No sound audio issue in steam proton games

Experiencing no sound in Proton games (Cyberpunk 2077, RDR2), and while the game is launched no new audio client entries appear in pavucontrol or pw-top.
Audio works normally in native Linux apps and games (Dead Cells).

PipeWire and pipewire-pulse are running and working (pactl info confirms PulseAudio on PipeWire). The 32-bit audio stack is installed (lib32-libpulse, lib32-pipewire, lib32-alsa-plugins, lib32-libsndfile) and I can run a successful 32-bit speaker test.

I’ve tested multiple proton versions: Cachy’s, Experimental, Proton 9.0, GE-Proton 10-34.

I’ve reinstalled the pipewire stack and steam, including ( I think? Might have gone into a dream-like debugging trance ) compiling and building the steam-native version. I’ve also reinstalled Cyberpunk to see if it was the game itself.

I wonder if I borked my system somehow while I was playing with a Super Collider-based application (sonic-pi) that has since been removed. If I removed unused dependencies for that, perhaps I also removed dependencies that steam runtime needs? Still, wouldn’t reinstalling the cachyos-gaming packages fix that up?

Current state information:

cachyos-gaming-meta 1:1.0.0-6
cachyos-gaming-applications 1.0.0-2
proton-cachyos-slr 1:10.0.20260320-2
pipewire 1:1.6.2-1.1  
pipewire-pulse 1:1.6.2-1.1  
wireplumber 0.5.13-2.1  
steam 1.0.0.85-5  
lib32-libpulse 17.0+r98+gb096704c0-1  
lib32-alsa-plugins 1.2.12-1  
lib32-libsndfile 1.2.2-3

Here are my relevant steam logs:


/home/heidi/steam-1091500.log:3073.175:0170:0174:trace:loaddll:build_module Loaded L"C:\\windows\\system32\\winepulse.drv" at 00006FFFEFB90000: b  
uiltin  
/home/heidi/steam-1091500.log:3073.175:0170:0174:trace:loaddll:free_modref Unloaded module L"C:\\windows\\system32\\winepulse.drv" : builtin  
/home/heidi/steam-1091500.log:3073.175:0170:0174:trace:loaddll:build_module Loaded L"C:\\windows\\system32\\winealsa.drv" at 00006FFFEFB90000: bu  
iltin  
/home/heidi/steam-1091500.log:ALSA lib dlmisc.c:339:(snd_dlobj_cache_get0) Cannot open shared library libasound_module_pcm_pulse.so (libsndfile.s  
o.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)  
/home/heidi/steam-1091500.log:ALSA lib dlmisc.c:339:(snd_dlobj_cache_get0) Cannot open shared library libasound_module_pcm_pulse.so (libsndfile.s  
o.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)  
/home/heidi/steam-1174180.log:12603.538:0328:032c:trace:loaddll:build_module Loaded L"C:\\windows\\system32\\winepulse.drv" at 00006FFFED6D0000:  
builtin  
/home/heidi/steam-1174180.log:12603.539:0328:032c:trace:loaddll:free_modref Unloaded module L"C:\\windows\\system32\\winepulse.drv" : builtin  
/home/heidi/steam-1174180.log:12603.539:0328:032c:trace:loaddll:build_module Loaded L"C:\\windows\\system32\\winealsa.drv" at 00006FFFED6D0000: b  
uiltin  
/home/heidi/steam-1174180.log:ALSA lib dlmisc.c:339:(snd_dlobj_cache_get0) Cannot open shared library libasound_module_pcm_pulse.so (libsndfile.s  
o.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)  
/home/heidi/steam-1174180.log:ALSA lib dlmisc.c:339:(snd_dlobj_cache_get0) Cannot open shared library libasound_module_pcm_pulse.so (libsndfile.s  
o.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)  
/home/heidi/steam-1174180.log:12605.857:06dc:06e0:trace:loaddll:build_module Loaded L"C:\\windows\\system32\\winepulse.drv" at 00006FFFED7A0000:  
builtin  
/home/heidi/steam-1174180.log:12605.857:06dc:06e0:trace:loaddll:free_modref Unloaded module L"C:\\windows\\system32\\winepulse.drv" : builtin  
/home/heidi/steam-1174180.log:12605.857:06dc:06e0:trace:loaddll:build_module Loaded L"C:\\windows\\system32\\winealsa.drv" at 00006FFFED6D0000: b  
uiltin  
/home/heidi/steam-1174180.log:ALSA lib dlmisc.c:339:(snd_dlobj_cache_get0) Cannot open shared library libasound_module_pcm_pulse.so (libsndfile.s  
o.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)  
/home/heidi/steam-1174180.log:ALSA lib dlmisc.c:339:(snd_dlobj_cache_get0) Cannot open shared library libasound_module_pcm_pulse.so (libsndfile.s  
o.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)  
/home/heidi/steam-1174180.log:12607.816:0140:0144:trace:loaddll:build_module Loaded L"C:\\windows\\system32\\winepulse.drv" at 00006FFFEBF80000:  
builtin  
/home/heidi/steam-1174180.log:12607.816:0140:0144:trace:loaddll:free_modref Unloaded module L"C:\\windows\\system32\\winepulse.drv" : builtin  
/home/heidi/steam-1174180.log:12607.817:0140:0144:trace:loaddll:build_module Loaded L"C:\\windows\\system32\\winealsa.drv" at 00006FFFED6D0000: b  
uiltin  
/home/heidi/steam-1174180.log:ALSA lib dlmisc.c:339:(snd_dlobj_cache_get0) Cannot open shared library libasound_module_pcm_pulse.so (libsndfile.s  
o.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)  
/home/heidi/steam-1174180.log:ALSA lib dlmisc.c:339:(snd_dlobj_cache_get0) Cannot open shared library libasound_module_pcm_pulse.so (libsndfile.s  
o.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)  
/home/heidi/steam-1174180.log:12611.045:0140:0860:warn:threadname:NtSetInformationThread Thread renamed to L"audio_client_main"  
/home/heidi/steam-1174180.log:12620.792:0864:0868:trace:loaddll:build_module Loaded L"C:\\windows\\system32\\winepulse.drv" at 00006FFFEB830000:  
builtin  
/home/heidi/steam-1174180.log:12620.792:0864:0868:trace:loaddll:free_modref Unloaded module L"C:\\windows\\system32\\winepulse.drv" : builtin  
/home/heidi/steam-1174180.log:12620.793:0864:0868:trace:loaddll:build_module Loaded L"C:\\windows\\system32\\winealsa.drv" at 00006FFFED6D0000: b  
uiltin  
/home/heidi/steam-1174180.log:ALSA lib dlmisc.c:339:(snd_dlobj_cache_get0) Cannot open shared library libasound_module_pcm_pulse.so (libsndfile.s  
o.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)  
/home/heidi/steam-1174180.log:ALSA lib dlmisc.c:339:(snd_dlobj_cache_get0) Cannot open shared library libasound_module_pcm_pulse.so (libsndfile.s  
o.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)  
/home/heidi/steam-1174180.log:12621.645:0864:0a1c:warn:threadname:NtSetInformationThread Thread renamed to L"audio_client_main"  
/home/heidi/steam-1174180.log:12621.712:0864:0868:fixme:mmdevapi:control_RegisterAudioSessionNotification (0000000038526610)->(0000000143BE6AB8)  
- stub  
/home/heidi/steam-1174180.log:12621.716:0864:0a20:warn:threadname:NtSetInformationThread Thread renamed to L"audio_client_timer"

