this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2026
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Any linux wizards know why when my sound sources go to background and CPU is under heavy load the audio crackles?

apps tested: minecraft, vlc(flatpak), spotify(flatpak), other fltapaks
crackles on both bluetooth and minijack headphones,
disabling microphone, easyeffects, gpu screen recorder ( gsr-default_output) didn't help

I use blender to put the load on CPU but it also happens when compiling or gaming

I have increased stuff in cat /etc/pipewire/pipewire.conf

[…]
## Properties for the DSP configuration.
    default.clock.rate          = 192000
    #default.clock.allowed-rates = [ 48000 ]
    default.clock.quantum       = 1024
    default.clock.min-quantum   = 32
    default.clock.max-quantum   = 4096
[…]
pw-top -b
S   ID  QUANT   RATE    WAIT    BUSY   W/Q   B/Q  ERR FORMAT           NAME 
S   29      0      0   
***
   
***
 
***
 
***
    0                  Dummy-Driver
S   30      0      0   
***
   
***
 
***
 
***
    0                  Freewheel-Driver
S   45      0      0   
***
   
***
 
***
 
***
    0                  Midi-Bridge
S   48      0      0   
***
   
***
 
***
 
***
    0                  bluez_midi.server
R   52   2048 192000  10,6ms  69,7us  0,99  0,01  453    S32LE 2 48000 alsa_output.pci-0000_06_00.6.analog-stereo
R  213    900  48000 229,0us  69,1us  0,02  0,01    0    F32LE 2 48000  + Firefox
R  219      0      0  13,0us  41,1us  0,00  0,00    0    F32P 2 192000  + easyeffects_sink
R  217      0      0    +++   17,0us  +++   0,00  428                   + ee_soe_output_level
R  174      0      0   9,3ms  34,3us  0,88  0,00  5416                   + ee_soe_spectrum
R  206    512  48000 300,5us  54,3us  0,03  0,01    0    F32LE 2 48000  + java
R  186    900  48000 359,5us  56,2us  0,03  0,01    0    F32LE 2 48000  + Firefox
R  242    900  48000 417,2us  52,4us  0,04  0,00    0    F32LE 2 48000  + Firefox
R  129    960  48000 152,1us  74,5us  0,01  0,01    0    S16LE 2 48000  + gsr-default_output
R  116   1920  48000 472,4us  62,5us  0,04  0,01    0    F32LE 2 48000  + VLC media player (LibVLC 3.0.23)
I   53   4096 192000   8,9us   3,3us  0,00  0,00  109   S32LE 2 192000 alsa_input.pci-0000_06_00.6.analog-stereo
S   68      0      0   
***
   
***
 
***
 
***
    0                  v4l2_input.pci-0000_06_00.3-usb-0_3_1.0
I  191      0      0   0,0us   0,0us  ???   ???     0    F32LE 2 48000 Firefox
I  216      0      0   0,0us   0,0us  ???   ???     0    F32LE 2 48000 Firefox
I  220      0      0   0,0us   0,0us  ???   ???     0    F32LE 2 48000 Firefox
S  244      0      0   
***
   
***
 
***
 
***
    0                  Blender
I  205      0      0   0,0us   0,0us  ???   ???     0    F32LE 2 44100 spotify
R  249   2048 192000  10,7ms  35,5us  1,00  0,00  1339    S16LE 1 48000 alsa_input.usb-145f_Trust_GXT_242_Microphone-00.mono-fallback
R  120      0      0  12,2us  13,5us  0,00  0,00    7    F32P 2 192000  + easyeffects_source
R  145      0      0   6,2us   8,2us  0,00  0,00   90                   + ee_sie_output_level
R  230      0      0   5,7us   7,6us  0,00  0,00  118                   + ee_sie_spectrum
R  144    960  48000  18,9us  49,7us  0,00  0,00    0    S16LE 2 48000  + gsr-default_input
R  257      0      0 122,2us    +++   0,01  +++   1101                   + ee_sie_rnnoise
R  106      0      0  44,8us 139,8us  0,00  0,01  236                   + ee_sie_stereo_tools
R   84      0      0   
***
   8,6us 
***
  0,00  235                   + ee_sie_crossfeed
R  158      0      0   5,3us   7,8us  0,00  0,00   30                   + ee_sie_reverb
R  171      0      0   5,2us   8,9us  0,00  0,00    4                   + ee_sie_equalizer
S  172      0      0   
***
   
