Problem with Pipewire

Ask Fedora
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1

Hello everyone
After having some problem with audio i tried the method of reinstalling pipewire according to this guide:

After reinstalling and reboot the output of “systemctl --user status wireplumber” show both the service and preset are enabled as expected. But the output of “systemctl --user status pipewire” still shown the preset as disable:

● pipewire.service - PipeWire Multimedia Service
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pipewire.service; enabled; preset: disabled)
Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/user/pipewire.service.d
└─00-uresourced.conf
/usr/lib/systemd/user/service.d
└─10-timeout-abort.conf
Active: active (running) since Wed 2025-07-02 23:54:29 +07; 1min 0s ago
Invocation: d82e12892d3e4ef2809e947f483b8980
TriggeredBy: ● pipewire.socket
Main PID: 2410 (pipewire)
Tasks: 3 (limit: 57351)
Memory: 11.4M (peak: 11.8M)
CPU: 55ms
CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/session.slice/pipewire.service
└─2410 /usr/bin/pipewire

Is there anyway to fully enable pipewire?
Many thanks.

2

it is enabled. Nothing to worry about.

systemctl --user status pipewire.socket
systemctl --user status pipewire-pulse.socket
3

Thanks
But i am still curious about pipewire’s preset. Does it has any significant meaning?

4

That has significant meaning. Once the user launches an app that produces audio the socket opens pipewire itself.

If you change the settings it may cause a timing issue between the socket opening and pipewire itself which then may interfere with the app communicating with the socket. (The pipewire socket must be active before the pipewire service or they do not connect)

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5

You can read about socket activation for example at https://ilmanzo.github.io/post/systemd-socket-activated-services/.

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6

A preset is configured by systems, which determines the default state (enabled or disabled) of a particular service. Enabled or disabled by default in case of Pipewire shouldn’t affect the use of the software/audio application.

A preset in pipewire-service is disabled by default in Fedora Linux, as I tested in F42. However, the preset is enabled by default on Ubuntu 25.04.