Random clicking sounds that always sound the same

Ask Fedora
, , ,
1

I sometimes hear randomly appearing clicking sounds through my headphones (Sony WH-1000XM3).

These consist of a click with a falling pitch (always sounds exactly the same, always has the same length), a pause (varies widely in duration, usually a couple seconds), and a click with a rising pitch (always sounds exactly the same, always the same length.

The sounds appear quite unpredictably, sometimes none can be heard for a long time, sometimes there’s just one or two in a row, sometimes they annoy me every few seconds, sometimes they even overlap.

Here is a recording of the phenomenon: 2022-08-09 21-31-03 (trimmed)

The sound responds to changes that I make to the output volume. It just appears as any other sound generated by the system or an application (I usually run just Discord and Firefox, but I don’t think they make the sound).

I know that it did not happen on Kubuntu or KDE Neon, nor does it happen on Windows, but it did happen on Fedora Workstation 35 too.

I can not be entirely sure that it is independent from my headphones, as I use them as my sole audio output, but I know for sure that switching between codecs does not change anything.

2

For me it sounds as it would connect and disconnect from Bluetooth or if an other device would connect or disconnect.

You not said anything about your hardware.
Could you please give us more info’s as :

inxi -Fzx in terminal and post the output as </> Preformatted text here.

3 
System:
  Kernel: 5.18.16-200.fc36.x86_64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc
    v: 2.37-27.fc36 Desktop: GNOME v: 42.3.1
    Distro: Fedora release 36 (Thirty Six)
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: ASRock model: AB350M serial: <superuser required>
    UEFI: American Megatrends v: P1.20 date: 03/06/2017
Battery:
  ID-1: hidpp_battery_0 charge: 45% condition: N/A volts: 3.8 min: N/A
    model: Logitech G703 LIGHTSPEED Wireless Gaming Mouse w/ HERO
    status: discharging
CPU:
  Info: 6-core model: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Zen rev: 1
    cache: L1: 576 KiB L2: 3 MiB L3: 16 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1555 high: 3008 min/max: 1550/3200 boost: enabled
    cores: 1: 1372 2: 1272 3: 3008 4: 1715 5: 1366 6: 1270 7: 1781 8: 1375
    9: 1383 10: 1375 11: 1377 12: 1374 bogomips: 76653
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480/570/570X/580/580X/590]
    vendor: Tul / PowerColor driver: amdgpu v: kernel arch: GCN 4
    bus-ID: 0a:00.0
  Display: wayland server: X.Org v: 1.22.1.3 with: Xwayland v: 22.1.3
    compositor: gnome-shell driver: X: loaded: amdgpu
    unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa gpu: amdgpu resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
  OpenGL: renderer: AMD Radeon RX 480 Graphics (polaris10 LLVM 14.0.0 DRM
    3.46 5.18.16-200.fc36.x86_64)
    v: 4.6 Mesa 22.1.4 direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: AMD Ellesmere HDMI Audio [Radeon RX 470/480 / 570/580/590]
    vendor: Tul / PowerColor driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 0a:00.1
  Device-2: AMD Family 17h HD Audio vendor: ASRock driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel bus-ID: 12:00.3
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.18.16-200.fc36.x86_64 running: yes
  Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 15.0 running: no
  Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.56 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
    vendor: ASRock driver: r8169 v: kernel port: f000 bus-ID: 09:00.0
  IF: enp9s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Cambridge Silicon Radio Bluetooth Dongle (HCI mode) type: USB
    driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-1:2
  Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: up address: see --recommends
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 1.14 TiB used: 38.73 GiB (3.3%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Toshiba model: DT01ACA100 size: 931.51 GiB
  ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Intenso model: SSD Sata III size: 236 GiB
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 66.69 GiB used: 38.39 GiB (57.6%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/sdb8
  ID-2: /boot size: 973.4 MiB used: 293.4 MiB (30.1%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/sdb6
  ID-3: /boot/efi size: 96 MiB used: 50.3 MiB (52.4%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/sdb2
  ID-4: /home size: 66.69 GiB used: 38.39 GiB (57.6%) fs: btrfs
    dev: /dev/sdb8
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 8 GiB used: 3 MiB (0.0%) dev: /dev/zram0
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: N/A mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 52.0 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A gpu: amdgpu fan: 513
Info:
  Processes: 736 Uptime: 8h 39m Memory: 15.57 GiB used: 9.03 GiB (58.0%)
  Init: systemd target: graphical (5) Compilers: gcc: 12.1.1 Packages: 32
  note: see --pkg Shell: Bash v: 5.1.16 inxi: 3.3.19

I cannot recall hearing this sound after something specific event (like Bluetooth connection changes), it has always seemed unpredictable.

4

I don’t think it can possibly be caused by Bluetooth / device (dis)connection, as all my devices are continuously connected, and my Bluetooth headphones clearly work too. Also, I don’t know how the occasional overlaps could be explained if it were because of something like that.

Are there any more commands I could run, or other things I could do, to help troubleshoot this issue?

5

You can try bluetoothctl in terminal and hit twice the tab key to see a list of options you have.

6

It’s not a bluetooth problem. I just heard it make the noise again without any bluetooth devices being connected, through my screen’s speakers.
What other systems might be responsible for this, if not Bluetooth, applications or drivers?

1 Like
7

I heard this sound in my speakers now. I got the message popped up that a USB device connected.
Can you pleas check if this is also your case? Connecting an USB stick to see if it is so.

1 Like
8

It’s definitely a notification sound (opening and closing judging by your sample). If you open settings in Gnome and turn off notifications it should stop. I think you may have to do each individual application that is listed.

9

I can trigger the clicking sounds by plugging/unplugging a USB stick. The sounds still behave weirdly and somewhat unpredictably (it sounds “buggy”), but are definitely caused by the connection notifications.

However, I would like to keep the other notifications on, only disabling those that cause this sound. Can I do that?

10

@asterixxx i realized it with the app Files, as @jakfrost mentioned enter in there and disable the “Sound Alerts”.

p.s. I not succeed yet with that.

11

The solution is to disable the event sounds in dconf at /org/gnome/desktop/sound/event-sounds. Disabling Files notifications in the settings does not help, but this does.

2 Likes