Choppy sound with WSLg on Windows 10

[CComparon]

Windows build number:

10.0.19045.2311

Your Distribution version:

Ubuntu 22.04

Your WSL versions:

WSL version: 1.0.0.0 Kernel version: 5.15.74.2 WSLg version: 1.0.47 MSRDC version: 1.2.3575 Direct3D version: 1.606.4 DXCore version: 10.0.25131.1002-220531-1700.rs-onecore-base2-hyp Windows version: 10.0.19045.2311

Steps to reproduce:

sudo apt install vlc
vlc /path/to/music.m4a

WSL logs:

pulseaudio.log stderr.log weston.log

WSL dumps:

No response

Expected behavior:

Smooth audio playback

Actual behavior:

Very choppy audio playback (can hear sound every other second or so).

Please note that the upgrade to Store wsl worked like a charm, and my linux GUI apps work flawlessly.

[ultrasound1372]

Same here. I get this with most RDP really, but this is particularly bad, which makes no sense for something that's entirely local. I have my own reasons not to upgrade to Windows 11, and am very glad that these things are available on Windows 10 now. I was planning to make use of emacspeak in wslg as I'm a blind user, but I can't go half a second without jitter, pops and clicks, or some kind of ring modulated garbage due to buffer underruns. Even with something as simple as running espeak-ng and typing some text into it. I should note that my tests so far haven't actually spawned a GUI, but the subsystem seems to activate anyway. Using pulse audio I believe. This is Ubuntu 22.04, fresh install after the store upgrade, with systemd.

[blakeduffey]

Trying to play a 10MB mp3 file - stutters very couple seconds

WSL version: 1.0.3.0 Kernel version: 5.15.79.1 WSLg version: 1.0.47 MSRDC version: 1.2.3575 Direct3D version: 1.606.4 DXCore version: 10.0.25131.1002-220531-1700.rs-onecore-base2-hyp Windows version: 10.0.19044.2364

[diekleinekuh]

Same here: Windows 10, WSL2 updated to latest. GUI apps work but playing an mp3 file in vlc stutters

[asayler]

Seeing this same issue on a fresh install of Ubuntu 22.04 under the latest WSL. Added libpulse0 as noted in https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/9192 to get audio working at all, but playing flac files via cmus leads to stuttering audio. The same setup on Ubuntu 20.04 works correctly.

[Alfagun74]

Same issue.

[Dai-JiaLin]

Same issue. Is there any solution?

[bogdan-calapod]

Also encountering this with terminal audio apps (e.g. ncspot) on Windows 11, so I don't think this is strictly related to GUI

[e1uone]

Same issue, CMUS and VLC sound is sluttering, but mpg123 sounds perfect, don't know why

[e1uone]

Just did this, and now it works great sudo apt install pulseaudio pavucontrol -y pavucontrol is a GUI, so you may not need it

[e1uone]

Nah, problem still persist in CMUS, but VLC is acting strange, i'm getting corrupted audio for about 10 seconds, and then it "repairs" itself

[AaronDinesh]

I've also got this issue in WSL2 in Ubuntu. I am trying to play an audio file using the miniaudio.h c library. It manges to play fine for about 29 seconds and then the audio becomes very choppy. You only hear a little note every one or two seconds. I have replicated this issue with cmus too.

Audio clips below 29 seconds seem to work fine. Any idea what might be causing this?

I am on Windows 11

[Dari4sho]

Only could get it working with ffplay so far, same issue with vlc

[AaronDinesh]

Just did this, and now it works great sudo apt install pulseaudio pavucontrol -y pavucontrol is a GUI, so you may not need it

For me installing pavucontrol fixed the choppy issues. It would come back if I leave WSL running for a long while. But then restarting WSL fixes the issue.

[NullDott]

Same issue, Ubuntu 24.04, in VLC audio playback is choppy all the time, some other apps like Pyxel for example work for a bit, but then the audio starts getting out of sync, and ends with a lot of stuttering.

pavucontrol is installed, but it didn't fixed the issue, I'm in Windows 10, and I'm a game developer, I cannot test my linux builds with this problem, someone have a fix?