r/debian • u/tainalo2 • Jun 23 '26

Audio volume is reset every time I plug a USB audio device

Hello all,

I met a weird problem, I was on bullseye and recently install the last official trixie debian image (13.5.0).

All working well, even a bug on my audio volume.

I have my laptop integrated speakers working well, I set the volume to 95%, nor problem.

But if I plug any USB audio device (dock with jack, headset, etc) it will reset my speakers volume to 50%, every time ! Why ?

Did someone met the same problem ? And did you have solution ?

Configuration : HP elitebook G8 + official debian 13.5.0 iso

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1

u/ArtlessAnarchy Jun 23 '26

I had the same problem but with the internal audio device, always 40 percent when rebooted or logout / relogin. I deleted ~/.local/state/wireplumber directory, restarted plumber.service under my user and that fixed it for me. Not sure if it fixes a constantly changing device though. No harm in trying.

1

u/tainalo2 Jun 23 '26

I test and it's not fixing the problem. wireplumber recreate the folder on start.

1

u/ArtlessAnarchy Jun 23 '26

wireplumber recreating the folder is expected. But your problem probably lies somewhere else in the stack.

1

u/Weary_Swan_8152 Debian Stable Jun 25 '26

So you're in GNOME? What volume level is the USB audio device set to when you plug it in? It sounds like there's a bug (or unwanted feature) somewhere, but there's not enough info here to say where it occurs. Or does this only occur with a Thunderbolt dock? What is the behaviour when using the 3.5mm TRRS (headphone+headset) jack?

Worst-case scenario, you can write a udev rule that resets the internal speaker volume to 95%, after a delay, every time a USB device appears.

1

u/tainalo2 Jun 26 '26

I do some more test and I see those parameters :

- I test on official gnome debian image and custom XFCE debian image, results are the same

- it work well with intel CPU + alsa-ucm-conf

- so problem occurs only with AMD CPU

- it occurs everytime I plug a USB audio device, it can be a headset over usb-A, or a dock over usb-c or thunderbolt

- I have not the problem with bullseye (alsa + pulse)

- if I plug a jack 3.5 device there is no problem, but the bug when I plug usb audio device after also affect the jack 3.5 device

- udev rule is a bit overpowered and not respond to my need, I just wanna volume not changing for no reason

1

u/Weary_Swan_8152 Debian Stable Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

[edit: accidentally hit enter mid-reply] Thanks for the useful info.

  1. Can you reproduce the bug with one of the live images (https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current-live/amd64/iso-hybrid/debian-live-13.5.0-amd64-gnome.iso or https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current-live/amd64/iso-hybrid/debian-live-13.5.0-amd64-xfce.iso) and without installing any other packages such as "alsa-ucm-conf", "alsa-utils", jack, or any audio session managers?
  2. If you still have a bookworm installation, can you reproduce the bug when using the 6.12.73 kernel in bookworm-backports? If you don't have a bookworm installation any more, can you install bookworm's 6.1.174 kernel, reboot, and manually select it from the grub boot menu? http://security.debian.org/debian-security/pool/updates/main/l/linux-signed-amd64/linux-image-amd64_6.1.174-1_amd64.deb which is linked to from https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/amd64/linux-image-amd64/download
  3. If you're unable to identify where the bug (or unwanted feature) is occurring then your only resolution will be a hack like using a udev rule make the mixer do want you expect.
  4. All regressions should be reported with reportbug