I will start by saying that as far as I can tell everything is
_working_, but I can no longer administer the service. I am using
X11. Unfortunately I did not try any of this immediately before the
upgrade.
Here are some commands that I tried:
-------------
$ openrc -U
$ rc-status -U
Runlevel: sysinit
Dynamic Runlevel: hotplugged
Dynamic Runlevel: needed/wanted
Dynamic Runlevel: manual
$ openrc -U default
* default: not a valid runlevel
$ openrc -U gui
* Use 'notify=fd:3' instead of 'ready=fd:3'
* Starting pipewire ...
* supervise-daemon: /usr/bin/pipewire is already running
* failed to start pipewire
[ !! ]
* ERROR: pipewire failed to start
$ rc-service -U pipewire start
* Use 'notify=fd:3' instead of 'ready=fd:3'
* Starting pipewire ...
* failed to start pipewire
[ !! ]
* ERROR: pipewire failed to start
$ rc-service -U pipewire restart
* Use 'notify=fd:3' instead of 'ready=fd:3'
* Starting pipewire ...
* failed to start pipewire
[ !! ]
* ERROR: pipewire failed to start
--------
Excerpt from /var/log/messages
Dec 11 13:48:20 orion daemon.warn supervise-daemon[5476]:
/usr/bin/pipewire, pid 5491, exited with return code 1 Dec 11 13:48:20
orion daemon.err pipewire: * supervise-daemon: failed to dup ready fd:
Bad file descriptor Dec 11 13:48:23 orion daemon.warn
supervise-daemon[5476]: /usr/bin/pipewire, pid 5493, exited with return
code 1 Dec 11 13:48:23 orion daemon.warn supervise-daemon[5476]:
respawned "/usr/bin/pipewire" too many times, exiting Dec 11 13:48:23
orion daemon.err pipewire: * supervise-daemon: failed to dup ready fd:
Bad file descriptor
---------
Really no idea where to go from here - has anyone else seen this?
Ian.
More information:
$ rc-status -Ua
Runlevel: gui
pipewire [
stopped ] Dynamic Runlevel: hotplugged
Dynamic Runlevel: needed/wanted
Dynamic Runlevel: manual
$ ls -lAh /etc/xdg/autostart
total 60K
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 209 Nov 28 19:52 .pipewire.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 296 Nov 23 10:44 at-spi-dbus-bus.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8.7K Nov 30 16:23 gnome-keyring-pkcs11.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8.2K Nov 30 16:23 gnome-keyring-secrets.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5.9K Jan 3 2025 xfce4-power-manager.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6.3K Dec 21 2024 xfce4-screensaver.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8.1K May 30 2025 xfsettingsd.desktop
$ rc-service -U pipewire restart
* You are attempting to run an openrc service on a
* system which openrc did not boot.
* You may be inside a chroot or you may have used
* another initialization system to boot this system.
* In this situation, you will get unpredictable results!
* If you really want to do this, issue the following command:
* touch /run/user/1000/openrc/softlevel
* ERROR: dbus failed to start
* You are attempting to run an openrc service on a
* system which openrc did not boot.
* You may be inside a chroot or you may have used
* another initialization system to boot this system.
* In this situation, you will get unpredictable results!
* If you really want to do this, issue the following command:
* touch /run/user/1000/openrc/softlevel
* ERROR: wireplumber failed to start
* ERROR: cannot start pipewire as dbus would not start
To reiterate, pipewire IS running and I CAN use more than one audio
input at a time, so what is happening here?
Ian.
from the /etc/xdg/autostart i assume you're running Xfce and
*xfce4-session,*the Xfce session manager will start the
services/applications listed there. Since pipewire-launcher is listed
there, it starts the pipewire and results in conflict with user service.
As mentioned in https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/PipeWire#Launch_PipeWire,
running both will result in conflicts. Please remove the pipewire.desktop
from the autostart folder, to manage pipewire using user service.
$ apk info /etc/xdg/autostart/pipewire.desktop --who-owns
/etc/xdg/autostart/pipewire.desktop is owned by pipewire-1.4.9-r2
$ cat /etc/xdg/autostart/pipewire.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=Pipewire
Comment=Start Pipewire
Exec=/usr/libexec/pipewire-launcher
Terminal=false
Type=Application
X-KDE-autostart-phase=1
X-GNOME-HiddenUnderSystemd=true
X-systemd-skip=true
On Fri, 12 Dec 2025 at 15:46, Ian Smith <m4r35n357@gmx.co.uk> wrote:
> More information:>> $ rc-status -Ua> Runlevel: gui> pipewire [> stopped ] Dynamic Runlevel: hotplugged> Dynamic Runlevel: needed/wanted> Dynamic Runlevel: manual>> $ ls -lAh /etc/xdg/autostart> total 60K> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 209 Nov 28 19:52 .pipewire.desktop> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 296 Nov 23 10:44 at-spi-dbus-bus.desktop> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8.7K Nov 30 16:23 gnome-keyring-pkcs11.desktop> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8.2K Nov 30 16:23 gnome-keyring-secrets.desktop> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5.9K Jan 3 2025 xfce4-power-manager.desktop> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6.3K Dec 21 2024 xfce4-screensaver.desktop> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8.1K May 30 2025 xfsettingsd.desktop>> $ rc-service -U pipewire restart> * You are attempting to run an openrc service on a> * system which openrc did not boot.> * You may be inside a chroot or you may have used> * another initialization system to boot this system.> * In this situation, you will get unpredictable results!> * If you really want to do this, issue the following command:> * touch /run/user/1000/openrc/softlevel> * ERROR: dbus failed to start> * You are attempting to run an openrc service on a> * system which openrc did not boot.> * You may be inside a chroot or you may have used> * another initialization system to boot this system.> * In this situation, you will get unpredictable results!> * If you really want to do this, issue the following command:> * touch /run/user/1000/openrc/softlevel> * ERROR: wireplumber failed to start> * ERROR: cannot start pipewire as dbus would not start>> To reiterate, pipewire IS running and I CAN use more than one audio> input at a time, so what is happening here?>> Ian.>
I tried deleting the autostart file rather than dotting it out, but got
a message about XDG_RUNTIME_DIR being unset. AFAIK that is a Wayland
thing, whereas I am using X.
$ rc-status -Ua
* Caching service dependencies ...
[ ok ] Runlevel: gui
pipewire [
stopped ] Dynamic Runlevel: hotplugged
Dynamic Runlevel: needed/wanted
Dynamic Runlevel: manual
$ doas rc-service -U pipewire restart
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR unset.
Incidentally, I tried this on an image backup of v3.22, so whatever has
happened has been "backported".
To reiterate, all this worked _perfectly_ back in the summer when I set
it up, so it is a regression.
I should also add this is on a Raspberry Pi 500 (aarch64).
Ian.
I revisited the Wiki pages, and user services seem to be no longer a
pre-requisite for pipewire (they certainly were when I first set it up).
It occurs to me that a decision might have been made to use an autostart
file _instead_ of a user service. Is this correct? I will gladly drop
the user service is that is the case!
Ian.
I suppose I should wrap this up . . .
I have decided to go with the desktop file, and abandon the user
service, for now at least, and woudl like to point out once more that at
_no_ point was I left with broken audio.
I would be interested to know if the user service stuff is still
considered the way forward; certainly when I first set this up I had to
jump through a few hoops to skip the Wayland stuff that I didn't need.
I would hope that X will be supported fully, but in any case the desktop
file will see me through ;)