Hey list! I've connected my TV as a second monitor to my PC but still use my surround system connected to analog out on my mainboard. I've configured device priorities in KDE to prefer the analog output. For most applications, it works fine. But some still prefer passing sound to the HDMI output. The problem is with Steam, Steam games, and XBMC. All these applications start passing sound to HDMI instead of analog surround. As soon as I move the volume slider in KDE or in the application, the sound "jumps" to analog output as I configured it. But this can only be a workaround. Upon starting Steam, I have to move the volume slider to fix sound output. Upon starting a game, I have to move the slider to fix it. And this is especially annoying for XBMC, as it jumps back to HDMI on every new video playback, and jumps forth to analog stereo as soon as I move the volume slider. I figured out that I can right click the volume slider icon in KDE to move the audio stream to another output. But this is not permanent. It is just the same effect as moving the volume slider. And then there is one game left which does not allow me to move it back to the correct output. No matter what I do, it persists playing back on HDMI sound. But it clearly uses pulseaudio as a application volume slider is displayed for it. I checked "pacmd list-cards" and all priorites look good. Why is this behavior? It looks like a bug in pulseaudio because as soon as I move the volume slider, the output assignment is correctly applied. So it looks like new audio streams are not correctly assigned to the right device, just ignoring priorities. HDMI is listed as the first sink. I already tried to set the default sink in the /etc config files - but it does not help. Pulseaudio remembers my settings over reboots so this is not the problem. But normal desktop applications also play on the wrong output after login although "pacmd list-cards" shows correct priorities. This can be "fixed" by moving a volume slider - from then on, all applications play on the right device with the exception of the above mentioned. I'm using pulseaudio 4.0 on Gentoo 64 bit. Merry christmas! Kai
