Why is Skype Startup sound scratchy/grainy?

Question

When I start Skype, the Startup sound sounds like that my speakers is going to break any time (kind of like nails scratching a blackboard).

But when I go to /usr/share/skype/sounds to find the startup sound, I opened it and the file doesn't sound anything wrong.

How do I fix this? It sounds bad no matter how I start it.

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:23

4

The best solution to this problem is to disable the Glitch Free Audio part of Pulse, covered elsewhere

Skype and VLC sounds sizzle/distorted/bad

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:23

Community

1

answered Dec 05 '12 at 17:13

benaround

68
1
4

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 22 '12 at 22:22

2

Go to Startup Applications Preferences and edit the startup line for Skype:

sh -c "sleep 10 && skype"

Play with the 10 value. Get it lower until you start hearing the scratch. If you hear the scratch, raise the value by 1 again.

answered Jun 22 '12 at 22:22

David M. Sousa

861

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

This boils down to one of two reasons (or a combination):

CPU loaded at login when sound is played
Some intrinsic problem with the Skype WAV files

Solution to (1) is to delay start OR temporarily elevate Skype priority

You can either delay the startup, as David Sousa/Marty Fried's answers indicate, OR you can temporarily elevate Skype's priority at startup to reduce any CPU contention issue.

This solution uses nice/renice, and requires adding the specific command with visudo (because only root can start processes with elevated priority). I'll expand on this later since the OP (Emerson) indicates this is not his problem -- Skype login sounds grainy even when he starts Skype after his computer has been idle for a few minutes.

Solution to (2) -- try changing the sound into a more standard format (resample)

Open a terminal, go to /usr/share/skype/sounds
Backup all files (they're tiny) with sudo tar -cvf originals.tar *.wav
Rename: sudo mv SkypeLogin.wav SkypeLoginOld.wav
Install SOundeXchange with sudo apt-get install sox (small CLI utility)
Resample the login sound to a standard 48000 Hz stereo format:
```
sudo sox SkypeLoginOld.wav -c 2 -r 48000 SkypeLogin.wav
```
Now start Skype -- is it better?

If not, please try playing the Skype directory sounds in a regular player, and see if they still sound bad.

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 30 '12 at 06:05

Found the solution. Kind of.

I went to /usr/share/skype/sounds, then I copied SkypeLogin.wav to my Music Folder in my home directory.

Then I went to Skype Options and Clicked on the Notification Settings.

Next I changed the Startup Sound file from the one in /usr/share/skype/sounds to the one in my Music Directory.

Last I logged out and logged in and Skype Sounded much better!

Maybe Skype can't read /usr/share/skype/sounds, not sure what caused the problem but all works great now.

score 1 · Answer 5 · edited Jul 31 '12 at 11:26

Just uninstall skype and re-install it from terminal using these commands

Install Skype on Ubuntu 32 bit

wget -O skype http://download.skype.com/linux/skype-ubuntu_4.0.0.8-1_i386.deb
sudo apt-get install libxss1
sudo dpkg -i skype && sudo apt-get -f install && sudo rm skype

Install Skype on Ubuntu 64 bit

wget -O skype http://download.skype.com/linux/skype-ubuntu_4.0.0.8-1_amd64.deb
sudo apt-get install libxss1 lib32stdc++6 lib32asound2 ia32-libs libc6-i386 lib32gcc1
sudo apt-get -f install
sudo dpkg -i skype && sudo rm skype

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Jun 07 '13 at 20:40

I have found that these scratchy sounds are the result of a USB headset combined with a regular sound board (integrated or not).

What I did to solve this was to install Pulse Audio Preferences (from the Software center). Once installed, open it and enable "simultaneous output". Then open the sound settings, and highlight the "Simultaneous output on built in ...". You shouldn't have to reboot, but you may have to.

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Jun 16 '13 at 17:03

Sometimes scratchy Noises are due to a program called Skype Wrapper. Its an independent program for adding a bar (Like the ones used for when Rythmbox changes songs) I would check to see if you have it by using:

sudo dpkg-query -Wf '${Installed-Size}\t${Package}\n' | sort -n

Then after remove it by using:

Sudo apt-get remove skype-wrapper

Restart skype, It's not 100% but it helped me.

score -1 · Answer 8 · answered Oct 01 '13 at 17:58

-1

Modified the permissions of the wav files:

chmod 777 /usr/share/skype/sounds/*

This will make the Skype sounds much better.

answered Oct 01 '13 at 17:58

David Sijbesma

1

Why is Skype Startup sound scratchy/grainy?

8 Answers8

Solution to (1) is to delay start OR temporarily elevate Skype priority

Solution to (2) -- try changing the sound into a more standard format (resample)