spa-acp-tool

Debug ALSA card profiles for PipeWire

TLDR

List all ALSA objects

$ spa-acp-tool list

Probe a specific ALSA card

$ spa-acp-tool card [card_id]

List available profiles for a card

$ spa-acp-tool list-profiles [card_id]

Set the active profile

$ spa-acp-tool set-profile [profile_id]

List available devices

$ spa-acp-tool list-devices [card_id]

Get volume from a device

$ spa-acp-tool get-volume [device_id]

Set volume on a device

$ spa-acp-tool set-volume [device_id] [volume]

Toggle mute on a device

$ spa-acp-tool toggle-mute [device_id]

SYNOPSIS

spa-acp-tool [OPTIONS] [COMMAND]

spa-acp-tool is a debug utility for testing ALSA Card Profile (ACP) probing without running the full PipeWire daemon. It helps diagnose issues where PipeWire incorrectly configures ALSA card profiles.
The tool allows interactive exploration of sound cards, profiles, ports, and devices. It can test volume controls and mute states to verify proper hardware configuration before PipeWire uses the settings.

PARAMETERS

-h, --help

Display help information

-v, --verbose

Increase output verbosity

-c, --card number

Select specific card for probing

-p, --properties key=value

Pass additional properties to ACP

COMMANDS

list, l

List all ALSA objects

list-verbose, lv

List objects with detailed information

card, c id

Probe a specific card

info, i

Display card information

list-profiles, lpr

List available profiles

set-profile, spr id

Set active profile

list-ports, lpo

List available ports

set-port, spo id

Set active port

list-devices, ld

List available devices

get-volume, gv id

Get device volume

set-volume, v id level

Set device volume

toggle-mute, m id

Toggle device mute state

quit, q

Exit the tool

CAVEATS

Designed for debugging only; changes may not persist. Requires appropriate permissions to access ALSA devices. Some operations may conflict with a running PipeWire instance. Part of the PipeWire/SPA ecosystem.

HISTORY

spa-acp-tool is part of PipeWire, the modern multimedia framework developed by Wim Taymans at Red Hat starting around 2017. PipeWire was designed to unify audio and video handling on Linux, replacing PulseAudio and JACK. The SPA (Simple Plugin API) tools help debug the low-level plugin infrastructure.