Mic stutter/cutting for over 3 years of recording videos on linux/pipewire

[pollux78]

Operating System Info

Other

Other OS

Cachyos

OBS Studio Version

32.0.2 Flatpak

OBS Studio Version (Other)

No response

OBS Studio Log URL

https://obsproject.com/logs/EZb2XCgEbYeiIWcd

OBS Studio Crash Log URL

No response

Expected Behavior

For my mic not to stutter or make any cutting sounds on linux when recording.

Current Behavior

Currently will randomly cut or "stutter" on the mic audio on linux/pipewire.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Be on a linux distro that defaults to pipewire
2. Record the mic in obs studio with a audio interface, i am using a focusrite 2i2 gen4 but it also happens on the behringer um2 aswell
3. I am using a podmic via a xlr cable but it can also happen on my at2020 mic aswell
   ...

Anything else we should know?

Here is a example of the cutting sound that occurs in this video at 5:37, this has been occurring for many years now on different mics and audio interfaces, i dont have a log of this occurring as it is hard to reproduce but i can show many examples of videos i have uploaded over the past 2 years or so of it happening.

https://youtu.be/t-DrJi1IFcA?si=pxhRn3AjUvskTSuA

If this is a pipewire problem i will report to them aswell.

Pipewire reported here

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/issues/4985

[ButterKing-28]

This also happens in Ubuntu

[Rikaisan]

Hey, did you find any workaround for the moment?

Currently on Arch, using the Flatkpak version (32.0.2) and having the same issue, it sounds fine while monitoring, but stutters in the recording. I checked my sample rate and it's not the issue.

[pollux78]

Hey, did you find any workaround for the moment?

Currently on Arch, using the Flatkpak version (32.0.2) and having the same issue, it sounds fine while monitoring, but stutters in the recording. I checked my sample rate and it's not the issue.

Nope, unsure of how I am going to fix this.

[ogmkp]

Same issue here on OBS 31.1.2 on Debian 13, is it related to #4600 ?

[pollux78]

Same issue here on OBS 31.1.2 on Debian 13, is it related to #4600 ?

It is related to 12428

[JuxGD]

I had this problem at a point, pretty sure it's the same problem as the one in your video, though seems to happen more frequently

I managed to fix it, I think it had something to do with buffer size or sampling rate or bitrate or something, after I changed one of those it started working normally. I had to change settings with like pipewire and wireplumber and pactl or whatever.

The problem's back now, that's why I'm here. I know it's the same problem but I don't remember which commands I did in order to fix it. I found them online but I can't find them again.

Using my normal mic source works, but I'm using a custom sink and source setup thing so that I can mute the mic only for OBS through a Niri key shortcut, and that's the only broken one.

I can share any info (command output etc) that could help. For now, my OBS sampling rate is set to 44.1 KHz, tried 48 KHz as well. I can't change the bitrate because I'm streaming to YouTube which only allows up to 160.

Using NixOS

---

(edit) Here's pw-top (which i just found out is a command that exists)

(edit 2: See how there's some that have mismatch between the sampling rate and that number in "format"? Might be relevant?)

and the relevant devices nodes things idk in Patchage

[ogmkp]

I tried all of this, sampling, bitrate, codec, I even set the global buffer, no xruns, but nothing works.
We can't hear the issue during monitoring, it happens during encoding.
It's like #10291 on input 2 and more but less problematic because it happens less often.

[ButterKing-28]

This also happens in Ubuntu

My issue was because, apparently, my CPU was getting "overwhelmed". I fixed this by lowering the recording quality.