Troubleshooting

Start with the section that matches what you see. If nothing here helps, open an issue with the log file attached; see Reporting a problem.

First, a reassurance: quitting or crashing Rostrum never silences your apps. Its virtual devices live in PipeWire, not in the Rostrum process, so audio keeps flowing. If a bus is missing, apps fall back to your default output.

Rostrum can't reach PipeWire

Rostrum shows a full-page message instead of the Mixer, and the header mic button reads Mic offline. The page explains the cause, for example "PipeWire is not running in your session, so there is no audio server to connect to."

Start PipeWire. It is usually installed already and only needs starting for your session. The page shows this command with a Copy button:

systemctl --user enable --now pipewire pipewire-pulse wireplumber

Not installed? Install PipeWire with WirePlumber, then log out and back in:

Distro	Command
Kubuntu, Ubuntu, Debian	sudo apt install pipewire pipewire-pulse wireplumber
Fedora	sudo dnf install pipewire pipewire-pulseaudio wireplumber
Arch	sudo pacman -S pipewire pipewire-pulse wireplumber

Rostrum checks again every few seconds, or press Retry Now.

Other messages on this page:

• PipeWire is too old. Rostrum needs PipeWire 1.0 or newer with WirePlumber 0.5 or newer. Install the latest packages for your distribution, then log out and back in.
• "Rostrum is not allowed to connect to PipeWire." Run Rostrum as your own user, not with sudo.
• "PipeWire is not answering." The service may have stopped or crashed. Run the start command above.

The mix could not be created

If PipeWire refuses to create Rostrum's devices, setup shows "PipeWire did not create the mix: …", or a red banner appears with Try Again. Check that PipeWire and WirePlumber are running, then try again. If the Mixer says No mix yet, press Create Mix.

Headphones disconnected

When your saved headphones disappear (unplugged, switched off, Bluetooth dropped), Rostrum shows:

Headphones disconnected, scene held. Playing through … until they come back.

Rostrum plays your headphone mix on the system default output in the meantime and sends one desktop notification. Your scene is not changed. When the headphones come back, Rostrum switches back to them by itself. To pick other headphones, press Choose Headphones.

No mic, or mic disconnected

• "Mic disconnected. Your stream mic is silent until it comes back." The mic you chose was unplugged or switched off. On purpose, Rostrum does not switch to another mic, so a webcam or laptop mic never goes live on stream by surprise. You also get one notification, "Mic disconnected, stream mic silent." Plug the mic back in and Rostrum uses it again, with the scene's mute and gain.
• "Mic disconnected. Using … until it comes back." You turned on Devices → Use another mic while mine is unplugged, so the system default mic stands in until yours returns.
• The header button reads No mic when no microphone is found, or while your chosen mic is unplugged.

Press Choose Mic in the banner, or open the Devices page, speak, and pick the mic whose meter moves. See Mixer and Buses.

Bluetooth headset sounds muffled? The Devices page warns when a headset is in headset mode (HSP/HFP). Switch it to A2DP in your desktop's sound settings (Open Sound Settings) when you do not need its mic.

My voice is not on stream

Work through these in order:

1. The header button. Mic muted means the mic is muted; click it. No mic means your chosen mic is missing or unplugged; see above. Mic offline means PipeWire is not reachable.
2. Panic mute. While panic mute is on, the header reads Mic muted and the Stream master shows Muted. Press the panic mute hotkey again to bring both back.
3. Push to talk. If you bound push to talk, the mic stays muted until you hold the keys.
4. The Mic strip. Its destination must include Stream (Stream or Both), and its gain must be above zero.
5. OBS. Open the OBS page and check that OBS records Rostrum Mic; see OBS does not record Rostrum.

If you started a stream in OBS with one of these problems, the go-live warning names it; see OBS Setup.

Ducking does not turn the music down

• Check that Settings → Ducking → Turn music down while someone speaks is on, and that the bus you expect is ticked under Turn down.
• With When set to You speak (mic), Rostrum only listens while your mic can be heard on stream. If the mic is muted, unplugged, or its destination leaves out Stream, nothing is ducked.
• With Someone speaks in voice chat, the trigger is the bus that receives voice chat, after its fader and mute. If that bus is muted or at zero, nothing is ducked. That bus is never ducked by voice chat itself.
• Quiet speech may not count. Raise the mic gain a little.

