Sound preferences not saved on reboot (ubuntu MATE 24.04)

[lunalui]

Hello everybody,
I was a member of the Ubuntu forums for some time, but this is my first post on Discourse. I’m a simple user, so please bear with me.

I installed
Ubuntu Version: Ubuntu MATE 24.02
on my new laptop and I realized there is an annoying glitch I’d like to solve.

Problem Description: I always keep the sound of the speakers muted and only have sound on my headphones. Unfortunately, my preferences are not saved and the speakers are unmuted everytime I reboot. This did not happen with Ubuntu Mate 22.04 on my previous laptop.

Mine is a basic installation, so the sound server I have is PulseAudio.

What I’ve Tried:
Searching around on the web, I found this can be fixed by commenting the line

load-module module-switch-on-port-available

in the default.pa file.

However, PulseAudio is now installed via snap, and I regretfully discovered that editing snap files is not possible.

So I looked for a workaround and tried editing a copy of the file and then do a

mount -o ro,bind

which worked, but only for a single reboot.
(sorry, I haven’t bookmarked the pages where the above fixes where suggested and I can’t find them again now…)

Any idea on how this can be fixed for good? If you need more details, please do not hesitate to ask.
With many thanks in advance for your help!

[guiverc]

@lunalui

Ubuntu Version: Ubuntu MATE 24.02

It’s Ubuntu MATE 24.04 (2024-April release), or you could say Ubuntu 24.04.2 (the .2 being a point release detail for 24.04 release)

@lunalui

However, PulseAudio is now installed via snap

The manifest file shows what is on the ISO; at the bottom of the list are the snap packages of which none are PulseAudio, as it was replaced with PipeWire back in 22.10, which are packaged as deb packages.

Sorry I can’t help with your issue though; you’ll have to wait for others. What you installed though as snap that you’re referring to as PulseAudio I also don’t know (I see a pulsemixer snap package available at the Snap Store)

[lunalui]

Hi guiverc,
thank you so much for your reply. What you wrote gave me an idea that I tested and the problem seems to be solved!

I just copied the default.pa file from the snap directory, changed the settings, and added the result in the
/etc/pulse
where it should have been but wasn’t !

Thanks again for your help.

PS
As for the release, this is what the lsb_release -a gives:

|Distributor ID:|Ubuntu|
|Description:|Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS|
|Release:|24.04|
|Codename:|noble|