Bug#768918: pulseaudio: Streams do not switch to correct sink when USB speakers are removed

[Felipe Sateler]

Control: tags -1 confirmed upstream
Control: forwarded -1 https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85488

Hi Forrest

On Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 4:16 AM, Forrest Cahoon
<forrest.cahoon at gmail.com> wrote:
> Package: pulseaudio
> Version: 5.0-13
> Severity: normal
>
> I have added these lines to my /etc/pulse/default.pa:
>
> # fc-added
> set-default-sink alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo
> set-default-source alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo
>
> load-module module-switch-on-connect
>
> These define a default sink (and source), and loads module-switch-on-connect,
> which correctly causes pulseaudio to switch any playing streams to my external
> USB speakers when I plug them in. I expect that when i unplug the USB speakers,
> playing streams will return to the default sink which I have defined in my
> config. This does not happen. What happens is that pulseaudio switches the
> stream to its sink #0, which is an HDMI audio device that is not connected to
> any output.
>
> When I check the default sink again after having unplugged the USB device by
> checking the output of "pacmd list-sinks" and looking for the asterisk, it is
> correctly set back to the default I've defined in my config.
>
> My suspicion is that the module module-rescue-streams, which is responsible for
> switching streams once a sink becomes unavailable, is being called _before_ the
> default sink is set back from the USB device to the config-defined default
> device, and it is choosing the first available sink it finds, which is #0. (The
> function find_evacuation_source in module-rescue-streams.c looks like it would
> do that, although I haven't been able run it in the debugger and set a
> breakpoint to check.)

This is a known problem. Unfortunately, it is unlikely to be fixed in
the short term. Please see upstream's comment on another user
reporting this problem:

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.audio.pulseaudio.general/21612/focus=21663

The workaround is to set the hdmi profile to off.

-- 

Saludos,
Felipe Sateler