Phonon changes device preferences on startup.

[zeonicore]

I set up my audio device preferences so that my C-Media card would be preferred over my built-in audio. Now everything follows my audio preferences, but, when I start up the computer, a notification comes up telling me that my device preferences have changed back to the built in audio and asks if I want to revert. Is there any way to stop it from doing that?

[Snowhog]

You can try making the setting changes 'as root'. To do so, open a console and type:

kdesudo kcmshell4 kcm_phonon

When prompted, type in your password. Wait for the module to launch. Make your changes and save and exit. Then log out and reboot and see if the changes stick.

[james147]

Does this also happen for a new user?

You can try making the setting changes 'as root'. To do so, open a console and type:

kdesudo kcmshell4 kcm_phonon

When prompted, type in your password. Wait for the module to launch. Make your changes and save and exit. Then log out and reboot and see if the changes stick.

You should not need to do this, the settings are all stored and accessed at the user level so you will probably just end up changing the preferences for the root account.

[Snowhog]

I don't think so. Launching any GUI app with kdesudo preserves the users environment. There are some quirks (by design?) where you need/must launch a System Settings module 'as root' in order for changes to be preserved between reboots. That's why I suggested this approach. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, then there is some other issue as the root cause (no pun intended) of the OP's problem.

[james147]

I don't think so. Launching any GUI app with kdesudo preserves the users environment. There are some quirks (by design?) where you need/must launch a System Settings module 'as root' in order for changes to be preserved between reboots. That's why I suggested this approach. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, then there is some other issue as the root cause (no pun intended) of the OP's problem.

No, it uses roots environment:

kdesudo konsole
# echo $HOME
/root

So all settings are saved to /root rather then your home and you cannot read roots settings. Some dialogs are designed to affect system settings when run as root (such as the grub one) but phonon is only meant to be run as a normal user.

[Snowhog]

I stand corrected.

[zeonicore]

I ended up going with Snowhog's original suggestion since it was the first one that I'd seen at the time, and it worked. Is it possible that it's loading the sound settings before I log in, using root's settings in lieu of a login screen? It seems strange now that I think about it that changing a root account's settings fixed my problem.

[Snowhog]

I'm glad that it worked for you. I made the suggestion because I've had to do this (on other items) in the past. I do think that it's a quirk, if not an outright bug, but one that is benign in that it only 'prevents' you from doing something as your user that you should otherwise be able to do.

[james147]

It would have been interesting to see if this would have also worked from a (different) normal user...

[zeonicore]

Yeah I probably should have tried that first, but I didn't see that suggestion because I just read the first post from Snowhog since it showed up as an email notification. I'll mark this as solved now.