuntu 24.04 right now. is alsa-base the right package to check?

daring island
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Possibly, you want to look at the package version that contains the drivers for the particular DAC your headphone jack is using

limber fjord
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alsa base on 24.04 is 1.0.25+dfsg

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so it’s probably not alsa

limber fjord
daring island
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it'll be listed under lsmod | grep snd, though that doesn't tell you the direct association

limber fjord
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there’s a lot of snd_x here, would it be just regular snd?

daring island
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no

limber fjord
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it’s not doing it on ubuntu 24.04 now bruh i’m dying (now it is idk what happened that time)

limber fjord
daring island
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Only if you have a single device on your computer capable of producing audio, up to and including HDMI

limber fjord
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nah i’ve got a lot

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there’s midi, hdmi, the dummy, and i think nvidia too but i dont see it

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which do you need

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or just the whole thing

opaque patio
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@limber fjord might be broken scheduler

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If you add tsched=0 to the line “load-module” in file /etc/pulse/default.pa see if that works/breaks it

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If it continues to work, try to turn on scheduler, if that breaks it, you got your answer

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but usually this behaviour happens when you turn off the scheduler

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using interrupt mode may not be too ideal but its also not gonna break your neck in any way tbh

limber fjord
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in the working setup or the broken

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cause the working one seems to be the pulseaudio one

opaque patio
opaque patio
limber fjord
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i haven’t really tested audio much on my second pc cause i wanted to fix it here first and that other computer just has less problems in general. so yeah all of this is my laptop

limber fjord
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the tsched=0 goes in the load module after that if statement right?

opaque patio
opaque patio
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Most people that have this issue seem to just switch to pulse

limber fjord
limber fjord
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only distros that use pulse by default work

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that’s what leads me to think it’s the kernel

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all versions that use pulse by default work, all versions that use pulse by default have an older kernel

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oops

opaque patio
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With pulse we can fix this easily

limber fjord
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i tried out endeavor after and then ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04

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i’ll have to get rid of ubuntu and go back to kubuntu

opaque patio
limber fjord
opaque patio
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It would be good to have the distro in use that you plan on using in the future

limber fjord
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so i might have to swap to mint

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i would really rather not use a old kernel tho

opaque patio
limber fjord
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on pop os its a dependency for pop-desktop, but before i do that i should probably go back to kubuntu and reproduce the issue where replacing pw with pa still has the same issue

opaque patio
limber fjord
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me when i install kubuntu and it stops doing it

limber fjord
# opaque patio Yeah. Replace pw with pa and toggle scheduling

the fact i had to reboot it again to get the clicking to happen again worries me that i just got super unlucky with mint and it doesn’t work either…

anyway, it is clicking now. how do i replace them? i assume mask the pw services somehow and just apt install pulseaudio?

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doing that rn

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run pulseaudio daemon directly after reinstalling, same issue

limber fjord
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probably a kernel regression

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a driver got broken

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/etc/pulse/default.pa line 52 reads load-module module-udev-detect tsched=0

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i think it’s snd_hda_intel since that’s the driver handling it

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a ubuntu wiki page from 2017 (more like 2009) says to download alsa from realtek which is of course a dead link

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idk if that’d help us but it’s worth mentioning

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pulseaudio -vvv shows some interesting stuff

IMG_2123.png
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my question is why doesn’t pw-top show errors when there’s a buffer underrun in pw

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it happens only when pausing tho

opaque patio
limber fjord
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same

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honestly i thought it was scheduling too

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guess not

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tsched 1 or 0 both crackling

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but why would the console be spammed with underruns after the song pauses

opaque patio
limber fjord
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uhh

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kinda

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cause apt won’t let me install it because of some conflict

opaque patio
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Pulse should be installed

limber fjord
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and i can’t uninstall pw because it’s required by pop-desktop