***
 
***
 
***
    0                  plasmashell
S  119      0      0   
***
   
***
 
***
 
***
    0                  plasmashell
S  233      0      0   
***
   
***
 
***
 
***
    0                  ee_test_signals
S  193      0      0   
***
   
***
 
***
 
***
    0                  plasmashell
I  175      0      0   0,0us   0,0us  ???   ???     0    F32LE 2 48000 plasmashell

I know to little to dig into the scheduler stuff. systemctl status rtkit-daemon prints about pipewire sucess at priority 20.

I am on KDE/linux (bazzite based on fedora atomic44)

--------------
OS: Bazzite x86_64
Host: 82JU (Legion 5 15ACH6H)
Kernel: Linux 7.1.3-ogc3.4.fc44.x86_64
Uptime: 4 hours, 46 mins
Packages: 2 (appimage), 4 (brew), 1 (brew-cask), 173 (flatpak), 3014 (rpm)
Shell: bash 5.3.9
Display (BOE08E8): 1920x1080 in 16", 120 Hz [Built-in]
DE: KDE Plasma 6.7.2
WM: KWin (Wayland)
WM Theme: leaf-dark-color
Theme: Fusion (LeafDark) [Qt], Vapor [GTK2/3]
Icons: breeze-dark [Qt], breeze-dark [GTK3/4]
Font: Noto Sans (10pt) [Qt], Noto Sans (10pt) [GTK3/4]
Cursor: Teto (30px)
Terminal: konsole 26.4.3
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600H (12) @ 4.28 GHz
GPU 1: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile / Max-Q [Discrete]
GPU 2: AMD Radeon Vega Series / Radeon Vega Mobile Series [Integrated]
Memory: 12.05 GiB / 13.49 GiB (89%)
Swap: 16.62 GiB / 35.59 GiB (47%)
Disk (/): 49.00 MiB / 49.00 MiB (100%) - overlay [Read-only]
Disk (/etc): 845.89 GiB / 929.93 GiB (91%) - btrfs
Local IP (tun0): 10.96.0.42/16
Battery (L20M4PC0): 100% [AC Connected]
Locale: pl_PL.UTF-8
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[–] ludrol@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

~~After digging a bit it looks like pipewire and spotify don't get realtime shedules only SCHED_OTHER and SCHED_BATCH~~ https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=2279287#p2279287

