output device changes with pipewire-0.3.83-2

[Frank Elsner]

Hello,

has anyone other than me observed the effect that during audio playback to an audio
interface the destination device changes to the "build-in audio device." This
happens to me occasionally with pipewire-0.3.83-2.fc38.x86_64 and my ZOOM H6 audio
interface.

Any hint to avoid this welcome.

Greeting, Frank

[Tim]

On Tue, 2023-10-31 at 00:13 +0100, Frank Elsner via users wrote:
>  has anyone other than me observed the effect that during audio
>  playback to an audio interface the destination device changes to the
>  "build-in audio device." This happens to me occasionally with
>  pipewire-0.3.83-2.fc38.x86_64 and my ZOOM H6 audio interface.
>  
>  Any hint to avoid this welcome. 
First stab in the dark:  Are all your USB cables firm?

If any have a bit of slack at the connection, and get nudged, the USB
disconnects and reconnects.  During that time the USB sound interface
disappears, and the system could default to another.
 
-- 
 
uname -rsvp
Linux 3.10.0-1160.102.1.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Oct 17 15:42:21 UTC 2023 x86_64
 
Boilerplate:  All unexpected mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted.
I will only get to see the messages that are posted to the mailing list.

[Frank Elsner]

On Tue, 31 Oct 2023 14:24:53 +1030 Tim via users wrote:
>  On Tue, 2023-10-31 at 00:13 +0100, Frank Elsner via users wrote:
>  > has anyone other than me observed the effect that during audio
>  > playback to an audio interface the destination device changes to the
>  > "build-in audio device." This happens to me occasionally with
>  > pipewire-0.3.83-2.fc38.x86_64 and my ZOOM H6 audio interface.
>  > 
>  > Any hint to avoid this welcome.
>  
>  First stab in the dark:  Are all your USB cables firm? 
Nice idea. I remember problems with this one in the past. 
Will use an other and hopefully the problem disappesrs.

Thanks and greetings, Frank

[Tim]

Tim:
> > First stab in the dark:  Are all your USB cables firm? 
Frank Elsner
>  Nice idea. I remember problems with this one in the past. 
>  Will use an other and hopefully the problem disappesrs. 
Let us know if it made any difference.

Supplementary related issues:

Dirty contacts.  The innards of USB connectors are rather exposed, so
it's easy for muck to get in.  A bit of a scrub with clean toothbrush,
sometimes with some alcohol on it, or proper contact cleaner, or even
just dry, can do wonders with bad connections.

And if the contacts aren't plated well, the scraping of plugging and
unplugging connectors can wear them down.  There's not a great deal
that can be done about that.  Once the surface gets roughed up there
will be pits and bumps that make connector contact unreliable.

For simply loose connections, sometimes you can bend the socket's
spring tangs back into place with tiny screwdrivers.  I find USB B
connectors are particularly bad for that.  You'd expect them to be more
robust, because they look it, but I think they specified the socket
hole to be too big for the plug.

-- 
 
uname -rsvp
Linux 3.10.0-1160.102.1.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Oct 17 15:42:21 UTC 2023 x86_64
 
Boilerplate:  All unexpected mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted.
I will only get to see the messages that are posted to the mailing list.

[Frank Elsner]

On Wed, 01 Nov 2023 13:44:32 +1030 Tim via users wrote:
>  Tim:
>  >> First stab in the dark:  Are all your USB cables firm?
>  
>  Frank Elsner
>  > Nice idea. I remember problems with this one in the past. 
>  > Will use an other and hopefully the problem disappesrs.
>  
>  Let us know if it made any difference. 
The new cable fits better into the USB port. No problems so far.

--Frank

[stan]

On Tue, 31 Oct 2023 00:13:52 +0100
Frank Elsner via users <users(a)lists.fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
 
>  has anyone other than me observed the effect that during audio
>  playback to an audio interface the destination device changes to the
>  "build-in audio device." This happens to me occasionally with
>  pipewire-0.3.83-2.fc38.x86_64 and my ZOOM H6 audio interface. 
No, I have not seen that.  Once I select a device, it is always used.

>  Any hint to avoid this welcome. 
Do you have a default device set?  I haven't done it in a while, but
even under pipewire it is possible to use pavucontrol to set an output
device as the default.  I think I recall that once that is set, other
outputs are not used unless explicitly requested.  But I could be
wrong, as things constantly change as a developer's idea of the use case
changes.