PipeWire / WirePlumber audio stack — troubleshooting and management. For the DSP chain see system/easyeffects.

Restart audio stack

Fixes most audio glitches (crackling, lost output, HDMI no sound):

• Restart everything: systemctl --user restart pipewire pipewire-pulse wireplumber

• Restart only WirePlumber: systemctl --user restart wireplumber

Inspect

• List sinks (outputs): pactl list sinks short

• List sources (inputs/mics): pactl list sources short

• Full sink details (sample rate, format, active port): pactl list sinks

• PipeWire graph status: wpctl status

• PipeWire node info by ID: pw-cli info <node-id>

• Dump full PipeWire graph (pipe to grep): pw-dump | grep -A20 "HDMI4"

HDMI audio

HDMI audio sink name pattern: alsa_output.pci-0000_c4_00.1.HiFi__HDMI4__sink

• Set volume on HDMI sink: pactl set-sink-volume alsa_output.pci-0000_c4_00.1.HiFi__HDMI4__sink 50%

• Test HDMI audio: paplay --device=alsa_output.pci-0000_c4_00.1.HiFi__HDMI4__sink /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav

• Set active card profile: pactl set-card-profile alsa_card.pci-0000_c4_00.1 HiFi

Microphone

• Check mute state: pactl get-source-mute @DEFAULT_SOURCE@

• List sources with mute: pactl list sources | grep -A10 "alsa_input" | grep "Mute:"

Logs

• WirePlumber logs (recent): journalctl --user -u wireplumber -n 50 --no-pager

• PipeWire logs: journalctl --user -u pipewire -n 50 --no-pager

Audio sink switcher

• Waybar custom/audio-sink shows current sink
• Switch sink via: ~/.config/waybar/scripts/audio-sink.sh
• Right-click volume in waybar → pavucontrol for full control