Products · Product
PulseAudio
Raised as a usability problem by 44 people on Hacker News over 15 years (2012–2026), in 38 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Audio gets lag and skips, and configuration is too complexUnreviewed
20122026- Multi-device audio output drifts badly until latency setting is manually adjusted2020-09-12
- Audio latency makes it unusable for anyone who cares about timing2019-09-23
- Audio randomly lags by half a second and restarting PulseAudio doesn't fix it2017-09-22
JACK and PulseAudio often fail to work together, so audio breaksUnreviewed
20122026- Audio often fails to work, and multi-device setups are too hard for beginners to get working2024-07-23
- Getting audio or MIDI working requires a convoluted ritual of PulseAudio configuration2017-05-12
- Hard to get JACK and PulseAudio to work together, so audio often doesn't just work2013-09-16
Sound breaks often, with no information about what went wrongUnreviewed
20122026- Sound often fails to route to the correct audio interface, causing frequent frustrating breakdowns2021-04-22
- Sound breaks often, with little information about what went wrong2021-03-03
- Extra audio layer breaks inexplicably, causing audio problems that didn't exist before2017-07-10
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 49 complaints
- Was so bad that users often bypassed it and used raw ALSA2026-04-26
- Overcomplicated and hard to configure, only usable after distro patching2025-04-12
- Audio often fails to work, and multi-device setups are too hard for beginners to get working2024-07-23
- Eggregiously difficult to configure, heavy, and dominates systems interfacing with it2023-06-17
- Users must restart PulseAudio manually to get voice chat apps working2022-12-20
- System mutes itself after unlock or reboot and plays on speakers despite headphones2022-10-26
- Config must be copied and kept in sync with system files or it breaks; confusing override rules2022-07-09
- Audio lag and dropouts over wired headphones and speakers in early releases2022-05-30
- Performance is poor, especially for games, and low-latency output is still bad2022-05-23
- No UI for network audio, zeroconf fails, and config breaks unpredictably after changes2022-04-14
- Picks outputs or inputs on its own, leaving the user no way to choose2022-01-09
- Audio stutters under load, unlike the earlier ALSA setup2021-12-24
- Shipped broken and needed years to work properly, forcing users to kill it to restore sound2021-12-20
- Sound often fails to route to the correct audio interface, causing frequent frustrating breakdowns2021-04-22
- Sound breaks often, with little information about what went wrong2021-03-03
- Early PulseAudio broke audio for some users, so they stuck with ALSA2021-03-03
- No GUI volume control for front headphone port; user must use alsamixer2020-10-30
- Had to manually pick the A2DP audio profile in the UI once2020-10-14
- Multi-device audio output drifts badly until latency setting is manually adjusted2020-09-12
- Confusing how PulseAudio and ALSA interact; unclear what is happening under the hood2020-09-12
- Audio device and volume choices change unpredictably, not as the user expects2020-07-12
- Impossible to configure or debug; documentation doesn't help, no clear way to fix2020-07-12
- Pulse is impossible to get rid of and still impossible to use2019-12-28
- Apps reroute to old speakers at full volume when headphones are the default device2019-10-21
- Audio latency makes it unusable for anyone who cares about timing2019-09-23
- Switching to PulseAudio wrecked audio that had been reliable for years2019-03-12
- Mic keeps listening to itself through headphones, and fixing it is too hard2018-07-24
- Sometimes behaves unpredictably, feeling like black magic to average users2017-09-22
- Took a month of trial and error to stop audio routing to HDMI after suspend2017-09-22
- Audio randomly lags by half a second and restarting PulseAudio doesn't fix it2017-09-22
- Can't get network streaming working, no diagnostics, and no docs between C extensions and GUI2017-09-22
- Never works out of the box and configuration information is hard to find2017-09-22
- Volume jumps much louder or softer on a single notch change2017-09-22
- Per-app volume can't be adjusted with keyboard volume keys, making it a slower, more complicated UI2017-09-22
- Volume changes happen out of sync with the visual slider and key press feedback2017-09-22
- Hard to configure mpd system service and desktop sound together2017-07-10
- Options are badly documented and names don't match what they do2017-07-10
- Extra audio layer breaks inexplicably, causing audio problems that didn't exist before2017-07-10
- Getting audio or MIDI working requires a convoluted ritual of PulseAudio configuration2017-05-12
- Switching from ALSA to PulseAudio requires many obscure manual configuration steps and is hard to get right2016-10-01
- Configuring Linux as a Bluetooth receiver takes hours of inconsistent command-line fiddling2016-05-30
- Audio stays routed to unplugged TV output; can't re-route without killing daemon2015-02-23
- Routing audio through JACK requires editing config files and manually running a script after login2014-12-10
- Introduces lag and skips in audio, and is too complex to configure2014-03-04
- Frustrating to configure; documentation lacks hand-holding guides and there is no proper GUI2014-03-04
- Flat volumes cause audible volume glitches whenever it adjusts global volume, and it can't be disabled without editing a config file as root2014-02-11
- Hard to get JACK and PulseAudio to work together, so audio often doesn't just work2013-09-16
- Audio dialogs are confusing, loopback needs arcane commands, and sound sometimes stops needing daemon restarts2013-01-28
- Documentation is poor, and PulseAudio often doesn't work out of the box2012-09-28