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How to switch 'default' sound device controlled by hardware keys in Xubuntu?

rated 0 times [ 13] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 34935 / 2 Years ago, mon, july 4, 2022, 6:54:49

I installed xubuntu-desktop on a 12.04 Ubuntu upgrade after finding Gnome3 lacking. I've mostly been happy, but I've found an odd and frustrating bug. My laptop has two sound 'outputs' - an HDMI-out plug I never use, and the onboard speakers/headphones. For some reason, the hardware keys have been mapped to the HDMI output, even if I set it as 'fallback' in pavucontrol, and notify-osd only displays changes in the HDMI output (though the panel indicator volume control controls onboard sound). I'd ideally like both hardware keys and notify-osd to be looking at the onboard sound, though if I can't get notify-osd it's an acceptable loss. Having to click through a bunch of stuff to change volume is driving me crazy, though.

Googling suggested that it /may/ be a Pulseaudio/ALSA conflict, but the hardware keys seem to change at least indicated volume in pavucontrol for HDMI as expected (I don't have an HDMI cable to test actual sound output)

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lintical

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answered 2 Years ago ugeeport · Accepted Answer

I got a clue somewhere to look in
Settings / Settings Editor (not the normal Settings Manager)

Then, under xfce4-mixer, there was the setting /active-card
which had the value:

PlaybackHighDefinitionAudioControllerDigitalStereoHDMIPulseAudioMixer

I selected 'active-card', and hit the 'Reset Property' button. That turned the setting into:

PlaybackBuiltinAudioAnalogStereoPulseAudioMixer

( These names closely follow the names of the Output Devices in pavucontrol see screenshot )

After a reboot, it worked. My volume buttons now affect the volume in the speakers.

(Scrub my earlier, now deleted, hint/comment about Play/Pause not working. They (still) work fine in Rhythmbox - that was/is an unrelated problem with gmusicbrowser)

This may or may not work for you! :-)

EDIT: For some reason, my xfce profile got corrupted and I've restarted from scratch by rm -rf ~/.config. Now, only a few days later, resetting it didn't work for me either, but setting /active-card to PlaybackBuiltinAudioAnalogStereoPulseAudioMixer did.

EDIT: If the above did not work try setting this via terminal and xfconf, e.g.

    xfconf-query -c xfce4-mixer -p /active-card -s 'PlaybackBuiltinAudioAnalogStereoPulseAudioMixer'