   4873 TS       -   0  19 WRRende~kend#18
ludrol@bazzite:/var/home/ludrol/tmp$ ps -eo pid,class,rtprio,ni,pri,comm -L | grep -i spotify
   8613 TS       -   0  19 spotify
   8613 TS       -   0  19 spotify
   8613 TS       -   0  19 spotify
   8620 TS       -   0  19 spotify
   8620 TS       -   0  19 spotify
   8620 TS       -   0  19 spotify
   8624 TS       -   0  19 spotify
   8625 TS       -   0  19 spotify
   8664 TS       -   0  19 spotify
   8664 TS       -   0  19 spotify:cs0
   8664 B        0  19   0 spotify:disk$0
   8664 TS       -   0  19 spotify:sh0
   8664 TS       -   0  19 spotify:gdrv0
   8664 TS       -   0  19 spotify:gl0
   8664 TS       -   0  19 spotify:sh1
   8664 TS       -   0  19 spotify:sh2
   8664 TS       -   0  19 spotify:sh3
   8664 TS       -   0  19 spotify:sh4
   8664 TS       -   0  19 spotify:sh5
   8664 TS       -   0  19 spotify:sh6
   8664 TS       -   0  19 spotify:sh7
   8664 TS       -   0  19 spotify:sh8
   8664 B        0  19   0 spotify:disk$1
   8664 B        0  19   0 spotify:disk$2
   8664 B        0  19   0 spotify:disk$3
   8664 B        0  19   0 spotify:disk$0
   8664 TS       -   0  19 spotify:sh0
   8665 TS       -   0  19 spotify
   8669 TS       -   0  19 spotify
   8730 TS       -   0  19 spotify
   8804 TS       -   0  19 spotify
   8860 TS       -   0  19 spotify
ludrol@bazzite:/var/home/ludrol/tmp$ ps -eo pid,class,rtprio,ni,pri,comm -L | grep -i pipe
   2080 TS       -   0  19 IpcPipeBroadcas
   2080 TS       -   0  19 IpcPipeBroadcas
   2080 TS       -   0  19 IpcPipeBroadcas
   2080 TS       -   0  19 IpcPipeBroadcas
   3090 TS       - -11  30 pipewire
   3296 TS       - -11  30 pipewire-pulse
   3822 TS       -   0  19 .NET EventPipe
   3822 TS       -   0  19 .NET DebugPipe
   8613 TS       -   0  19 pipewire-loop
  40140 TS       -   0  19 mpv/ao/pipewire
systemctl status rtkit-daemon
● rtkit-daemon.service - RealtimeKit Scheduling Policy Service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/rtkit-daemon.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
    Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/system/service.d
             └─10-timeout-abort.conf
     Active: active (running) since Thu 2026-07-16 08:42:27 CEST; 3h 3min ago
 Invocation: 71422e850ec74c97b6edfa1666d3243a
   Main PID: 1599 (rtkit-daemon)
      Tasks: 3 (limit: 16290)
     Memory: 580K (peak: 3.5M, swap: 12K, swap peak: 12K)
        CPU: 92ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/rtkit-daemon.service
             └─1599 /usr/libexec/rtkit-daemon

lip 16 08:42:38 bazzite rtkit-daemon[1599]: Successfully made thread 3090 of process 3090 (/usr/bin/pipewire) owned by '1000' high priority at nice level -11.
lip 16 08:42:38 bazzite rtkit-daemon[1599]: Successfully made thread 3095 of process 3090 (/usr/bin/pipewire) owned by '1000' RT at priority 20.
lip 16 08:42:38 bazzite rtkit-daemon[1599]: Successfully made thread 3091 of process 3091 (/usr/bin/wireplumber) owned by '1000' high priority at nice level -11.
lip 16 08:42:38 bazzite rtkit-daemon[1599]: Successfully made thread 3103 of process 3091 (/usr/bin/wireplumber) owned by '1000' RT at priority 20.
lip 16 08:42:39 bazzite rtkit-daemon[1599]: Successfully made thread 3296 of process 3296 (/usr/bin/pipewire) owned by '1000' high priority at nice level -11.
lip 16 08:42:39 bazzite rtkit-daemon[1599]: Successfully made thread 3300 of process 3296 (/usr/bin/pipewire) owned by '1000' RT at priority 20.
lip 16 08:42:41 bazzite rtkit-daemon[1599]: Successfully made thread 3837 of process 3287 (/usr/bin/plasmashell) owned by '1000' RT at priority 20.
lip 16 08:42:42 bazzite rtkit-daemon[1599]: Successfully made thread 4081 of process 3287 (/usr/bin/plasmashell) owned by '1000' RT at priority 20.
lip 16 08:42:43 bazzite rtkit-daemon[1599]: Successfully made thread 4331 of process 4070 (/var/home/ludrol/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam) owned by '1000' high priority at nice level -10.
lip 16 08:42:44 bazzite rtkit-daemon[1599]: Successfully made thread 4332 of process 4070 (/var/home/ludrol/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam) owned by '1000' high priority at nice level -10.