Unable to start zoom on linux with "pacmd: command not found"

[drybalka]

I am using Archlinux with sway (wayland) as a window manager and pipewire as an audio processor. From what I've seen zoom supports both wayland and pipewire at least separately from one another, but in my case I get the following output (see below).

Judging from the output it seems the only problem zoom has is missing `pacmd` command. However, `pacmd` is only available in the pulseaudio package and it looks like zoom does not understand that it needs to use pipewire. Does anyone have an idea how I can solve this? Is there an option somewhere to help zoom with recognition? Or maybe the problem is entirely different?

```

ZoomLauncher started.
Zoom path is: /opt/zoom
cmd line:
Start subprocess: /opt/zoom/zoom sucessfully, process pid: 15000
sh: line 1: pacmd: command not found
Class App Lib Possible Culprit Flags
resip::Connection 648 648
resip::Data 36 36
resip::DnsResult 1080 1080
resip::Headers 1 1
resip::MsgHeaderScanner 40 40
resip::SipMessage 5208 5208
resip::TransportSelector 864 864
resip::Tuple 128 128
resip::UdpTransport 1144 1144
resip::GenericIPAddress 28 28

zoom started.
sh: line 1: pacmd: command not found
sh: line 1: pacmd: command not found
Class App Lib Possible Culprit Flags
resip::Connection 648 648
resip::Data 36 36
resip::DnsResult 1080 1080
resip::Headers 1 1
resip::MsgHeaderScanner 40 40
resip::SipMessage 5208 5208
resip::TransportSelector 864 864
resip::Tuple 128 128
resip::UdpTransport 1144 1144
resip::GenericIPAddress 28 28

Class App Lib Possible Culprit Flags
resip::Connection 648 648
resip::Data 36 36
resip::DnsResult 1080 1080
resip::Headers 1 1
resip::MsgHeaderScanner 40 40
resip::SipMessage 5208 5208
resip::TransportSelector 864 864
resip::Tuple 128 128
resip::UdpTransport 1144 1144
resip::GenericIPAddress 28 28

zoom started.
zoom started.
zoom was exited due to a handled signal: 5
ZoomLauncher exit.

```

[jtprince]

I'm experiencing the same behavior (Arch linux, sway, pipewire).  For zoom devs, consider using pactl to accomplish pulse audio interaction rather than pacmd.  pactl is supported by pipewire-pulse whereas pacmd is only supported by pulseaudio proper.  IOW, pacmd is a dead-end and pactl should be used instead, if at all possible?  Thanks!

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/issues/357

[dmierzej]

I don't know about ArchLinux, but on Fedora, I can simply install pulseaudio-utils package (that's separate from main pulseaudio package). That gives me the /usr/bin/pactl and /usr/bin/pacmd binaries that Zoom wants.

[gameking505]

I too am having this issue. Zoom crashes immediately upon startup before I can click anything. Also using Arch+Sway+Pipewire. Any thoughts/solutions would be amazing.

@dmierzej there is no pulseaudio-utils package on Arch so I'm at a bit of a loss. Are you using that package but on Wayland?

[marten]

I'm also on Arch+Sway+Pipewire and experiencing exactly the same behavior. Any solution/workaround would be much appreciated.

[gameking505]

Shot in the dark but are you on an nvidia card? If so, it may be related to this issue: https://community.zoom.com/t5/Meetings/Linux-Regarding-Nvidia-Xwayland-Wayland/m-p/72922

I thought the pacmd error was the cause of the crashing on my system but it turned out to be a red herring. The main cause was this issue with nvidia.

[marten]

Yes, I'm on a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile card. Thanks for the link, I'll follow the thread!