it may be important to narrow-down which arches and init-systems exhibits this problem - i suspect this only affects nonsystem users

┌────
LANG=en aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav
└────

however, aplay, iceweasel, vlc, and others, work as expected for me (x86_64/nonsystemd)

the problem seems to be that those program expect a pipewire server to be running (or socket activated?) - for now, you could start the pipewire server from ~/.bashrc like:

  echo pipewire >> ~/.bashrc

o/c that does not satisfy the OP - a sound server should not be required to play sound in any program - linux can do that - it is another gift from the folks who brought us systemd and pulseaudio; so it will perhaps achieve the same level of frivolous adoption as pulseaudio and webengine, while likewise dropping support for any alternatives (even if the "alternative" is "nothing but the standard kernel")

FWIW, if "program expects a pipewire server" is true, then in other words: "does not support ALSA" - personally, in that case, i would forget it and prefer a less opinionated equivalent - it is a bug nonetheless, which should be addressed somehow

do ppl want this?
maybe the nonsystemd builds are just broken?
or maybe these programs can be re-compiled to support ALSA natively?
does anyone know if these worked with nonsystemd in the past?

mpv works as expected with parabola systemd - pipewire is socket activated

systemd:¶

$ systemctl --user status pipewire
○ pipewire.service - PipeWire Multimedia Service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pipewire.service; disabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: inactive (dead)
TriggeredBy: ● pipewire.socket

$ systemctl --user list-units | grep pipewire
 pipewire.socket                 loaded active listening PipeWire Multimedia System Socket

$ mpv /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Noise.wav 
 (+) Audio --aid=1 (pcm_s16le 1ch 48000Hz)
AO: [alsa] 48000Hz mono 1ch s16
A: 00:00:01 / 00:00:01 (81%)

Exiting... (End of file)
$ systemctl --user list-units | grep pipewire 
pipewire-media-session.service   loaded active running   PipeWire Media Session Manager
pipewire.service                 loaded active running   PipeWire Multimedia Service
pipewire.socket                  loaded active running   PipeWire Multimedia System Socket

nonsystemd:¶

$ mpv /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Noise.wav
 (+) Audio --aid=1 (pcm_s16le 1ch 48000Hz)
[ao/pipewire] Could not connect to context '(null)': Gastiganto ne funkcias
'!impl->polling' failed at ../pipewire/spa/plugins/support/loop.c:856 impl_clear()
Abortita

$ pipewire &
[1] 6456

$ mpv /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Noise.wav 
 (+) Audio --aid=1 (pcm_s16le 1ch 48000Hz)
AO: [alsa] 48000Hz mono 1ch s16
A: 00:00:01 / 00:00:01 (81%)

Exiting... (End of file)

My system seems to be broken:

with pipewire I get the error below, but mpv "$file".wav stays at 00:00:00

LANG=en pipewire
[W][03297.210291] mod.rt       | [     module-rt.c:  259 translate_error()] RTKit error: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown
[W][03297.210321] mod.rt       | [     module-rt.c:  578 set_nice()] could not set nice-level to -11: No such file or directory
[W][03297.210681] mod.rt       | [     module-rt.c:  259 translate_error()] RTKit error: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown
[W][03297.213775] mod.rt       | [     module-rt.c:  259 translate_error()] RTKit error: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown
[W][03297.214035] mod.rt       | [     module-rt.c:  259 translate_error()] RTKit error: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown
[W][03297.214044] mod.rt       | [     module-rt.c:  800 impl_acquire_rt()] could not make thread 6278 realtime using RTKit: No such file or directory

On the Alpine Linux wiki (Alpinelinux.org/wiki/PipeWire#Disable_D-Bus_support), there is a set of instructions to disable D-Bus

/etc/pipewire/pipewire.conf
context.properties = {
    support.dbus = false
}

/etc/pipewire/wirepumbler.conf
context.properties = {
    support.dbus = false
}

/etc/wirepumbler/bluetooth.lua.d/50-bluez-config.lua
context.properties = {
    ["with-logind"] = false,
}

/etc/wirepumbler/main.lua.d/50-alsa-config.lua
context.properties = {
    ["alsa.reserve"] = false,
}

/etc/wirepumbler/main.lua.d/50-default-access-config.lua
context.properties = {
    ["enable-flatpack-portal"] = false,
}

Then, this results in

LANG=en pipewire
[W][03548.551500] pw.context   | [       context.c:  402 pw_context_new()] 0xa24ab58b820: no modules loaded from context.modules

LANG=en aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav 
aplay: main:831: audio open error: Host is down

which makes me think about the rationale behind HyperbolaBSD. Oh! by the way, I was helping someone with his Ubuntu today... what a piece of... sorry, digression averted ;) .

when i run pipewire from the command line, it prints nothing - those errors are complaining about "realtime" support - maybe try installing the 'realtime-privileges' package and adding your user to the 'realtime' group (then reboot)

the aplay may be a completely different issue - aplay works as expected for me, with or without pipewire running

