Can switch from USB audio to HDMI, but not back to USB (defaults to headphones)

[octopopit]

Been trying so hard to figure this out on my own over the past week, and have gotten extremely close, but I think it's time to ask for help.

Main issue:
I want to use HDMI audio when connected to HDMI, and USB audio when not connected to HDMI. USB audio works fine if I change ~/.asoundrc

pcm.output {
  type hw
  card 0
}
ctl.!default {
  type hw
  card 0
}

to

pcm.output {
  type hw
  card 1
}
ctl.!default {
  type hw
  card 1
}

Then if I connect the system to HDMI, I can go to raspi-config and set HDMI audio as default and it works great. The problem is, for some reason, USB audio is not an option in raspi-config. So when I set HDMI as default, it also defaults ~/.asoundrc back to card 0 and I need to SSH back in to fix it.

Is there a way around this? I'm making this device for someone else, so I want it to be as user friendly as possible. I tried modifying alsa.conf and aliases.conf to make USB card 0, but that doesn't fix my problem since it just switches the device numbers around (and for some reason makes it so that my splash screen has no audio).

Any help would be appreciated! I just wish a USB audio device showed up in the raspi-config menu, would make everything so much easier.

System Info
Pi Zero W
Retropie 4.7
Official RetroPie image
Gameboy Zero build
USB Audio
Composite or HDMI Video

[mitu]

@octopopit said in Can switch from USB audio to HDMI, but not back to USB (defaults to headphones):

Any help would be appreciated! I just wish a USB audio device showed up in the raspi-config menu, would make everything so much easier.

raspi-config, just like the Audio menu in RetroPie, only configures the on-board audio, it doesn't handle any external audio card (USB/I2S).

What you could do is create 2 configuration files (~/.asoundrc.hdmi and ~/.asoundrc.usb) and toggle between them with a shell (.sh) script. Put the script in $HOME/RetroPie/retropiemenu and it will show up in the RetroPie system in EmulationStation, so it's easy to switch between them without SSH.

You can also run a script whenever an USB audio device is detected/connected via udev rules but it's a bit more complicated since you need to handle the default case with a different start-up script.

[octopopit]

@mitu Thank you! Very simple solution, and it works perfectly! I didn't realize you could add scripts in there.

I still get the fun "failed to find mixer element" when I run the script, run a rom, or shutdown the system, but I'm not too worried about that. At least the audio works in both configurations now.