[Pkg-utopia-maintainers] Bug#1029763: pipewire: does not seem to work unless xdg-desktop-portal is running

[Wouter Verhelst]

Hi Dylan,

On Fri, Jan 27, 2023 at 12:14:40PM +0100, Dylan Aïssi wrote:
> Hello Wouter,
> 
> Le ven. 27 janv. 2023 à 11:00, Wouter Verhelst <wouter at debian.org> a écrit :
> >
> > The pipewire upstream troubleshooting guide suggests I look at
> > journalctl output as a first step in troubleshooting things. That
> > reveals:
> >
> > wouter at pc220518:~$ journalctl -xe | grep pipewire
> > jan 27 11:04:01 pc220518 pipewire[2111]: mod.rt: Can't find org.freedesktop.portal.Desktop. Is xdg-desktop-portal running?
> > jan 27 11:04:01 pc220518 pipewire[2111]: mod.rt: found session bus but no portal
> > jan 27 11:04:01 pc220518 pipewire-media-session[2113]: mod.rt: Can't find org.freedesktop.portal.Desktop. Is xdg-desktop-portal running?
> > jan 27 11:04:01 pc220518 pipewire-media-session[2113]: mod.rt: found session bus but no portal
> > jan 27 11:04:01 pc220518 dbus-daemon[1042]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.RealtimeKit1' unit='rtkit-daemon.service' requested by ':1.33' (uid=127 pid=2113 comm="/usr/bin/pipewire-media-session")
> > jan 27 11:04:01 pc220518 pipewire-pulse[2114]: mod.rt: Can't find org.freedesktop.portal.Desktop. Is xdg-desktop-portal running?
> > jan 27 11:04:01 pc220518 pipewire-pulse[2114]: mod.rt: found session bus but no portal
> > jan 27 11:04:53 pc220518 pipewire[2729]: mod.rt: Can't find org.freedesktop.portal.Desktop. Is xdg-desktop-portal running?
> > jan 27 11:04:53 pc220518 pipewire[2729]: mod.rt: found session bus but no portal
> > jan 27 11:04:53 pc220518 pipewire-media-session[2730]: mod.rt: Can't find org.freedesktop.portal.Desktop. Is xdg-desktop-portal running?
> > jan 27 11:04:53 pc220518 pipewire-media-session[2730]: mod.rt: found session bus but no portal
> > jan 27 11:04:53 pc220518 pipewire-pulse[2731]: mod.rt: Can't find org.freedesktop.portal.Desktop. Is xdg-desktop-portal running?
> > jan 27 11:04:53 pc220518 pipewire-pulse[2731]: mod.rt: found session bus but no portal
> > wouter at pc220518:~$ journalctl -xe | grep wireplumber
> > wouter at pc220518:~$ journalctl --user-unit=pipewire --user-unit=wireplumber --user-unit=pipewire-pulse -f
> > jan 27 11:04:52 pc220518 systemd[2708]: Started PipeWire Multimedia Service.
> > jan 27 11:04:53 pc220518 systemd[2708]: Started PipeWire PulseAudio.
> > jan 27 11:04:53 pc220518 pipewire[2729]: mod.rt: Can't find org.freedesktop.portal.Desktop. Is xdg-desktop-portal running?
> > jan 27 11:04:53 pc220518 pipewire[2729]: mod.rt: found session bus but no portal
> > jan 27 11:04:53 pc220518 pipewire-pulse[2731]: mod.rt: Can't find org.freedesktop.portal.Desktop. Is xdg-desktop-portal running?
> > jan 27 11:04:53 pc220518 pipewire-pulse[2731]: mod.rt: found session bus but no portal
> >
> > I use awesomewm, which probably doesn't require xdg-desktop-portal and
> > therefore doesn't start it.
> 
> xdg-desktop-portal is only used by pipewire for screen-sharing. If you don't
> have it, then pipewire will just not be able to do screen-sharing, but will work
> correctly for the audio part.

Okay, that's not related then.

> What do you mean by it doesn't start it?

That sentence referred to "awesome doesn't start xdg-desktop-portal".
But if that's unrelated to the problem, then disregard it.

> Do you mean you don't have sound at all?

Yes.

I did not install pipewire manually; it was installed through dependencies.

In the mean time I removed pipewire as a workaround, but looking through
dpkg.log told me how to reproduce it. If I have these installed, there
is no audio:

wouter at pc220518:~$ dpkg -l |grep pipewire
ii  libpipewire-0.3-0:amd64                       0.3.65-1                                     amd64        libraries for the PipeWire multimedia server
ii  libpipewire-0.3-modules:amd64                 0.3.65-1                                     amd64        libraries for the PipeWire multimedia server - modules
ii  pipewire:amd64                                0.3.65-1                                     amd64        audio and video processing engine multimedia server
ii  pipewire-bin                                  0.3.65-1                                     amd64        PipeWire multimedia server - programs
ii  pipewire-media-session                        0.4.2-1                                      amd64        example session manager for PipeWire
ii  pipewire-pulse                                0.3.65-1                                     amd64        PipeWire PulseAudio daemon

I'm guessing the problem is that "pipewire-pulse" is installed (which
redirects pulseaudio stuff to pipewire), but "pipewire-audio" isn't
(meaning there's nowhere for the audio to go)

This guess is supported by the fact that if I run "pavucontrol" and go
to the "Configuration" tab, it says there are no devices available.

> I don't see real issues in this log, or maybe yes you are using
> pipewire-media-session instead of wireplumber. pipewire-media-session is dead
> upstream see [1]. We keep it in Debian (for now) only for those who want to use
> pipewire for screen-sharing only and not for the audio part because it is easier
> to configure pms than wireplumber for this use. If you want to use pipewire for
> sound you should use wireplumber instead.

I don't "want" to use pipewire, it was (partially) installed on my
system and broke all audio ;-)

If my analysis above is correct, I would suggest you tighten
dependencies so that you can't install pipewire-pulse without a working
pipewire audio setup.

-- 
     w at uter.{be,co.za}
wouter@{grep.be,fosdem.org,debian.org}

I will have a Tin-Actinium-Potassium mixture, thanks.