Is another bug report needed? go back to the original forum discussion? stay here? As I said before

┌────
aplay -D plughw:1,0 /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav
└────
Listing 1: plays “…enter” (the initial “C” is inaudible)

┌────
LANG=en aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav
└────

┌────
aplay: main:831: audio open error: Host is down
└────

bill-auger wrote:

when i run pipewire from the command line, it prints nothing - those errors are complaining about "realtime" support - maybe try installing the 'realtime-privileges' package and adding your user to the 'realtime' group (then reboot)

Same outcome

the aplay may be a completely different issue - aplay works as expected for me, with or without pipewire running

sudo pacman -Rnucs pipewire
sudo rc-service alsasound restart
LANG=en aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav

that works. Is pipewire really needed for mpv? However,

LANG=en ffmpeg /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav
    Output #0, wav, to '/usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav':
    Output file #0 does not contain any stream

Is pipewire really needed for mpv?

yes, it is needed, in the sense that the 'mpv' package depends
on the 'pipewire' package

$ LANG=C  pacman -Si mpv | grep Depends | grep --only-matching pipewire
pipewire

is it "really needed" probably "no" - all audio applications
should be ready to fall-back on the baseline ALSA - any which is not,
i consider to be broken or incomplete - either it is a bug, or it's
developers are suffering from technical miopia

ffmpeg /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav

ffmpeg is not used in that way - not is not a media player - you
would use the ffplay to play the media - for some reason, that
also does not work; but we can ignore ffmpeg until this ticket
is fixed - it may or may not be the same problem

>.< sorry!

after uninstalling pipewire, ffplay does work

    ffplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav

However, the mpv does depend on pipewire:

    sudo torsocks pacman -Sy --assume-installed pipewire mpv
    LANG=en mpv /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav

    mpv: error while loading shared libraries: libpipewire-0.3.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

The good news is that it does work if you delete pipewire from here https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-community/blob/packages/mpv/trunk/PKGBUILD , do your torsocks makepkg -oC, makepkg -ef and pacman -U *.pkg.zst:

LANG=en mpv /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav
 (+) Audio --aid=1 (pcm_s16le 1ch 48000Hz)
AO: [alsa] 48000Hz mono 1ch s16
A: 00:00:01 / 00:00:01 (79%)

Exiting... (End of file)

hail freedom! (may be an mpv-openrc is needed?). Should we rename or split this bug report?

ok lets get this straight

• mpv works only if pipewire is installed?
• ffplay works only if pipewire is not installed?

On Sun, 08 Jan 2023 16:10:22 +0000 labs@parabola.nu wrote:

(may be an mpv-openrc is needed?).

so far, this suggest that the needed addition is
'pipewire-openrc', to add the openrc service files,
so that socket activation works

ok lets get this straight

• mpv works only if pipewire is installed?
• ffplay works only if pipewire is not installed?

On Sun, 08 Jan 2023 16:10:22 +0000 labs@parabola.nu wrote:

(may be an mpv-openrc is needed?).

so far, this suggest that the needed addition is
'pipewire-openrc', to add the openrc service files,
so that socket activation works

On Sun, 08 Jan 2023 16:10:22 +0000 labs@parabola.nu wrote:

(may be an mpv-openrc is needed?).

so far, this suggest that the needed addition is
'pipewire-openrc', to add the openrc service files,
so that socket activation works

ok lets get this straight

• mpv works only if pipewire is installed?
• ffplay works only if pipewire is not installed?

On Sun, 08 Jan 2023 16:10:22 +0000 labs@parabola.nu wrote:

(may be an mpv-openrc is needed?).

so far, this suggest that the needed addition is
'pipewire-openrc', to add the openrc service files,
so that socket activation works

ok lets get this straight

• mpv works only if pipewire is installed?
• ffplay works only if pipewire is not installed?

On Sun, 08 Jan 2023 16:10:22 +0000 labs@parabola.nu wrote:

(may be an mpv-openrc is needed?).

so far, this suggest that the needed addition is
'pipewire-openrc', to add the openrc service files,
so that socket activation works

Hi, bill. (The posts are being repeated again.) I have to check if ffplay works with pipewire. I had initially used ffmpeg to try to play the file. As you pointed out, that would obviously not work. The intention was to remark that I had now used ffplay, and it did work.

With regards to mpv: The one coming from Arch does not work if pipewire is installed. If mpv is rebuilt by first uninstalling pipewire (and modifying the PKGBUILD a bit to remove its dependency), it works. I imagine that it would run even if pipewire is reinstalled.

I will get back to you to test ffplay with pipewire.

My system has been dead for a while. Having a computer which is not really compatible with Parabola is a terrible nuisance (no proper video, no sound, no wifi), and I am currently using a computer from work. When I get back the system from the grave, the situation might be fixed.