Audio pops

Ask Fedora
1

Hello,

I’m experiencing audio pops and cracks in certain applications.

I suspect the cause of it is this error given by pipewire -v:

[I][12:42:38.200057] mod.rt       | [     module-rt.c:  589 check_realtime_privileges()] failed to set realtime policy: Permission denied

htop shows that the root process of pipewire has a niceness level of -11 but not its child processes:

Capture d’écran du 2026-07-13 12-42-03
Capture d’écran du 2026-07-13 12-42-031030×273 48.8 KB

Is there something wrong with the priorities above ? How can I verify that the audio processes run with realtime policy ? And how to fix it if not ?

I’m running Fedora 44 on Gnome. The audio pops did not occur during testing on Fedora KDE Live.

Thanks.

2

I think they are threads and not processes you are seeing.
I see the same nice for the threads as you do on my kde plasma system.

3

I added myself to group pipewire and it solved the permission issue to set realtime policy. All pipewire processes have a nice level of -11 now, unfortunately it does not solve the pop issues I’m having.

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Capture d’écran du 2026-07-13 22-44-35817×224 37.7 KB

4

Tried this lot?

5

Or this ?? F44 Audio popping noises
Making this change permanent fixed it for me.

6

I’m using COSMIC Atomic, and sometimes I hear the popping, depending on the update. I’ll try your solution.

7

Thanks, I tried both of your suggestions (I already had most of Steve’s link’s tweaks in place) but unfortunately it did not solve my issues.

8

Is this the right way to solve this error ? I’ve read answers that advised against it. Arch has a package that manages permissions for the realtime policy. What is the right way to handle this on Fedora and why is it not the default ?

9

My user account is only in the following groups and I presume the default would be just your user group and the wheel group):

┌─🎩 lurcher /usr/local🔒
├─
└─➜ groups                                                                                                                                                                                        ⏱️ 22s 12:18 Wed 15-Jul
steve wheel mock ollama

No pipewire mentioned but no popping issues either. I don’t have to tinker with niceness or priority on pipewire threads either. I’m aware none of this helps you, but I’m not sure what benefit adding your user to the pipewire group would confer upon you.

10

It gives a higher priority to pipewire sub-processes (as shown in my htop captures above). It did not solve my issues but it certainly isn’t unwanted either. Pipewire asks for the permission to set those priorities after all.

11

My point is that my machine does not set any of it’s sub-porcesses or threads to any different priority and it has no issues.

The change in priority or niceness therefore, is not required.

My machine ALSO fails to change it’s prio - zero issues:

[I][12:47:21.517725] mod.rt       | [     module-rt.c:  589 check_realtime_privileges()] failed to set realtime policy: Operation not permitted

Have you ever posted details on what sound chipset or driver you’re using? Maybe you have - I’ve not looked.

12

You also state in your initial description “audio pops and cracks in certain applications”

Are there any applications which do NOT experience any audio issues?

Have you rule out an actual hardware issue?

13

Yes, most applications like Firefox, Spotify, Tauon and various standalone emulators do not produce any audio pops, unless very occasionally when the system is under heavy load.

This is not a hardware issue, because I did not experience any audio pops / clicks on Windows using the applications that cause problems on Linux.