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I recently upgraded my media center computer from Ubuntu 15.04 to 16.04 (in-place upgrade, via 15.10). One new problem has been introduced:

I use the HDMI output for audio. When the screen goes to sleep for power saving, Pulseaudio switches the output to the internal sound (laptop speakers/mini jack), and when I wake the screen (by interacting with Kodi, the media center software) the audio remains output to internal sound, so I don't get audio on the TV to which the media center PC is connected. I have to switch to the pavucontrol window to switch back to HDMI, every time.

It didn't use to be like this, oh no. Back in Ubuntu 15.4 audio remained at the HDMI output even after a monitor (TV) sleep and wake cycle.

Is there a way to fix this, say by forcing the output to remain at HDMI despite the monitor going to sleep?

Kristian Andreas Vaksdal
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1 Answers1

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There's a bug report about this. In the comments #5 and #36 a workaround is suggested involving prevention of loading a particular PulseAudio module “module-switch-on-port-available” which handles output devices switching on/off or connected/disconnected. Anyway edit /etc/pulse/default.pa and comment out (i. e. insert a #) the line starting thus:

#load-module module-switch-on-port-available

You then need to restart PulseAudio:

pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --start
David Foerster
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Peter Maud
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  • Got the exact same problem now in Ubuntu 20.04... unfortunately commenting out that line doesn't help (anymore).. :/ – BjornW Dec 07 '20 at 21:58
  • pulseaudio --kill; pulseaudio --start is the saver for Ubuntu 20.04. – Yuki Jan 30 '21 at 21:09
  • On my Ubuntu 20.04 system, module-switch-on-port-available is not commented out, but I'm having the same difficulty with HDMI audio. I've been trying to write a program to monitor dbus messages for screen unlock and run pulseaudio -k automatically, but there is usually no activity on the com.canonical.Unity or org.freedesktop.login1 dbuses when I bump the mouse or otherwise turn on the display. My default source and sink change to auto_null when the monitor turns off. This is very frustrating. – Curt Feb 11 '22 at 07:40
  • @Curt But the answer told you to comment it out. However, it did not help in my case on 20.04. I have another USB audio device that provides analog output, and it is used, instead of my HDMI audio after the break. Built-in audio profile is not reseted. thouugh. – jarno May 09 '24 at 09:36