All audio stutters 1-2 times per second

Ask Fedora
,
1

Every now and then, maybe a few times per week with light use, all audio starts stuttering. Browser audio, program audio, video files, audio files. The only thing that has ever remedied this problem is a restart. All fixes I have tried online have failed, though I am unsure of exactly what I have done as this has been an issue for a while.

This issue has happened since I first installed Fedora in March (the laptop was brand new at the time), and has persisted across every update.

I’ve noticed that the stuttering issue tends to start in a browser (I use Zen), but persists across the whole OS for anything that has audio. It has never started while playing a game. I have never noticed it start in the middle of video or audio (it always appears to have begun while sound was not playing, or at the very start of audio playing). Sleep mode, oddly, pauses the stuttering for 1-15 seconds, before it resumes.

I know that pipewire is not the issue. I also know that it is not a hardware issue as I have never had this issue on Windows (I dual boot).

I’m not sure if I’m just having an unlucky day or if it’s getting worse, but it has happened 3 times today. After restarting the 3rd time, my boot times increased tenfold. Not just the Fedora OS, but Windows as well. The GRUB menu 5s timer takes a whole minute, and all inputs (boot, BIOS, GRUB) take almost 20 seconds to register. Oddly, once booted, both operating systems run perfectly fine, besides the persistent audio stuttering on Fedora.

What exactly do I need to do to fix this? Does anyone have a list of steps to try? System details below.

  • Operating System: Fedora Linux 44
  • KDE Plasma Version: 6.6.5
  • KDE Frameworks Version: 6.26.0
  • Qt Version: 6.11.1
  • Kernel Version: 7.0.9-205.fc44.x86_64 (64-bit)
  • Graphics Platform: Wayland
  • Processors: 14 × Intel® Core™ Ultra 5 225H
  • Memory: 32 GiB of RAM (30.3 GiB usable)
  • Graphics Processor: Intel® Graphics
  • Manufacturer: LENOVO
  • Product Name: 21SRCTO1WW
  • System Version: ThinkPad E16 Gen 3

EDIT: I’ve seen some similar topics that have said it happens to their systems after waking from sleep. It is possible that this is the case for me and I have just never noticed.

3

Is there a reason you have not updated to 6.7.1?
Your kernel is also old, current one is 7.0.14-201.fc44.

First upgrade to the latest version of F44 and see if the problem is fixed.

4

Is there a reason you have not updated to 6.7.1?

I just don’t check for updates often. I’ve given up on the idea of an update fixing my issues.

I’ve upgraded and, as expected, the problem is not fixed. EDIT: I’m almost certain that the problem is due to some issue with sleep mode on Fedora. Note that screen locking does not cause the issue.

5

There have been reports by other people on hardware not working well after waking from sleep.

Are you saying that the problem only starts after you wake from sleep?

The sleep/wake issues are hardware dependent. Some people have added kernel command line options to change how power saving works to fix things.

6

I believe so, yes.

Do you know if the Fedora developers are aware of this issue?

7

No idea, sorry, but it’s the kernel developers that will need to comment on the issue not Fedora packagers.

It is worth searching for this issue in combination with your laptop model.

8

Issues like this involve power management, so Linux needs to work in concert with vendor firmware. New kernels often require BIOS/UEFI updates. Windows is a different case because a lot of effort into supporting windows in vendor firmware, while linux support only gets the same attention for models where Linux support is advertised.

You should be able to find details that will help us understand the issue using journalctl. Try running journalctl <minus><minus>follow for short periods, then start playing audio. You want to capture times when audio is good and again when it is stuttering so you can look for dfferences.

The same hardware often has the same problems across multiple distros, so you can often find workarounds using what you learn from the journal comparisons in web searches.