Bug 88941

Summary: [OS X] (USB) sink/source names are meaningless and vary across pulseaudio restarts
Product: PulseAudio Reporter: René J.V. Bertin <rjvbertin>
Component: miscAssignee: pulseaudio-bugs
Status: RESOLVED MOVED QA Contact: pulseaudio-bugs
Severity: major    
Priority: medium CC: lennart
Version: unspecified   
Hardware: Other   
OS: Mac OS X (All)   
Whiteboard:
i915 platform: i915 features:
Attachments: pacmd list-sinks > pacmd-list-sinks-1.log
pacmd list-sinks > pacmd-list-sinks-2.log
pacmd list-sources > pacmd-list-sinks-2.log
pacmd list-sources > pacmd-list-sources-3.log
pacmd list-sinks > pacmd-list-sinks-3.log

Description René J.V. Bertin 2015-02-03 11:09:49 UTC
Created attachment 113100 [details]
pacmd list-sinks > pacmd-list-sinks-1.log

On OS X, pulseaudio attributes human-unreadable names to the sinks and sources it detects, and in addition to that, they vary across restarts for USB sound devices. They may also vary for other external sound devices (FireWire), but I don't have any way to test that. 

The attachments highlight the issue: they are the output of `pacmd list-sinks` for 2 consecutive runs of `pulseaudio -C`:

> pulseaudio -C
> pacmd list-sinks > pacmd-list-sinks-1.log
> pulseaudio -C
> pacmd list-sinks > pacmd-list-sinks-2.log
> pacmd list-sources > pacmd-list-sources-2.log
> pulseaudio -C
> pacmd list-sinks > pacmd-list-sinks-3.log
> pacmd list-sources > pacmd-list-sources-3.log

The implications are clear: it's impossible to set a default sink and/or source persistently, other than to the internal devices.
Comment 1 René J.V. Bertin 2015-02-03 11:10:43 UTC
Created attachment 113101 [details]
pacmd list-sinks > pacmd-list-sinks-2.log
Comment 2 René J.V. Bertin 2015-02-03 11:11:16 UTC
Created attachment 113102 [details]
pacmd list-sources > pacmd-list-sinks-2.log
Comment 3 René J.V. Bertin 2015-02-03 11:11:54 UTC
Comment on attachment 113102 [details]
pacmd list-sources > pacmd-list-sinks-2.log

that's `pacmd list-sources > pacmd-list-sourcess-2.log`, of course
Comment 4 René J.V. Bertin 2015-02-03 11:12:21 UTC
Created attachment 113103 [details]
pacmd list-sources > pacmd-list-sources-3.log
Comment 5 René J.V. Bertin 2015-02-03 11:12:50 UTC
Created attachment 113104 [details]
pacmd list-sinks > pacmd-list-sinks-3.log
Comment 6 GitLab Migration User 2018-07-30 10:01:07 UTC
-- GitLab Migration Automatic Message --

This bug has been migrated to freedesktop.org's GitLab instance and has been closed from further activity.

You can subscribe and participate further through the new bug through this link to our GitLab instance: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pulseaudio/pulseaudio/issues/169.

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