Playback speed unsteady

[rtbo]

Issue type

General playback bug

Bug description

I recently switched from Fedora workstation to Ubuntu 23.10 (on the same laptop).
With default pipewire settings (buffer 1024, samplerate 48000), the playback speed is unsteady, jumping from too slow to too fast, and creating scratchy sound.
If I change pipewire settings to buffer 512, samplerate 48000, then the sound is back to normal.

On Fedora I never had this problem, (but never paid attention to pipewire settings there)

$ uname -a
Linux laptop 6.5.0-10-generic #10-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri Oct 13 13:49:38 UTC 2023 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Steps to reproduce

set pipewire settings to 1024 48000
log out / log in
open musescore and play any score

Screenshots/Screen recordings

No response

MuseScore Version

OS: Ubuntu 23.10, Arch.: x86_64, MuseScore version (64-bit): 4.1.1-232071203, revision: github-musescore-musescore-e4d1ddf

Regression

I don't know

Operating system

Ubuntu 23.10

Additional context

No response

[bkunda]

Could you please attach a video example?

[rtbo]

simplescreenrecorder-2023-11-17_23.28.07.webm

[zacjansheski]

Is this still actual?

Does it have anything to do with buffer size? (have you tried changing in preferences?)

[rtbo]

It got a lot worse since I upgraded to Ubuntu 24.04.
I can't use MuseScore anymore at all. The buffer size of both pipewire and MS have an impact on the playback quality but none of the combinations I've used work.
I've tried the 3 buffersize proposed by MS, with 1024 and 2048 buffersize of pipewire.

pipewire 1024 / MS 1024

pw1024_ms1024.mp4

pipewire 1024 / MS 2048

pw1024_ms2048.mp4

pipewire 1024 / MS 4096

pw1024_ms4096.mp4

pipewire 2048 / MS 1024

pw2048_ms1024.mp4

pipewire 2048 / MS 2048

pw2048_ms2048.mp4

pipewire 2048 / MS 4096

pw2048_ms4096.mp4

[MarcSabatella]

Did you try 44.1 kHz sample rate? It is a known issue that on many systems you need to set that explicitly.

[rtbo]

Yes it works normally if I set pipewire sample rate to 44100 Hz.

For other pipewire users having this problem, I had to run the following commands before starting MS:

pw-metadata -n settings 0 clock.allowed-rates '[44100 48000]'
pw-metadata -n settings 0 clock.force-rate 44100

(only 48000 was allowed)

[zacjansheski]

Closing as buffer size issue is covered in #18701