Hi community! I've been looking everywhere for a solution to this problem and haven't found one yet, so I'm here. KDE seems to be very strange about audio outputs.

I have two device profiles listed under the Advanced tab in the Audio Volume settings for Plasma 5.12: one is "Analog Stereo Duplex" (my laptop's built-in speakers) and "Digital Stereo (HDMI) Output". While an HDMI cable is unplugged, the "Built-in Audio Analog Stereo" (laptop speakers) is made default.

Here's the problem. Whenever notification sounds play (those sounds found in the Notifications System Settings Module), I get a popup with this message in the notification tray, from "Multimedia System":


"Switching to the audio playback device Built-in Audio Digital Stereo (HDMI) which has higher preference or is specifically configured for this stream."


The popup has a button that allows me to switch back to the speakers' output, but when the next notification sound plays, it switches itself back to the HDMI output. And, by the way, the speakers' output has highest preference in KDE's Audio and Video settings.

Is there anything anyone can do to help me with this? Many thanks in advance.

hthorne wrote:the speakers' output has highest preference in KDE's Audio and Video settings.

What about the specific audio setting for Notifications?

TKL-Ansi wrote:What about the specific audio setting for Notifications?

Built-in Audio Analog Stereo is preferred over Built-in Audio Digital Stereo (HDMI) for Notifications. It's at the top of the list.