I am having sound trouble with my newly updated Fedora 35 setup. I know that rebooting fixes the issue, so it is not a hardware or driver problem. It is just that somehow (one of) the sound system (parts) has stopped or doing something wrong.
The symptoms are quite annoying. Everything is fine: my volume works, players (e.g. Spotify web player) start, I can see the right sources and sinks in the settings. But no sound. Just complete quiet. It doesn't matter which output I choose. And of course volume levels are fine.
I think I am using pipewire (never heard of it until now), because when I
systemctl --user stop pipewire.socketmy sinks and sources are gone from the settings.
So, I think it should be as simple as restarting some service, but I tried them all, to no effect.
I remember from the past that sound was tricky in Linux, from the OSS/ALSA days. Then I saw PulseAudio coming along, and now apparently it is Pipewire. I have no firm grasp on how this all fits together though. Because until now this all Just Worked™ until Fedora 35.
So, how does this all fit together, and how can I get my sound working again (without having to reboot)?
3 Answers
Since it seems like you have devices recognized, it is likely that the wireplumber service isn't running - see here:
Run systemctl --user enable --now wireplumber and you should be all set, no restart needed.
My laptop sound suddenly stopped while I was downloading a package from the Store. Found out the Sound Icon had greyed out.
On Youtube, it showed Audio renderer error. Please restart your computer.
The problem is caused as all audio drivers are not being recognized by the system.
Pipewire Service handles the audio and video in Fedora 35.
Therefore, by restarting Pipewire the problem seems to get resolved rather than restarting the entire system.
For me, systemctl --user restart pipewire fixed all the issues instantly.
Update:
Previously, I had installed the KDE spin of Fedora. The solution stated above worked for some days, after that only a restart was the solution.
This made me switch to the Gnome version of Fedora. Since then, all issues have been resolved.
The Gnome version of Fedora is very stable compared to the KDE spinoff.
2I had the same problem and even after systemctl --user enable --now wireplumber nothing worked.
But I found this and it fixed it for me.
TL;DR: The solution was to modify /usr/share/wireplumber/main.lua.d/50-alsa-config.lua and comment out the line :["api.alsa.use-acp"] = true
