Sound constantly switching outputs between Line Out and Headphones

phatbat

I'm running Solus on an older machine (Audio device: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C216 Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)), and it's constantly switching between the "Line Out" and "Headphones" connector under the "Output" tab for "Sound Preferences." I'm trying to use headphones, and every time it does this, I hear cracking sound. Since it does this several times a second, when no audio is playing, it sounds like a geiger counter in a moderately radioactive environment. During audio playback, it will cut out constantly, leaving several short audio gaps per second.

I've tried replugging the headphones, which hasn't made any difference. They are plugged into the back as well, directly into the ports on the motherboard. I don't believe this is hardware related anyway, as when booting into Windows, this isn't a problem. I'd like to move away from Windows, but working audio is a must. Does anyone know where to start troubleshooting this? Is there a way to completely disable either the Line Out or the Headphones output so it doesn't constantly flip-flop between them?

sgvd

Which DE do you use?
I had my share of audio issues with plasma, which led me to the following solution to prevent automatic switching of devices:

In /etc/pulse/default.pa comment line load-module module-switch-on-port-available
In /etc/pulse/default.pa comment line load-module module-switch-on-connect

If you don't have the mentioned config file, create a new user config file, which will override the default system file. This is needed as the system file will be overridden upon an update.

Create the following directory if it doesn't already exist: /etc/pulse
Copy the default.pa file from /usr/share/pulseaudio to /etc/pulse
After any changes, restart with pulseaudio -k followed by pulseaudio --start or reboot

phatbat

sgvd I'm using MATE.

I don't currently have an /etc/pulse directory, so I assume creating the system-wide directory & config is okay and it won't be overridden in the future. However, it's conceivable some future version of Solus would create a system-wide config, would it be safer to just create a user config in ~/.config/pulse/default.pa? Are user configs still parsed if there is no global config?

Either way, I'll give it a shot when I get a chance to reboot back into Solus. Thanks.

sgvd

phatbat I am not sure about your questions, I just jotted down these steps and the explanation when I found them (probably from this forum somewhere 😁 ) and they seemed to work.
I am clueless about a possible systemwide config in the future or whether we can also put the config in ~/.config/pulse... Although the latter would be nice to know if possible or not.

kyrios

Solus tries to implement stateless packages meaning the default system configuration lies under /usr/share/... and should never been touched instead when you want to modify the system wide configuration (for all users), you have to place your config files under /etc/... most applications also support per user config that is stored in _/.config/... (but unlike the stateless concept that's not specific to Solus)

Pulse audio is one of the stateless package. If you want to change the pulseaudio default configuration (system wide), the recommended way of working is to copy the files you want to modify from /usr/share/pluseaudio to /etc/pulse (you have to create the directory first). Then you can change whatever you want there.

In case of problem or if you want to rollback to the solus default, simply delete /etc/pulse