#1147508 pulseaudio: Sometimes does not notice newly plugged USB devices (e.g. laptop dock)

Package:
pulseaudio
Source:
pulseaudio
Description:
PulseAudio sound server
Submitter:
Paul "LeoNerd" Evans
Date:
2026-09-12 14:59:02 UTC
Severity:
normal
#1147508#5
Date:
2026-09-12 14:48:16 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

After a reboot, all my sound devices work fine. However, as they are
attached by USB through a USB-C audio dock, it's easily possible these
can be removed and replaced.

Sometimes, replugging the USB-C dock works fine. But sometimes, while
the USB devices themselves appear just fine (e.g. they appear on
`lsusb`), they do not appear as available outputs to pulseaudio, and
sounds still go through the laptop internal speakers.

This can be fixed by manually replugging the USB devices, or by
restarting pulseaudio:

  $ systemctl --user restart pulseaudio