Electron/Chrome ignores selected microphone [Debian based with pipewire]

[Andy-Danderson]

Describe the bug
It is neither possible to stream audio from a specific window, nor receive anything other than mic audio with "Entire System" selected, when using Vesktop on Linux Mint 21.2.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Be on Mint 21.2 Cinnamon (with
2. Follow this guide to install Pipewire (you may need to restart a couple times): https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=375771
3. Join a voice chat on Vesktop
4. Click "share a screen" and choose a window to stream
5. On the next screen, note that the only selectable audio path is "Entire System"
6. Choose it and, behold, you get a clone of only your mic and literally nothing else.

Expected behavior
It should be possible to choose anything other than "Entire System." "Entire System" should also have more than just your mic sounds (but presumably no sounds from Vesktop itself).

Screenshots

Desktop (please complete the following information):

• OS/Distro: Mint
• Desktop Environment: Cinnamon
• Version: 21.2

Additional context
Please fix, I've been trying to find a way to screenshare for two months and this is the closest I've gotten :(

EDIT: I found a video that shows what the problem seems to be using Helvum: video

[Curve]

@Andy-Danderson Please provide the necessary logs as seen here: https://github.com/Vencord/venmic#-debugging

Please also state your pipewire and vesktop version

[Curve]

@Vendicated I'm not sure why this would happen though - It seems like Vesktop is not able to find venmic and chooses the normal microphone instead? I kind of doubt this is a venmic issue, but rather a vesktop issue

[Curve]

Hmm, can confirm that the PR above does not fix the issue.

The venmic-node is found, however it seems that something on Linux Mint prevents Discord from grabbing the audio from said node.

With PR applied:

No idea why Chromium doesn't pull audio from the given source

[Curve]

This looks like a problem with Chromium on Mint to me. I can even reproduce this with the microphone selection in the settings, regardless of which device I choose, it will always use the system default no matter what

[Curve]

Peek_2024-01-20_16-15.mp4

This is def. an issue with the pipewire setup on Mint, happens with Firefox as well - I have no clue what causes this.
Issue seems to be that regardless of what Microphone I select, it will always use the default microphone on Mint (Tested in Firefox and Vesktop).

[Curve]

Some more relevant information is available in #15.

Also loki-47-6F-64/sunshine#298 seems related, however it seems the issue there is not strictly related to Debian installs and seems to be faulty on Arch instead, which I cannot confirm/reproduce. I can only observe this behavior in a Debian based VM with pipewire installed from the PPA

[Curve]

@mhkdepauw can you reproduce what I showed in the video above?

It demonstrates that Firefox ignores the selected microphone as well which further indicates a pipewire issue - funnily enough only on Debian based systems though - not reproducible on arch

[mhkdepauw]

Yep I just tested it and it does only use the microphone set in the system settings and not in firefox. Do you need me to make a video of that or is me just saying it enough, I can if you wanted.

[Curve]

Yep I just tested it and it does only use the microphone set in the system settings and not in firefox. Do you need me to make a video of that or is me just saying it enough, I can if you wanted.

Confirmation suffices, thanks!

[Curve]

I've now implemented a workaround that forcefully redirects discords record-stream to venmic.

The implementation for Vesktop is also done, we'll have to wait ~1h for the publish workflow to finish now and then we're good to go

[TheAnnoyingFruit]

Just leaving this here for anyone looking for it, the fix does not work on the flatpak. Then you will have the dependency being too old issue on the deb and the fix is linked where it will tell you how to install the newer version which works. This is all sorts of aids.

[Curve]

Just leaving this here for anyone looking for it, the fix does not work on the flatpak. Then you will have the dependency being too old issue on the deb and the fix is linked where it will tell you how to install the newer version which works. This is all sorts of aids.

The fix should work with Flatpak as well, if it doesn't please open a new issue.

[githubplanetarparrot]

Hey I just installed Ventcord on Mint and am having this issue still. Reviewing video https://youtu.be/UgfW-0UjVlA I still have the issue even when the workaround is toggled on (if it is toggled off the mic looping issue occurs despite helvum looking the same regardless of the workaround being on or off). I have ventcord installed via flatpak and am on the latest release as of today. Is the only way to manually correct this issue to manually editing helvum every time?

I know this is an old issue and you said to make a new one, but I want to make sure I am understanding that the workaround button is only for fixing the loopback and helvum is basically required at this time for all mint users or if my setup is messed up/I have a new issue.

[Curve]

Can you share the venmic log as well? And another screenshot of helvum with the workaround toggled on (or is that the case in - the screenshot?)

[githubplanetarparrot]

So unfortunately I can't any more screenshots as I removed the flatpak version. I was actually able to fix this issue on Mint by using the debian version provided here: https://github.com/Vencord/Vesktop
I was able to properly get Vesktop audio share working on linux by doing the following steps. I am listing them here so some other poor Mint noob like me in the future can see what I did.

1. Install pipewire per this article. Note I simply added the ppa:pipewire-debian/pipewire-upstream in step one using Mint's software sources to avoid issues with keyrings. https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-pipewire-on-ubuntu-linux
2. Install Vesktop via the appropriate Debian file on https://github.com/Vencord/Vesktop
3. Install the libstdc fix listed in https://gist.github.com/Vendicated/b655044ffbb16b2716095a448c6d827a. Again, I added the repo ppa:ubuntu-toolchain-r/test via the Software Sources menu, not the apt command, then run the second and third commands in terminal.
4. Restart Vesktop.
5. Set both input and output to "default" in vesktop
6. Ensure your system sound (your desktop level device, not the vesktop device) is using your standard mic and not the vesktop virtual device.
7. Start the application you wish to screen share. Ensure sound is playing so it will appear in the applications list.
8. Attempt to screen share with the workaround option enabled. Select the appropriate screen and audio device and it should work.

System:
Kernel: 6.5.0-35-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A Desktop: Cinnamon 6.0.4 tk: GTK 3.24.33
wm: muffin vt: 7 dm: LightDM 1.30.0 Distro: Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia base: Ubuntu 22.04 jammy

I can reinstall the flatpak version to recreate if you would really like me to as I want to do whatever I can to assist. My uneducated guess is that since Mint doesn't have the gnome popups for flatpaks to request permissions that proper mic device access isn't being enabled within the flatpak (issue described here https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=379456). I believe a workaround may be here wwmm/easyeffects#1802 relating to xdg-desktop-portal-gnome, but this is just a guess.