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user10489
Asked: 2022-04-18 05:28:19 +0800 CST

How can I override PulseAudio headphone device priorities?

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I have multiple USB sound cards that are all used for specific applications. It use to be that pulseaudio would randomly pick one of these for the default device, but I've managed to use udev rules with ENV{PULSE_PROFILE_SET} pointed at

[General]
priority = 1

to deprioritize all of them and leave the motherboard sound card as default.

However, recently I've added a USB headset (which I've assigned as default within a specific application), but I still want the motherboard audio to be default for all other applications. Unfortunately, something seems to be overriding my device specific priority (generic headset config?) with the priority of 99:

$ pactl list sinks | egrep  'Name|priority'
    Name: alsa_output.usb-Logitech_Logitech_G430_Gaming_Headset-00.analog-stereo
        analog-output-headphones: Headphones (priority: 9900)
    Name: alsa_output.pci-0000_0e_00.3.analog-stereo
        analog-output-lineout: Line Out (priority: 9000, available)
        analog-output-headphones: Headphones (priority: 9900, not available)

I would just disable automatic switching, but sometimes I plug external speakers into the motherboard headset jack temporarily, and I'd still like it to auto-switch to that and back.

The udev rule I'm using to recognize the device is

ATTRS{idProduct}=="0x0a4d", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0x046d", ENV{PULSE_PROFILE_SET}="pulseaudio-gaming-headset.conf"

with the mentioned file containing the priority adjustment as shown above.

The system switches the default to the headset both after boot and after using the motherboard headset jack. I'd like to make this stop.

It would be nice if there was a GUI to just hard set specific device priorities within a user profile. Assuming that doesn't exist, how can I fix this one case?

note: Ubuntu 20.04

pulseaudio

0 Answers