Arch Linux

CodingKoopa

Wiki Maintainer

Registered: 2020-02-18

Posts: 4

Pulseaudio switch-on-connect returns to wrong device

I have two audio cards that I wish to use for audio output:

• My GTX 1050Ti's HDA, GP107GL High Definition Audio Controller. I have my speakers plugged into the audio socket of my monitor, whose HDMI port is connected to my GPU (There is an intermediate HDMI switcher in use here, but that should be irrelevant).

• My ASUS ROG STRIX B350-F GAMING's Azalia HD Audio, Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) HD Audio Controller. I occasionally have my earbuds plugged into the audio socket on my case, which is connected to my motherboard.

I desire the following behavior:

• Default to outputting audio to my speakers.

• Switch all audio output to my earbuds when I plug them in.

• Switch back to my speakers when I unplug my earbuds.

I boot up my system without my earbuds plugged in, therefore my speakers are the only audio output, so the first item works. pavucontrol at this point:

In the advanced tab of plasma-pa, I have Automatically switch all running streams when a new output becomes available checked (which I assume loads module-switch-on-connect), so the second item generally works. pavucontrol at this point:

With the third item, according to the ArchWiki, when using PA's switch on connect features, "If you unplug [a device], the output will be set back to the last device." However, when I unplug my earbuds, PA switches the profile for my motherboard's HDA to the S/PDIF output:

Given I'm not using any S/PDIF device, this effectively mutes everything until I open pavucontrol and manually set the profile for that device back to Off (as in the first screenshot).

How can I prevent Pulseaudio from switching to the S/PDIF profile, and instead make it switch back to the original speaker profile?