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Pulseaudio high CPU usage when idle?
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trubicoid
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 3:57 pm    Post subject: Pulseaudio high CPU usage when idle? Reply with quote

Hi guys,

when my KDE desktop is completely idle and no sound is playing, the
Code:
/usr/bin/pulseaudio --start --log-target=syslog
process in htop takes around 3% of CPU. It newer goes below 2%. Is this expected or is it too high? I would think it should be much less and I'd probably get rid of pulseaudio.

Similarly the powertop shows the three top lines due to pulseaudio and the audio driver:

Code:
             27.5 ms/s       3.9        Process        /usr/bin/pulseaudio --start --log-target=syslog
              6.7 ms/s     259.2        Process        [irq/28-snd_hda_]
            384.4 µs/s     128.6        Interrupt      [28] snd_hda_intel:card0


I'm on 17.0/desktop/plasma profile without systemd and these are the USE flags:

Code:
[ebuild   R    ] media-sound/pulseaudio-11.1::gentoo  USE="X alsa alsa-plugin asyncns caps dbus glib gnome orc sox ssl tcpd udev webrtc-aec -bluetooth -doc -equalizer -gdbm -gtk -ipv6 -jack -libressl -libsamplerate -lirc -native-headset (-neon) -ofono-headset (-oss) -qt4 -realtime (-selinux) (-system-wide) -systemd {-test} -zeroconf" ABI_X86="32 (64) (-x32)" 1,611 KiB
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Ant P.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 5:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Run `pactl list` and see if there are any clients keeping the card active. Mine idles at 0% unless there's e.g. IM programs keeping the mic open.
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trubicoid
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 6:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

there is no IM running

what I'm looking for in pactl list? All sinks and sources are idle:
Code:
pactl list | grep Stat
        State: IDLE
        State: IDLE
        State: IDLE
        State: IDLE
        State: IDLE
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trubicoid
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 17, 2018 8:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There are these clients, not sure if they are active though: ConsoleKit Session, XSMP Session on KDE, QPulse plasmashell and pactl.
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Ant P.
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 19, 2018 2:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not sure then... I know the VU meters on volume controls can eat up substantial CPU time but they'd be easy to spot in the output (weird resample method). I don't know how KDE does things so can't say if it's the cause.
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trubicoid
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 23, 2018 7:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I tried XFCE desktop, the problem is still there. Seems there is a problem of pulseudio without systemd? Ant P you have systemd or not?
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Ant P.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 24, 2018 6:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm using Openbox on runit, with no *kits installed.
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trubicoid
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 24, 2018 8:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hmmm, strange. I thought you need consolekit and udev, when not on systemd, as it is explicitly written in https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/PulseAudio
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Ant P.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 24, 2018 8:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ConsoleKit is only necessary for a multiseat-single-PC setup, which itself is largely a fad forced by RedHat to sell support contracts for their labyrinthine system plumbing software. PulseAudio works fine without that garbage.
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trubicoid
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 25, 2018 9:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'll try to get rid of consolekit then. The other dependence on it is NetworkManager, do you have it as well? It is easier to use on a laptop than just wpa_supplicant.
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Ant P.
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 25, 2018 6:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Last wifi GUI I used was net-misc/wicd...
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trubicoid
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 26, 2018 8:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

without ConsoleKit the CPU usage stays 2-3%, so it is not the cause :(
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trubicoid
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 7:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

the problem is gone, pulseaudio takes 0% cpu, but I don't know, what was the problem.

It could be auto-started /etc/init.d/alsasound? But I'm not sure.
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Ant P.
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 11:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That can't be it, all that init script does is set the volume levels.
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flabrus
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 16, 2018 5:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I experienced this issue as well. The cause, for me, was having the pulse audio loopback module loaded.

I previously set this module to autoload so I could listen to my line-in on my sound card, but I no longer needed to do that so I just unloaded the module and removed the line from /etc/pulse/default.pa.

Code:
# pactl unload-module module-loopback


As soon as I unloaded the module, pulse's CPU time went to zero, at idle.
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