This bug exists in Ubuntu 14.04. I created ~/.asoundrc and attempted to override pcm.!default which was not honoured by ALSA due to /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf.d/pulse.conf running after /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf. This caused pulse to override my defaults.
An easy fix so far seems to be including ~/.asoundrc in /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf.d/pulse.conf. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to pulseaudio in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/295832 Title: Alsa does not honor pcm.!default because of /usr/share/alsa/pulse.conf Status in pulseaudio package in Ubuntu: Fix Released Status in pulseaudio source package in Intrepid: Fix Released Bug description: SRU information follows: Impact statement: Users of Ubuntu 8.10 find that their /etc/asound.conf and ~/.asoundrc are ignored due to missing entries in /usr/share/alsa/pulse.conf. This symptom affects all users with the pulseaudio package installed *and* the daemon (regardless of system- wide or per-user session instance) running. Bug resolution: The missing lines [referencing /etc/asound.conf and ~/.asoundrc] are added to /usr/share/alsa/pulse.conf. The change to the errors line mimics libasound2's /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf [to not throw an error upon a missing ~/.asoundrc]. With these changes, users of default Ubuntu 8.10 will have their /etc/asound.conf and ~/.asoundrc, if extant, honoured with higher priority than the configuration shipped by pulseaudio, thereby restoring expected alsa- lib runtime conf behaviour (for native ALSA applications) prior to intrepid. If either /etc/asound.conf or ~/.asoundrc is missing, the current intrepid behaviour of pulseaudio overriding {pcm,ctl}.default is retained. This change is shown via Loggerhead here: http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~crimsun/pulseaudio/ubuntu/revision/38?remember=36&compare_revid=36. SRU patch: http://launchpadlibrarian.net/21333323/pulseaudio_0.9.10-2ubuntu9.3.debdiff Instructions to reproduce the symptom: Create an ~/.asoundrc with the following contents only: # --- begin --- pcm.!default { type plug slave hw:5,0 } ctl.!default { type hw card 5 } # --- end --- After a fresh GNOME session login, open Applications> Accessories> Terminal, and use `speaker-test -Ddefault -c2' to verify that: 1) the speaker-test output continues to play (until interrupt, ctrl+c) through the PulseAudio-configured default device; 2) no errors are generated by alsa-lib. These two symptoms verify that ~/.asoundrc is ignored. Regression potential: Users who have a misconfigured /etc/asound.conf or ~/.asoundrc will notice that native ALSA apps refuse to start and throw alsa-lib error(s), which can be resolved by removing the offending conffile. Original description follows: Binary package hint: pulseaudio Even if I define a pcm.!default section in ~/.asoundrc, /usr/share /pulse-alsa.conf overrides this definition, so the default alsa output is always pulseaudio. If I comment the pcm.!default and ctl.!default in /usr/share/alsa /pulse-alsa.conf everything behaves as normal. Using Intrepid amd64. To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/295832/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : desktop-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp