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

Question

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)

score 13 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 04 '12 at 23:42

13

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'

edited Nov 04 '12 at 23:42

Community

1

answered May 07 '12 at 10:21

Peter V. Mørch

5,417

This worked perfectly! No idea why the system thought HDMI should be my default, but I reset those values, rebooted, and now my media hotkeys are working perfectly, no configuration required. – Ruth May 10 '12 at 00:40
Cannot edit or create new string, field always resets to "HDAudioGenericAlsamixer". Consequently no volume hot keys work at all. – fleamour Jun 26 '12 at 12:30
Had to kill xfce4-volumed process, before changing value, otherwise keeps resetting string field. Result! – fleamour Jun 26 '12 at 13:23
Thank you very much for this! My volume control keys were not working either but now they are fixed. I would just like to let people know that if your language is set to non-US spelling then you need to add the 'ue' to the end of analogue: PlaybackBuiltinAudioAnalogueStereoPulseAudioMixer – Oct 14 '12 at 00:29
From suggested 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'
– nanofarad Nov 04 '12 at 23:40
The solution via terminal works for Xubuntu 13.10, too. Many thanks! – enenen Jun 22 '13 at 07:01
I killed all instances of xfce4-volumed, adjusted the value of the active-card, restarted xfce4-volumed, and re-added my audio mixer panel control. All seemed to take well. – Justin Skiles Feb 12 '14 at 05:11

score 6 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 21 '16 at 07:46

For those who do not have /active-card, it is not needed anyway, nor is the xfce4-mixer. The sound is going through PulseAudio and therefore the "default" device is selected by the configuration of PulseAudio, and xfce4-volumed will only change the "default" outputs volume.

However you can use PulseAudios configuration tool for this, pacmd.

$ pacmd
Welcome to PulseAudio! Use "help" for usage information.
>>>

First list the devices on your machine

>>> list-sinks

It will print a lot of information about your devices, and as visible they all have an index

2 sink(s) available.
  * index: 0
    name: <alsa_output.pci-0000_00_03.0.hdmi-stereo>
        ...
    index: 1
    name: <alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo>
        ...

You need to set your preferred device as default. As you can see (the little star, i.e. *, before index:0) my HDMI was the default and I wanted the Analog output.
```
>>> set-default-sink 1
```

You may need to kill xfce4-volumed and restart it, to have the desired effect without full system restart:

    $pkill volumed
    $xfce4-volumed

But basically, that is it.

This worked perfectly. I am curious how well it will hold up over time as the default source I chose is a bluetooth speaker. I'll update my comment if it ends up not working through disconnect/connect processes. — Anthony, Dec 18 '19 at 15:53

Rick T · Answer 3 · 2013-02-10T20:16:36.950

This fix will also fix the volume control on the Logitech G930 Wireless gaming headsets. (Not sure about the other buttons though) Launch Settings / Settings Editor (not the normal Settings Manager) or open a command prompt and type xfce4-settings-editor

Then, under xfce4-mixer And replace the active-card setting marked Value: to

PlaybackLogitechG930HeadsetAnalogStereoPulseAudioMixer

I've included an image to make it easier to understand

Also if have problems with the headset volume working here's a link that may help https://bugs.launchpad.net/xfce4-volumed/+bug/901338

Basically do a killall xfce4-volumed and try moving the volume on the headset again

headset

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 19 '16 at 08:52

In KDE without editing config files, I was able to fix this by right-clicking the volume icon in the task bar and selecting Select Master Channel....

This brought up a KMix dialog where I selected Built-in Audio Analog Stereo instead of GK110 HDMI Audio. Immediately after clicking OK the volume keys on my keyboard started working.

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered May 11 '12 at 17:03

Peters answer also worked for me. However resetting the /active-card deleted the entry. I just added it again:
name: /active-card
type: string
value: PlaybackBuiltinAudioAnalogStereoPulseAudioMixer

Rebooted and I did get an crash-report from /usr/bin/xfce4-volumed, but the controls work again.

Thanks!

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

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