Audio playback issues and GUI programs crashing randomly

I'm having some issues with audio playback and program crashes on Ubuntu 22.04, Pulse Audio.

I've uninstalled some random stuff that I have installed recently off of my disk (some python stuff and flatpak stuff:

Flatpak list:

• org.freedesktop.LinuxAudio.Plugins.MDA,
• freedesktop.LinuxAudio.Plugins.Calf,
• org.freedesktop.LinuxAudio.Plugins.ZamPlugins,
• org.freedesktop.LinuxAudio.Plugins.ZamPlugin,
• org.freedesktop.LinuxAudio.Plugins.LSP

Python List:

• python3-pyqt5.qtwebengine
• PyQtWebEngine)

I don't know if any of that is really relevant to my question, but all I know is that a day later after I logged on to my computer, I had very strange sounds played every time I have audio played (it sounds like a lightsaber hitting something... just very amplified).

Also, applications are randomly freezing and crashing, and most apps when I open them appear in the panel to be opened, but no visible window appears and a force quit popup appears, and in order for me to open the app, I have to kill it and reopen it, and then it will also randomly freeze.

I've tried to fix the issue with the sound, (I'm using pules-audio) and nothing, and the issue with the applications I have no idea where to start with...

If anyone could help me, or even give me a direction on how I can fix this, I'll be very thankful.

I had the same issues with 22.04 studio using a lexicon dac. The only way I got my sound to work corectly was to boot, wait about 2 min but no more than 7. 1st i would bring up kid3 for thats what i use for local music playback. Let it play and after 10-12 sec it would cut. 2nd once it cut unplug the usb to the dac and let the internal speakers take over. They last about 10-12 sec. 3rd after the internal would cut out then plug the dac in via usb and it would then work for practicly ever. I would do this and play music non stop for 48hrs if not 72hrs sometimes with no issues.

When i upgraded from 22.04 to 22.10 all those problems went away and i dont have to do that anymore.

On a side note if discovery had an update it would kill the audio, so do updates 1st, reboot, and then do the steps above. I know it sounds wierd and frankly it was, but after working with computers for over 35yrs nothing suprises me anymore and sometimes a little voodoo magic just works?

Good luck, i hope this helps and if it dosent at least you know you were not the only one.

• did you reboot/restart pulseaudio (pulseaudio -k or terminate session) after the package changes ?
• check for high cpu usage
• check for high memory usage
• you might also ( instead of rebooting/re-logging in ) work with pactl list modules andpactl unload-module XYZ to see if there are zombies loaded
• maybe kill your browsers and other load-intensive apps if they are stil connected to that "killed" pulseaudio when doing these things in a running session

( no warranty, please comment if you succeeded )