upstart task alsa-restore has no effect

I did some more testing on this topic. My Macbook has a optical audio out which is on by default. I want it to be off, so the led is not always on. I turned S/PDIF off in alsamixer and stored it with 'alsactl store'.

I created a script /usr/local/bin/alsarestore:

#!/bin/sh
sleep 15
/sbin/alsactl restore

I changed /etc/init/alsa-restore.conf to execute my script instead of running alsactl directly.

I watched the led during boot and stopped the time the led was on. On boot the led turned on at some stage, then was on for 8 seconds and then switched off by my script.

This means: 7 seconds after upstart task alsa-restore was invoked, some process initiliazed alsa and turned S/PDIF on. 8 seconds later (the sleep was 15 seconds) my script turned it off again.

So the whole process of alsa-store and alsa-restore does not work as designed. It was designed to store the current state of alsamixer on shutdown, and restore it on bootup.

The workaround to restore the state in users startup applications only works if all users have this workaround in their startup, and if a user logs in after boot. I you boot the system and shut it down immediately without logging in (from the gdm screen), then this process is broken because the default settings are stored through alsa-store. From now on the settings you made are lost.

Have you tried disabling pulseaudio, as that may be the second volume change here. To disable pulseaudio, open /etc/pulse/client.conf, and set autospawn to no. Thsi will prevent pulseaudio from being loaded both in the login session, and when you log into your user session.

In addition to Luke's very valid comment, alsa-restore is either being run by a udev rule or by the upstart script, this is to cover for a race between filesystem being mounted and device being probed.

I tried what Luke suggested, setting autospawn to no in /etc/pulse/client.conf. This way the alsamixer settings remain as they were stored. So pulseaudio must be resetting the mixer settings to its defaults.

What does this autospawn=no mean? Has it any disadvantages?

Disabling pulseaudio will make the sound indicator, the media keys, the standard volume control stop working, and will only enable one application at a time to output sound. And more.

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Just installed Mint xfce and having same problem with maintaining sound settings. Pulse audio wiki gives this.

Pulseaudio usually overwrites the ALSA settings- for example set with alsamixer- at start up, even when the alsa daemon is loaded. Since there seems to be no other way to restrict this behaviour, a workaround is to restore the alsa settings again after pulseaudio had started. Add the following command to .xinitrc .bash_login or any other autostart file:

restore_alsa() {
 while [ -z "`pidof pulseaudio`" ]; do
  sleep 0.5
 done
 alsactl -f /var/lib/alsa/asound.state restore
}
restore_alsa &
could not find either of these filed but appended to end of user .profile and it works.
Would adding this to .profile programatically solve the issue