The microphone indicator stays on. While ducking listens to your mic, your desktop's mic indicator stays lit whenever the mic is live, even with Rostrum in the tray. Turn ducking off, set When to Someone speaks in voice chat, or mute the mic.

An app is silent

• Open the Apps page. If the app's mute button is on, unmute it. With Always on, the mute is saved in the scene and comes back with it.
• After Rostrum crashes, an app it muted stays muted. Unmute it on the Apps page, or in any other mixer.
• Check the app's bus: muted, at zero, dimmed by solo, or sent only to the mix you are not listening to.

An app is not on the right bus

Open the Apps page. Each app row says where the app is and why. Find the line under the app's name:

What the row says	What to do
"… Automatic assignment is off."	Turn on Assign automatically, or assign the app yourself.
"… You took it off its bus."	Assign it again, or use Settings → Apps → Forget skipped apps.
"… No bus receives … yet."	Right-click a bus strip → Receives Automatically and choose that kind.
"Chose its own output in its settings, so Rostrum leaves it there"	The app sends audio to a device other than your headphones or default output. Set it back to the default in the app's own audio settings, or assign it yourself.
"Audio tools, OBS and screen readers are never assigned automatically"	This is intended. Assign it yourself if you really want it on a bus.
Unassigned, with no reason	Rostrum did not recognise the app. Assign it and leave Always on.

An app is missing from the list. Apps only appear while they are making audio. Play something in the app.

An app with no name. A banner says "An app is playing audio without a name". Press Name It… to give it a name and a bus.

An app went to the default output after login. If the app started before Rostrum, check these:

• Is the app's rule in your default scene? Only the default scene's rules are written for apps that start before Rostrum.
• Did you just add the rule? PulseAudio apps pick up new rules after your next login. Until then, Rostrum moves them once it starts.
• Is Rostrum set to Launch at login?

Within a second of Rostrum starting, it should move the app to its bus without the app restarting. If the app stays on the default output until you restart it, that is a bug; please report it with the Audio routing form.

"The session manager is not WirePlumber." Rostrum still routes apps while it is open, but it does not write rule files, so routes may not survive a reboot.

A link I made by hand disappeared. Rostrum manages the links from its own devices to your hardware outputs. A link you patch by hand from a Rostrum device to a hardware output (in qpwgraph or Helvum, for example) is removed. Use destinations and the Devices page instead.

OBS does not record Rostrum, or audio is doubled

Open the OBS page and look at What OBS records right now. Anything with a warning icon is a source that skips Rostrum. Press Set Up OBS… or Fix OBS… to fix it, or follow Set it up by hand. The OBS Setup page explains each warning.

Common causes:

• Voice doubled: OBS records both your hardware mic and Rostrum Mic. Mute the hardware mic source.
• Viewers hear things you kept off stream: OBS records your headphones or "Default" instead of Rostrum Stream Mix.
• OBS's mic source keeps moving away from Rostrum Mic: usually Easy Effects. Add OBS to its excluded apps.
• "OBS is running, but its WebSocket server is off." In OBS, open Tools ▸ WebSocket Server Settings and tick Enable WebSocket server, or close OBS and let Rostrum edit its settings directly.

The list only shows sources that are currently playing. Press Check Again after changing things in OBS.

No LIVE badge, go-live warning or OBS scene following

• Settings → OBS → Follow OBS while it runs must be on. With it off, Rostrum only talks to OBS while the OBS page is open.
• OBS's WebSocket server must be on (Tools ▸ WebSocket Server Settings in OBS). Rostrum only connects while OBS runs with its server turned on, and checks about every 5 seconds.
• Go-live warnings also need Warn me when a stream starts with a problem. They are checked when a stream starts, not for problems that appear later in the stream.
• An OBS scene only switches the Rostrum scene if you mapped it under When OBS switches scenes, and only when OBS changes scene, not when Rostrum first connects. A mapping to a Rostrum scene you have since deleted does nothing.

