Arch Linux

Description:
Almost each time after booting and logging in, applications that use pulseaudio are unable to interact with the daemon for 5-7 minutes, after 5-7 minutes pass, journalctl and dmesg report an error like so:

Jul 02 14:48:04 arch kernel: snd_hda_codec_realtek ehdaudio0D0: Unable to sync register 0x2b8000. -5
Jul 02 14:48:08 arch kernel: snd_hda_codec_realtek ehdaudio0D0: Unable to sync register 0x2b8000. -5

Shortly after the error is logged, systemd (re)starts the pulseaudio daemon successfully and applications interacting with it work normally. The issue also causes poweroff/reboot to take a long time, the kernel log(at loglevel=3) doesn't dispaly any errors while powering off/rebooting, it is just stuck after reaching the respective shutdown/reboot target and finally shuts down/reboots after a long while. Note that the problem doesn't occur, but those instances are very rare. Also the delay in the shutdown/reboot times is still there even though the pulseaudio daemon starts successfully.

I am not sure on which kernel version the issue began and I am unable to downgrade to previous kernel versions because I've deleted them from pacman's cache. The problem started roughly about a month ago I believe, I initially thought that the problem was related to pulseaudio and spent a lot of days trying to solve it by looking for solutions related to pulseaudio on the internet. Though I can't find out the exact kernel version the problem started on, the issue does not exist in the latest(as of 3 July 2021) LTS kernel version 5.10.47-1-lts and I've tried to provide the differences noted between 5.10.47-1-lts and the latest version with the problem which is 5.12.14.arch1-1.

I posted the problem on ArchWiki's forums and someone was able to point me to the kernel change that might be the cause of this problem. This is my audio controller(note the kernel driver sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl and the kernel module snd_sof_pci_intel_cnl):

5.12.14.arch1-1 $ lspci -k | grep -A3 'audio controller'
00:1f.3 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH-LP cAVS
Subsystem: Xiaomi Device 1901
Kernel driver in use: sof-audio-pci-intel-cnl
Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel, snd_soc_skl, snd_sof_pci_intel_cnl

On the LTS kernel in which the problem does not exist the audio controller uses the corresponding driver and modules:

5.10.47-1-lts $ lspci -k | grep -A3 'audio controller'
00:1f.3 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH-LP cAVS
Subsystem: Xiaomi Device 1901
Kernel driver in use: sof-audio-pci
Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel, snd_soc_skl, snd_sof_pci

This is my sound card information:

$ pactl list cards
Card #0
Name: alsa_card.pci-0000_00_1f.3-platform-skl_hda_dsp_generic
Driver: module-alsa-card.c
Owner Module: 22
Properties:
alsa.card = "0"
alsa.card_name = "sof-hda-dsp"
alsa.long_card_name = "sof-hda-dsp"
alsa.driver_name = "snd_soc_skl_hda_dsp"
device.bus_path = "pci-0000:00:1f.3-platform-skl_hda_dsp_generic"
sysfs.path = "/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.3/skl_hda_dsp_generic/sound/card0"
device.bus = "pci"
device.vendor.id = "8086"
device.vendor.name = "Intel Corporation"
device.product.id = "02c8"
device.product.name = "Comet Lake PCH-LP cAVS"
device.string = "0"
device.description = "Comet Lake PCH-LP cAVS"
module-udev-detect.discovered = "1"
device.icon_name = "audio-card-pci"

Additional Info:
I've also attached excerpts from journalctl after booting from both kernels with all the messages that have the terms 'sof-audio-pci' or 'snd_hda_codec_realtek'. I've also attached the various error messages that applications and commands show me for the first 5-7 minutes after boot.


Steps to reproduce:
* Have the same sound card as me I guess?
* Use linux kernel version 5.12.14.arch1-1 (would be reproducable on previous versions too)
* Try running any of the commands/applications listed in the attached file "error_msgs"