WSL No playback.

[Pycnomerus]

I had a problem running on wsl2 Debian where even with ffmpeg or pulseAudio no sound would come out of the peon preview.
But the sound would work from peon update test.

turn our the two approach are inconsistant, claude proposal ended up working for me, here's the patch I used.

--- a/libexec/peon.sh
 +++ b/libexec/peon.sh
 @@ -499,17 +499,15 @@ play_sound() {
      wsl)
 -      local tmpdir tmpfile
 -      tmpdir=$(powershell.exe -NoProfile -NonInteractive -Command '[System.IO.Path]::GetTempPath()' 2>/dev/null | tr -d '\r')
 -      tmpfile="$(wslpath -u "${tmpdir}peon-ping-sound.wav")"
 -      if command -v ffmpeg &>/dev/null; then
 -        ffmpeg -y -i "$file" -filter:a "volume=$vol" "$tmpfile" 2>/dev/null
 -      elif [[ "$file" == *.wav ]]; then
 -        cp "$file" "$tmpfile"
 -      else
 -        return 0
 -      fi
 -      local safe_tmpdir="${tmpdir//\'/\'\'}"
 -      setsid powershell.exe -NoProfile -NonInteractive -Command "
 -        (New-Object Media.SoundPlayer '${safe_tmpdir}peon-ping-sound.wav').PlaySync()
 -      " &>/dev/null &
 -      save_sound_pid $!
 +      local wpath
 +      wpath=$(wslpath -w "$file")
 +      wpath="${wpath//\\//}"
 +      powershell.exe -NoProfile -NonInteractive -Command "
 +        Add-Type -AssemblyName PresentationCore
 +        \$p = New-Object System.Windows.Media.MediaPlayer
 +        \$p.Open([Uri]::new('file:///$wpath'))
 +        \$p.Volume = $vol
 +        Start-Sleep -Milliseconds 500
 +        \$p.Play()
 +        Start-Sleep -Seconds 4
 +        \$p.Close()
 +      " &>/dev/null
        ;;

Summary for the issue:

Problem (Debian WSL): peon preview and hook sounds are silent.

Two bugs compound:

1. setsid powershell.exe ... & exits immediately on Debian WSL — the background process dies before playing anything. (nohup has the same problem.)
2. Media.SoundPlayer requires PCM WAV — if ffmpeg isn't installed and the file isn't .wav, it silently return 0s. Even when ffmpeg is present, the backgrounding issue kills playback.

Fix: Use System.Windows.Media.MediaPlayer (PresentationCore) directly on the original file — same approach install.sh already uses for the test sound. This works for WAV, MP3, and other
formats natively via Windows Media Foundation, with no ffmpeg dependency. Runs synchronously (the hook process is already async from Claude Code's perspective, so the ~1-2s block is
harmless).

[garysheng]

Thanks for the detailed writeup and patch. You're right that setsid powershell.exe & dies immediately on Debian WSL before playback starts, and Media.SoundPlayer is limited to PCM WAV.

Switching to System.Windows.Media.MediaPlayer (PresentationCore) is the right call. It handles WAV, MP3, and other formats natively with built-in volume control, and it's already what we use on native Windows (scripts/win-play.ps1).

Working on a fix now that uses your approach with a small refinement: waiting for actual playback completion via NaturalDuration instead of a fixed 4-second sleep.