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pulse? it is not

opaque patio
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damn

limber fjord
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yeahh

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im ok with moving to kubuntu if i have to i guess, i would really rather not, but id have to fix the issue here first

opaque patio
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Internet suggest to remove pipewire-(…), leaving base pipewire package in place

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Then you should be able to install pulse

limber fjord
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on pop

opaque patio
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Yeah

limber fjord
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alright

opaque patio
limber fjord
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i think it’s a driver and/or the kernel though

limber fjord
opaque patio
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XD

limber fjord
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i think it would be funny to find a new bug in the kernel because my laptop is stupid

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but it’d take forever to get that fixed

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i don’t see what else it could possibly be though

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if we install pulseaudio on a new kernel and it has the same issue as pipewire on a new kernel

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and we install an old distro that comes with pulseaudio and there’s no problem

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i guess i could reinstall mint again and see if it starts happening, then it wouldn’t be the kernel and it was just a coincidence

limber fjord
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wait how about this

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go to ubuntu 22.04

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and just update the kernel repeatedly

limber fjord
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that’s why i think it’s the kernel

opaque patio
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If possible you could report this

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Can i have the sound card model?

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Then i can check if theres already a report about it

limber fjord
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uuhhhh

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on windows hwinfo
Audio Adapter: Intel Tiger Lake PCH-H - cAVS (Audio, Voice, Speech) [B1]
High Definition Audio Codec: RealTek ALC256

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i think im gonna spend the next couple hours downloading ubuntu ISOs and testing each one, but yeah we should check for a report

opaque patio
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checking rn

limber fjord
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thank you

opaque patio
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Seems like quite a few people have similar issue with this card

limber fjord
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fr?

opaque patio
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But most reports are actually from 2022

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Ill do some further digging once im home

limber fjord
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hm i googled it quick and it seems like a lot of reports are stuff just not working entirely

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reports for codec:
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=372881 (not working at all)
https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/comments/xzxkef/realtek_alc256_sound_card_issue_fix/ (unclear)
https://www.reddit.com/r/pop_os/comments/hl1meh/headphone_mic_not_working/ (mic not working at all)

audio adapter:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=200978 (specifically for clicking, this seems to be the only relevant result. but it is only for clicking when starting and stopping, where as my issue is throughout the entire audio)
https://forum.manjaro.org/t/no-sound-on-laptop-with-intel-tiger-lake-hd-audio-audio-hardware-not-detected/84964 (not working at all)
https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-hardware-18/no-sound-linux-mint-intel-tiger-lake-4175723564/#post6421099 (???)

limber fjord
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big plot twist here

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im gonna reboot again and see if it was one of those weird moments where it works once, but i just tried ubuntu 23.04 which comes with pipewire both installed and in use and theres no clicking

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this cements my claim that pipewire isn’t the issue

limber fjord
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yeah now 24.04 isn’t doing it so it sounds like it just isn’t happening now

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meaning the hour or two i just spent version hopping was for nothing

i booted into popos and now ubuntu will crackle again… i guess just had to wake it up

version list i guess

6.6 - guaranteed broken

5.15 - likely working, mint and 22.04 tested multiple times

limber fjord
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oop

opaque patio
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okay i checked but i didnt find anything

limber fjord
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alr

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hm

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yeah i think its gonna have to be testing kernels

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and since the issue doesnt even happen half the time unless im on pop where it always happens

limber fjord
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i have to get this fixed windows explorer is taking literally 4 minutes to start copying a file then crashing mid transfer

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i cannot deal with this anymore LOL

limber fjord
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is it possible to install ubuntu 23.04 and only upgrade the packages but jot@the kernel

limber fjord
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admittedly a little worried it’s not happening on 23.10.1 considering i could have sword it did before…

limber fjord
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news

limber fjord
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just tested 6.9.3 on ubuntu 23.04. crackling.

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6.2 does not as far as i know

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so i may very well find a kernel regression

limber fjord
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but i downgraded to 6.2 on pop and it’s still doing it. how does that make any sense.

limber fjord
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i genuinely don’t know what to do anymore