I have a "soundcard" wich overs two sound devices to alsa/pulse. One for normal sound (Main device) and one for "communication".

all works well. In Phonen -Audio DevicePriority the Main device is correctly set and most programs honor the setup. Except some. For excample the loudness-controll widget. after every reboot the Communication device is taken. Additionaly some other programms (games etc) take these device as well. If I mark den Main device in the loudness widget as default, all application streams got redirected correctly and all works well... Till the next restart. After the restart the default is resetet to the second device again.

I'm a bit at a loss here

I haven't seen problems with KDE applications forgetting hardware settings in recent times, at least since Kubuntu 18.04 or even earlier this works out of the box. Kwin as well behaves correctly here (probably what you can the loudness control widget).

Sadly we have very little influence on the way non-KDE applications handle the hardware access, most will probably ignore the settings from Plasma and try to access alsa directly, which could explain the issues you encounter.

Unfortunately you didn't tell what games this is about, nor did you tell us your exact Plasma version and distribution version.

It's not about other applications picking the wrong device.

It's about this Default-Option:


Every-time I log into my Account it's got reset to "Main Audio Chat Output" and i have to set it to "Main Audio main output". All affected Application (like VLC, Stellaris etc) changes immediately to the correct device (i think its a pulse-audio thing...). After I Logout/Login (no reboot/restart needed) it got reseted to the wrong device again.

KDE-Plasma: 5.12.9
KDE-Framework: 5.44.0
QT-Version: 5.9.5

Distribution: KUbuntu 18.04.04

Since there is a much newer Plasma available in Kubuntu 20.04 LTS, I strongly suggest you upgrade your system

Mamarok wrote:Since there is a much newer Plasma available in Kubuntu 20.04 LTS, I strongly suggest you upgrade your system

done

KDE-Plasma: 5.18.4
KDE-Framework: 5.68.0
QT-Version: 5.12.8

Problem still existent.

i will try KDE Neon (stable/user) instead

KDE Neon
KDE-Plasma: 5.18.4
KDE-Framework: 5.69.0
QT-Version: 5.14.2

Same error

OK i found an reason (not sure if it is the reason) and a corresponding workaround.

The problem seems to be "triggered" by the Fact, that my soundcard providing two device within one hardware and needs some "profiles" to be setuped.

I'am using this pulse-audo/also - profile-set: https://github.com/evilphish/sennheiser-gsx-1000/blob/master/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/profile-sets/sennheiser-gsx-1000.conf

it seems that the default "output device" is defined by the ordering of the output-mappings-Statement. The latest one, becomes the "default".

Hm, you could file a bug to pulseaudio, but they will probably close it as hardware related. I fear there is not much to do other than working around with a script.

Bug Report filled - will see what happens

Could you please provide a link to the bug report here so we can follow it?

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pulseaudio/pulseaudio/-/issues/876