Hi,
Using the latest RPiOS image (04 Dec 2025 Trixie Desktop 64-bit) updated to today, I have an issue on my Pi4b when switching between HDMI and AV jack audio. On the initial install, I did not have a speaker attached to the AV jack so I selected HDMI using the speaker icon on the desktop. This worked fine and audio was immediately heard through the HDMI monitor. While troubleshooting an issue related to playing consecutive audio clips, I decided to attach a speaker to the AV port to see how things sounded. I switched to AV jack using the speaker icon but audio was not heard until I rebooted. After rebooting, the sound issues disappeared (seems like a suspend-on-idle type problem when using HDMI but not really relevant to this post). I use speaker-test and SoX during testing.
To continue looking into the HDMI audio problem, I used the speaker icon to switch back to HDMI. I rebooted but no audio was heard on the monitor. Re-attaching the speaker showed sound was still using the AV jack. Re-checking the speaker icon showed HDMI was still selected. The only way to use HDMI audio again was to edit config.txt and use dtparam=audio=off.
This seems like a bug to me. Should you not be able to switch audio output without requiring editing config.txt?
Using the latest RPiOS image (04 Dec 2025 Trixie Desktop 64-bit) updated to today, I have an issue on my Pi4b when switching between HDMI and AV jack audio. On the initial install, I did not have a speaker attached to the AV jack so I selected HDMI using the speaker icon on the desktop. This worked fine and audio was immediately heard through the HDMI monitor. While troubleshooting an issue related to playing consecutive audio clips, I decided to attach a speaker to the AV port to see how things sounded. I switched to AV jack using the speaker icon but audio was not heard until I rebooted. After rebooting, the sound issues disappeared (seems like a suspend-on-idle type problem when using HDMI but not really relevant to this post). I use speaker-test and SoX during testing.
To continue looking into the HDMI audio problem, I used the speaker icon to switch back to HDMI. I rebooted but no audio was heard on the monitor. Re-attaching the speaker showed sound was still using the AV jack. Re-checking the speaker icon showed HDMI was still selected. The only way to use HDMI audio again was to edit config.txt and use dtparam=audio=off.
This seems like a bug to me. Should you not be able to switch audio output without requiring editing config.txt?
Statistics: Posted by RandyR — Sun Feb 15, 2026 5:07 pm