Confusing Pulseaudio device names.

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#3,652 8 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
35/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
linux

Research direction

Start with the reported pacmd list-sinks output and the pavucontrol view, comparing the HDMI and Analog entries and their device.description values. Done means the two devices are distinguishable in pavucontrol, verified against the reported Raspberry Pi setup.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Describe the bug
Name of PulseAudio devices confusiong

To reproduce
Update to May 2020 version

Actual behaviour
When listing the available sinks in PulseAudio the HDMI and Analog devices have the same name

Only with a fully detailed pacmd list-sinks you can tell them apart

HDMI
properties:
alsa.resolution_bits = "16"
device.api = "alsa"
device.class = "sound"
alsa.class = "generic"
alsa.subclass = "generic-mix"
alsa.name = "bcm2835 HDMI 1"
alsa.id = "bcm2835 HDMI 1"
alsa.subdevice = "0"
alsa.subdevice_name = "subdevice #0"
alsa.device = "0"
alsa.card = "0"
alsa.card_name = "bcm2835 HDMI 1"
alsa.long_card_name = "bcm2835 HDMI 1"
alsa.driver_name = "snd_bcm2835"
device.bus_path = "platform-soc:audio"
sysfs.path = "/devices/platform/soc/soc:audio/sound/card0"
device.form_factor = "internal"
device.string = "hw:0"
device.buffering.buffer_size = "131072"
device.buffering.fragment_size = "131072"
device.access_mode = "mmap+timer"
device.profile.name = "analog-mono"
device.profile.description = "Analog Mono"
device.description = "Built-in Audio Analog Mono"
alsa.mixer_name = "Broadcom Mixer"
module-udev-detect.discovered = "1"
device.icon_name = "audio-card"

Analog
properties:
alsa.resolution_bits = "16"
device.api = "alsa"
device.class = "sound"
alsa.class = "generic"
alsa.subclass = "generic-mix"
alsa.name = "bcm2835 Headphones"
alsa.id = "bcm2835 Headphones"
alsa.subdevice = "0"
alsa.subdevice_name = "subdevice #0"
alsa.device = "0"
alsa.card = "1"
alsa.card_name = "bcm2835 Headphones"
alsa.long_card_name = "bcm2835 Headphones"
alsa.driver_name = "snd_bcm2835"
device.bus_path = "platform-soc:audio"
sysfs.path = "/devices/platform/soc/soc:audio/sound/card1"
device.form_factor = "internal"
device.string = "hw:1"
device.buffering.buffer_size = "131072"
device.buffering.fragment_size = "131072"
device.access_mode = "mmap+timer"
device.profile.name = "analog-mono"
device.profile.description = "Analog Mono"
device.description = "Built-in Audio Analog Mono"
alsa.mixer_name = "Broadcom Mixer"
module-udev-detect.discovered = "1"
device.icon_name = "audio-card"

What matters in pavucontrol is the device.description which does not differentiate them
If the name could contian HDMI vs Analog it would be easier to use.

audio

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