See OBS Setup.

Global shortcuts do not work

• Rostrum must be running. It can run hidden in the tray.
• Open Settings → Hotkeys. A row that says "Also used by “…”" or another warning conflicts with something else. That shortcut still works inside Rostrum's window. Pick another combination.
• Most actions, including push to talk, push to mute and panic mute, have no shortcut until you set one.
• On desktops other than Plasma, the desktop may need to confirm the shortcuts first.

Push to talk works like a switch instead of a hold. Inside Rostrum's window, and on desktops that do not report the keys going up, each press turns it on or off.

A scene hotkey loads the wrong scene. Load scene 1 to 8 follow the order of the Scenes page. Use Move Up and Move Down there.

See Keyboard Shortcuts.

Closing the window quits Rostrum

Check Settings → General → Hide to tray when closed. Rostrum also hides to the tray only when your desktop has a system tray. Without one, closing the window quits. Your mix keeps playing, but apps are no longer moved and hotkeys stop.

Minimizing does not hide Rostrum to the tray

• Settings → General → Hide to tray when minimized is off by default. Turn it on (it needs a system tray).
• On Wayland, the desktop does not tell apps that they were minimized. Rostrum treats "the active window stopped being shown" as a minimize. If Rostrum's window was not the active window, for example when you minimize it from the task bar's menu, it just minimizes. Click it in the task bar or the tray to get it back.
• Switching to another virtual desktop never hides Rostrum to the tray.

The command line exits with status 2

rostrum --… could not reach the running copy of Rostrum over D-Bus. Check that you run it as the same user, in the same desktop session. Status 1 means Rostrum refused the request (for example an unknown scene name), and the reason is printed. See Command Line and D-Bus.

Settings → Updates says "Could not check"

No Rostrum release has been published yet, so the update feed has nothing to serve and the check fails quietly. This is expected for now and does no harm. To stop checking, turn off Check for updates. See Privacy and Crash Reports.

Other apps show an old bus name

The name other programs see is fixed when the device is created. Use Settings → Advanced → Rebuild virtual devices. Audio through Rostrum stops for a moment, and OBS reconnects on its own.

The log file

Rostrum writes a log to:

~/.local/state/rostrum/rostrum.log

(If you set XDG_STATE_HOME, it is under that folder instead.) Settings → About → Log file shows the exact path. If Rostrum crashes, a backtrace is added to the end of the log. Each automatic placement is logged too, which helps when an app lands on the wrong bus.

Resetting Rostrum

To start over with first-time setup:

1. If you want to keep your setup, use Settings → Advanced → Back Up Settings… first, or keep a copy of the folder in step 3. You can bring a backup back later with Restore…; see Files and Folders.

2. Quit Rostrum (tray → Quit, or Settings → Quit Rostrum).

3. Move the settings folder aside instead of deleting it:

   mv ~/.config/rostrum ~/.config/rostrum.bak

4. Start Rostrum. Setup opens again.

This resets settings, scenes, shortcuts, Recently Deleted scenes and earlier restore backups. Your audio keeps playing throughout. Two things live outside that folder and are not reset:

• The rules for apps that start before Rostrum. To clear them, delete the two 50-rostrum.conf files listed in Files and Folders; the change takes effect at your next login.
• The autostart entry, if Launch at login was on. Rostrum treats that file as the setting, so launch at login stays on until you turn it off in Settings or remove the file.

To recreate only the virtual devices, without touching settings, use Settings → Advanced → Rebuild virtual devices. To remove Rostrum's devices from PipeWire entirely, quit Rostrum and run:

systemctl --user restart pipewire pipewire-pulse wireplumber

Reporting a problem

Use the issue forms: Bug report, Audio routing (a bus, app rule, headset or OBS capture did the wrong thing), Accessibility barrier or Feature request. Include your distribution, desktop, the Rostrum version (Settings → About), and the relevant part of the log. Security problems go to security@getrostrum.dev, not a public issue.