Output from journalctl:

Mar 29 10:22:00 Angelic-Garbox wireplumber[2212]: wp-event-dispatcher: <WpAsyncEventHook:0x55ff622ae0d0> failed: failed to activate item: Object activation aborted: proxy destroyed Mar 29 10:23:20 Angelic-Garbox wireplumber[2212]: wp-event-dispatcher: <WpAsyncEventHook:0x55ff622ae0d0> failed: failed to activate item: Object activation aborted: proxy destroyed Mar 29 10:23:21 Angelic-Garbox wireplumber[2212]: wp-event-dispatcher: <WpAsyncEventHook:0x55ff622ae0d0> failed: failed to activate item: Object activation aborted: proxy destroyed Mar 29 10:24:48 Angelic-Garbox wireplumber[2212]: wp-event-dispatcher: <WpAsyncEventHook:0x55ff622ae0d0> failed: failed to activate item: Object activation aborted: proxy destroyed Mar 29 10:24:48 Angelic-Garbox wireplumber[2212]: wp-event-dispatcher: <WpAsyncEventHook:0x55ff6228b440> failed: <WpSiStandardLink:0x55ff6236cdf0> link failed: 1 of 1 PipeWire links failed to activate

Full Cachy Os bug report: https://paste.cachyos.org/p/3606801.log

I’ve been debugging for a few days. I’m confident the audio in RDR2 at least used to work but not sure on how long ago (I only play games ~once/month but I use my pc and update frequently…)

I’ll appreciate any recommendations on where I can go from here! Thank you for your time.

Even I’m facing issues with audio with pipewire, rn I’m having to restart the services each time I try to watch a yt-video, will have to check for this in steam. this specifically happens when I plug in my headphones in/out.

systemctl --user restart pipewire wireplumber

check if this kind of resolves the issue

I have tried restarting these services but it doesn’t help unfortunately. Thanks!

Hey, gamers!
Proton will not connect to any audio device with more than 2 output channels (L and R, for example.) I found a band-aid fix was to plug in a stereo device, launch the game, then switch your audio device back to your speakers. Details below. Hope this helps!

The fix works! It’s somewhat of a hassle though, so I’m wondering if this is a bug that’s likely to be fixed anytime soon or if it’s simply the way things are with how proton/wine is built? The linked issue was closed due to inactivity over a year ago so it seems rather stagnant…