[MSI MS-17C5] "Analog Stereo Duplex" profile keeps disappearing

[Stilor]

After every reboot, the profile named "Analog Stereo Duplex" keeps disappearing on my laptop; only "Analog Stereo Input" and "Analog Stereo Output" are present. Without "duplex", I cannot use both the built-in microphone and the speakers/headphones at the same time.

A workaround I found is to remove the user's configuration for pulseaudio and restart it:

rm -rf .config/pulse
pulseaudio -k

This brings the "Analog Stereo Duplex" profile back until the next reboot.

This problem started after an upgrade from Ubuntu 20.04 to 20.10.

I made a screencast of this: https://youtu.be/Vlz5471EYVQ

The laptop is MSI WE73-8SK.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.10
Package: pulseaudio 1:13.99.2-1ubuntu2 [modified: usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output-speaker.conf]
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.8.0-28.30-generic 5.8.14
Uname: Linux 5.8.0-28-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_modeset nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu50
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
CurrentDesktop: KDE
Date: Wed Nov 11 10:50:54 2020
InstallationDate: Installed on 2019-01-08 (673 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 18.10 "Cosmic Cuttlefish" - Release amd64 (20181017.2)
SourcePackage: pulseaudio
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to groovy on 2020-10-29 (13 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 05/20/2019
dmi.bios.release: 1.15
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: E17C5IWS.10F
dmi.board.asset.tag: Default string
dmi.board.name: MS-17C5
dmi.board.vendor: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd.
dmi.board.version: REV:1.0
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Tag
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd.
dmi.chassis.version: N/A
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvrE17C5IWS.10F:bd05/20/2019:br1.15:svnMicro-StarInternationalCo.,Ltd.:pnWE738SK:pvrREV1.0:rvnMicro-StarInternationalCo.,Ltd.:rnMS-17C5:rvrREV1.0:cvnMicro-StarInternationalCo.,Ltd.:ct10:cvrN/A:
dmi.product.family: WE
dmi.product.name: WE73 8SK
dmi.product.sku: 17C5.1
dmi.product.version: REV:1.0
dmi.sys.vendor: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd.

[Stilor (stilor)]

One other thing to mention is that I have a one-line modification in the pulseaudio configuration:

--- analog-output-speaker.conf 2019-03-01 21:10:29.369583080 -0800
+++ analog-output-speaker.conf 2019-03-01 21:08:36.091753082 -0800
@@ -86,7 +86,7 @@
 ; else there will be a spike when plugging in headphones
 [Element Headphone]
 switch = off
-volume = off
+volume = merge

 [Element Headphone2]
 switch = off

Without it, plugging/unplugging a headphone into the audio jack causes the volume to be set to 0. The idea for the fix picked from https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MSI_GE63VR description, but instead of [Element Speaker] I had to modify [Element Headphone]. This fix worked since I first installed Kubuntu 18.10 on this laptop.

[Stilor (stilor)]

Small correction: as a workaround, removal of ~/.config/pulse is not needed, a restart of the PulseAudio (pulseaudio -k) is sufficient.

[Andres Bott (andresbott)]

After upgrading to 20.10 ( 19.10 => 20.01 => 20.10) I'm experiencing the same issue.

in my case HDA Intel PCH, this card has multiple profiles and i get a different list of random profiles on ever boot.

After restarting pulse ( systemctl --user restart pulseaudio.service) i get all usable profiles.

Also I'm on KDE

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

If you're using KDE on 20.10 then you might want to look at bug 1897965.

[Stilor (stilor)]

Thanks, I can confirm that the workaround in bug 1897965 (changing the line in pipewire.conf) worked for me. Perhaps this is another duplicate of that bug.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Yeah let's assume this is the same issue as bug 1897965. We'll only know it's not after that one is fixed.