Audio / Sound reverts to HDMI when power event occurs

[RevAngel]

PulseAudio reverts the sound to HDMI all the time when a HDMI related power event occurs. That means, although I have set another USB sound device plugged in and set as default under sound settings, when an application like Kodi or the system shuts off the HDMI monitor and I reactivate the monitor, the sound is set to HDMI output again and again.

That probably has to do with the fix to the reported Bug # 1711101 and definitely not happened at Ubuntu 19.04. I switched to Ubuntu 19.10 two days ago.

Setting the USB device as default does not help, even when done by PulseAudio mixer (gui) and removing HDMI output from the alternatives option.

Expected behavior:
PulseAudio keeps the sound setting to the selected device

Actual behavior:
PulseAudio changes to HDMI at every HDMI power event

Annoying manual workaround:
Setting the desired Audio option on the control panel after every HDMI power event again

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 19.10
Component: pulseaudio
Version: 1:13.0-1ubuntu1

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Switching on connect is an intentional design choice for Ubuntu. It's been like that for a few years although PulseAudio 13.0 in Ubuntu 19.10 has introduced extra sensitivity with respect to HDMI events...

If you would like to disable it then please just comment out this line:

  load-module module-switch-on-connect

in /etc/pulse/default.pa

So this isn't a bug, but it does seem to overlap with bug 1847570 so please see that too.

[RevAngel (revangel)]

Thank you for the workaround, Daniel!

It definitely seems to overlap with bug 1847570, the described behavior there matches with my report, when you think about it.

So thank you for the link to the bug as well!

Bye!

[RevAngel (revangel)]

One question just came to my mind:

why does a power event count as a new connect or reconnect? Yes, it shouldn't! The physical connection status normally should not change with a power event.

Just my thoughts that might help you to figure out how to solve things.

Bye!

[Bruno Dantas (bwdm3)]

This bug affects me too.
Commenting the "load-module module-switch-on-connect" line didn't work for me though.

I posted originally here:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1185903/why-cant-i-set-a-default-output-audio-device-in-ubuntu-19-10

[jules dusablon (jdusablon99)]

I don't see how this is "invalid". This is a bad pulseaudio behaviour that can consistently be reproduced on upgrade from 18.04 to 19.10. Obviously, I'm also affected by it.

[jules dusablon (jdusablon99)]

@Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt): the switch-on-connect is indeed an intentional design choice that works well to switch inputs on detection. A power event should _not_ be a trigger for this.

[BloodyIron (bloodyiron)]

I just upgraded from 19.04 to 19.10 and this happens every reboot, my default audio switches from my sound card to my HDMI audio output.

This kind of a regression is really going to turn new users off to Ubuntu/Linux.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Unsure the system has enough information from the hardware to tell appart a disconnect from a power off, there is no mechanical check that something is plugged in the port, it's just depending on whether a signal is received. That said it looks like a duplicate of #1847570

[datch (s-ogorodnick)]

The same bug!

[BloodyIron (bloodyiron)]

So this is actually happening now every time I lock my computer, no power change whatsoever (no standby, no suspend to RAM, no power off/reboot). So this is now becoming very frustrating to work with as I have to change my default audio device every time I use my computer now so that my volume controls (up/down) actually work.

Can we PLEASE get this at least started to be looked at?

[Wissam Youssef (kodder)]

Happens to me as well after upgrade from 19.04 to 19.10

[datch (s-ogorodnick)]

I think i found a solution. I'm commenting this lines
#load-module module-switch-on-port-available
#load-module module-switch-on-connect
in etc/pulse/default.pa
and all work for me.

[Bruno Dantas (bwdm3)]

Nice, commenting both lines worked for me.

[Wissam Youssef (kodder)]

Disabling switch on port and switching on connect for me is not ideal, since I have a bluetooth headphones that I still want to use from time to time.
I even tried to set a default sink in default.pa, still get hdmi on power events.
Installed pavucontrol to disable hdmi output, it just resets on power events.

I just use
pacmd set-default-sink <the output you want>
After each power event, annoying... hopefully this is fixed soon.

[Darrien Glasser (darrienglasser)]

This affects me as well and is very frustrating. I did not have the same issue on Debian or Arch (or older Ubuntu releases) either.

[Richard Sinclair (rich-sinclair)]

+1

[Rob Grune (rg-pigl)]

affects me too.

[Marek (marek.h)]

Same with me, problem showed up after upgrading from 19.04 version.

Uncommenting lines mentioned in #13 did not work for me (ASUS UX301L).

Extremely annoying.

[Doug (fooger)]

Me also, 10 months after the last post and still a problem.
3 weeks, 7 different distro's and now another one that makes it hard to enjoy Linux.
It is frustrating and the only one I've tried with a sound issue but they all have problems.

[Doug (fooger)]

I guess I should add some info to my post yesterday.

I'm running on a Gigabyte Aorus Elite X570 MB with a Zotec GTX 1070 and I have nothing hooked up to an HDMI port on either.

Disabling load-module module-switch-on-connect did nothing, still defaulting to HDMI.
Disabling both lines load-module module-switch-on-port-available and load-module module-switch-on-connect shows Dummy audio after restart.

[Doug (fooger)]

Ok, I left the 2 lines disabled and found a fix for the dummy audio here:
https://www.linuxuprising.com/2018/06/fix-no-sound-dummy-output-issue-in.html
Seems to be working for me so far.

Thanks for everyones help.