No sound for new user

graemev · 2026-01-25 18:21:40

Hi, I'm posting this here because I've hit this same issue dozen of time over the years and each time I think "this has happened before ..."

I create a new user and when he logs on he gets no sound. Now this may not be XFCE specific, but the way XFCE config works means it's hard to see/fix.

..also folks starting out on XFCE may get this as their 1st user and so spend ages thinking "sound is broken" ... when it's not.

So. I log on as a new user and no sound. I goto the little speaker icon (which launches /usr/bin/pavucontrol) and choose "Audio Mixer" ...in my case the configuration tab shows two possible devices IEC958 or HDMI ...I only have speakers via HDMI ...and try as you might there seems to be no way to switch to using "the other one".

People familiar with this may be aware , nothing appears until you run something that accesses audio... so I launch Firefox , play youtube and now in the "playback" tab I see an option to make firefox use HDMI ...and horra, it works. Problem is the next app I launch I'll get the same issue, I need to configure each one .... why can't I set a default? Well you can. the command is wpctl(1) but it lacks man page (at least on my system) one can be found at https://pipewire.pages.freedesktop.org/ … wpctl.html . If you issue:

$ wpctl status
PipeWire 'pipewire-0' [1.4.9, graeme@real, cookie:2031089051]
 └─ Clients:
        33. WirePlumber                         [1.4.9, graeme@real, pid:2322]
        34. pipewire                            [1.4.9, graeme@real, pid:2325]
        47. WirePlumber [export]                [1.4.9, graeme@real, pid:2322]
        51. Firefox                             [1.4.9, graeme@real, pid:7432]
        56. speech-dispatcher-dummy             [1.4.9, graeme@real, pid:39404]
        64. xdg-desktop-portal                  [1.4.9, graeme@real, pid:7188]
        65. xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin             [1.4.9, graeme@real, pid:7002]
        76. wpctl                               [1.4.9, graeme@real, pid:104403]

Audio
 ├─ Devices:
 │      35. Built-in Audio                      [alsa]
 │      46. Built-in Audio                      [alsa]
 │  
 ├─ Sinks:
 │  *   61. Built-in Audio Digital Stereo (HDMI) [vol: 0.29]
 │      73. Built-in Audio Digital Stereo (IEC958) [vol: 1.00]
 │

... plus some more. If you look at the "Sinks:" section, you see an asterisk beside the HDMI (it had been beside the IEC958 , which was my problem)

To set it to the HDMI, issue:

wpctl set-default 61

Where the 61 is the number in the output of the status (sadly there is no wpctl get-default , which would be nice ... not least for scripts)

The real solution for this , after install. will not doubt lie in:

/usr/share/wireplumber ..or
/etc/wireplumber/

There is a wonderful looking stanza in there:

  device.routes.default-sink-volume = {
    name = "Default sink volume"
    description = "The default volume for audio sinks"
    type = "float"
    default = 0.064
    min = 0.0
    max = 1.0
  }

Which looks like config for a COW or GUI ... if only such a tool existed?

lvsl · 2026-01-29 20:07:50

There is one that I thought that it will be of your use is a default xfce plugin that uses pulseaudio. However to make it work for pipewire, you need to install pipewire-pulse so the pulseaudio plugin for xfce know where to look, in order to config or show the audio device in your computer.

There is also a small green tick button "set default" the same row as "Raptor Lake...". This is the name of the device available in your computer. So give it a try and see if this fixes your problem. On the other hand just in case, if you see "dummy audio", then it means nothing is currently working when it comes to audio. It will likely remain that way even if you try to play music, and no sound will come out

The plugin is called xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin. It is part of the xfce4-goodies package if you use Arch (or maybe ubuntu/mint/etc), and it might be the same for other linux too.

(Edit: added links as reference)

Last edited by lvsl (2026-01-29 20:22:11)

graemev · 2026-01-29 22:40:53

I guess what would be most useful , if there were some way to set the default for all users. Setting it every time you create a new user (or rather it being set wrong for every new user) is just a pain. You you regularly create new users, it's another job to do . If you infrequently create them, you forget each time and need to search to find a page like this :-(

eriefisher · 2026-01-29 23:16:44

This isn't an Xfce4 issue. Pipewire/Pulseaudio are cross desktop and all Nix's use it. This is a simple setting issue. Your distribution determines the defaults so the best place to look is there.

graemev · 2026-01-30 17:03:33

You could well be right but this is Debian (forky) and AFAIK this does not occur with the other desktop choices ... I'm guessing xfce is setting a default for new users? True Debian should be setting that XFCE value but (I guess) that will be in the "xfce package for Debian forky" , so it'd be good to know what it is they should set before I raise a bug report there.

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#1 2026-01-25 18:21:40

No sound for new user

#2 2026-01-29 20:07:50

Re: No sound for new user

#3 2026-01-29 22:40:53

Re: No sound for new user

#4 2026-01-29 23:16:44

Re: No sound for new user

#5 2026-01-30 17:03:33

Re: No sound for new user

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