That didn’t help either. Alternative solutions include using another recording device, my desktop or another device, or to go back to using Windows on this laptop, at least when I want to record.
[jr@hp ~]$ cat /etc/pulse/daemon.conf
# This file is part of PulseAudio.
#
# PulseAudio is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# PulseAudio is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
# WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
# General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
# along with PulseAudio; if not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
## Configuration file for the PulseAudio daemon. See pulse-daemon.conf(5) for
## more information. Default values are commented out. Use either ; or # for
## commenting.
; daemonize = no
; fail = yes
; allow-module-loading = yes
; allow-exit = yes
; use-pid-file = yes
; system-instance = no
; local-server-type = user
; enable-shm = yes
; enable-memfd = yes
; shm-size-bytes = 0 # setting this 0 will use the system-default, usually 64 MiB
; lock-memory = no
; cpu-limit = no
; high-priority = yes
; nice-level = -11
; realtime-scheduling = yes
; realtime-priority = 5
; exit-idle-time = 20
; scache-idle-time = 20
; dl-search-path = (depends on architecture)
; load-default-script-file = yes
; default-script-file = /etc/pulse/default.pa
; log-target = auto
; log-level = notice
; log-meta = no
; log-time = no
; log-backtrace = 0
; resample-method = speex-float-1
resample-method = src-sinc-best-quality
avoid-resampling = yes
; enable-remixing = yes
; remixing-use-all-sink-channels = yes
; remixing-produce-lfe = no
; remixing-consume-lfe = no
; lfe-crossover-freq = 0
; flat-volumes = no
; rescue-streams = yes
; rlimit-fsize = -1
; rlimit-data = -1
; rlimit-stack = -1
; rlimit-core = -1
; rlimit-as = -1
; rlimit-rss = -1
; rlimit-nproc = -1
; rlimit-nofile = 256
; rlimit-memlock = -1
; rlimit-locks = -1
; rlimit-sigpending = -1
; rlimit-msgqueue = -1
; rlimit-nice = 31
; rlimit-rtprio = 9
; rlimit-rttime = 200000
default-sample-format = s16le
; default-sample-rate = 44100
; alternate-sample-rate = 48000
; default-sample-channels = 2
; default-channel-map = front-left,front-right
; default-fragments = 4
; default-fragment-size-msec = 25
; enable-deferred-volume = yes
; deferred-volume-safety-margin-usec = 8000
; deferred-volume-extra-delay-usec = 0
[jr@hp ~]$ cat /etc/pulse/default.pa
#!/usr/bin/pulseaudio -nF
#
# This file is part of PulseAudio.
#
# PulseAudio is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
# under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# PulseAudio is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
# WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
# General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
# along with PulseAudio; if not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
# This startup script is used only if PulseAudio is started per-user
# (i.e. not in system mode)
.fail
### Automatically restore the volume of streams and devices
load-module module-device-restore
load-module module-stream-restore
load-module module-card-restore
### Automatically augment property information from .desktop files
### stored in /usr/share/application
load-module module-augment-properties
### Should be after module-*-restore but before module-*-detect
load-module module-switch-on-port-available
### Load audio drivers statically
### (it's probably better to not load these drivers manually, but instead
### use module-udev-detect -- see below -- for doing this automatically)
#load-module module-alsa-sink
#load-module module-alsa-source device=hw:1,0
#load-module module-oss device="/dev/dsp" sink_name=output source_name=input
#load-module module-oss-mmap device="/dev/dsp" sink_name=output source_name=input
#load-module module-null-sink
#load-module module-pipe-sink
### Automatically load driver modules depending on the hardware available
.ifexists module-udev-detect.so
load-module module-udev-detect use_ucm=0 tsched=0
.else
### Use the static hardware detection module (for systems that lack udev support)
load-module module-detect
.endif
### Automatically connect sink and source if JACK server is present
.ifexists module-jackdbus-detect.so
.nofail
load-module module-jackdbus-detect channels=2
.fail
.endif
### Automatically load driver modules for Bluetooth hardware
.ifexists module-bluetooth-policy.so
load-module module-bluetooth-policy
.endif
.ifexists module-bluetooth-discover.so
load-module module-bluetooth-discover
.endif
### Load several protocols
load-module module-dbus-protocol
.ifexists module-esound-protocol-unix.so
load-module module-esound-protocol-unix
.endif
load-module module-native-protocol-unix
### Network access (may be configured with paprefs, so leave this commented
### here if you plan to use paprefs)
#load-module module-esound-protocol-tcp
#load-module module-native-protocol-tcp
#load-module module-zeroconf-publish
### Load the RTP receiver module (also configured via paprefs, see above)
#load-module module-rtp-recv
### Load the RTP sender module (also configured via paprefs, see above)
#load-module module-null-sink sink_name=rtp format=s16be channels=2 rate=44100 sink_properties="device.description='RTP Multicast Sink'"
#load-module module-rtp-send source=rtp.monitor
### Load additional modules from GSettings. This can be configured with the paprefs tool.
### Please keep in mind that the modules configured by paprefs might conflict with manually
### loaded modules.
.ifexists module-gsettings.so
.nofail
load-module module-gsettings
.fail
.endif
### Automatically restore the default sink/source when changed by the user
### during runtime
### NOTE: This should be loaded as early as possible so that subsequent modules
### that look up the default sink/source get the right value
load-module module-default-device-restore
### Automatically move streams to the default sink if the sink they are
### connected to dies, similar for sources
load-module module-rescue-streams
### Make sure we always have a sink around, even if it is a null sink.
load-module module-always-sink
### Honour intended role device property
load-module module-intended-roles
### Automatically suspend sinks/sources that become idle for too long
load-module module-suspend-on-idle
### If autoexit on idle is enabled we want to make sure we only quit
### when no local session needs us anymore.
.ifexists module-console-kit.so
load-module module-console-kit
.endif
.ifexists module-systemd-login.so
load-module module-systemd-login
.endif
### Enable positioned event sounds
load-module module-position-event-sounds
### Cork music/video streams when a phone stream is active
load-module module-role-cork
### Modules to allow autoloading of filters (such as echo cancellation)
### on demand. module-filter-heuristics tries to determine what filters
### make sense, and module-filter-apply does the heavy-lifting of
### loading modules and rerouting streams.
load-module module-filter-heuristics
load-module module-filter-apply
### Make some devices default
#set-default-sink output
#set-default-source input
# automatically switch to newly-connected devices
#load-module module-switch-on-connect
load-module module-remap-source source_name=record_mono master=alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo master_channel_map=front-left channel_map=mono
set-default-source record_mono