Headset with microphone plays through surround channel whereas normal headset is fine

After installing the 2021-02-28 stable update I experience a very stange audio behavior.
Using the internal speakers all sound is fine.
When plugging in my headset is seems that the headphones play some surround channel, even if the audio source is a normal MP3 without surround information.
When plugging in a regular headphone (i.e. no microphone included) sound is fine.
So, it has something to do with the microphone. Instead of detecting that a headset is plugged in it seems the system thinks that a surround device is pluggin in.
Any ideas?

inxi -Faz:

System:    Kernel: 5.4.100-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.1 
           parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.4-x86_64 root=UUID=bf959f03-4b92-4ee2-9af4-22815af30585 rw rw 
           resume=UUID=7732d01a-21e3-49ff-aa37-fe6cce88c251 quiet audit=0 
           Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.21.1 tk: Qt 5.15.2 wm: kwin_x11 dm: SDDM Distro: Manjaro Linux 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: Acer product: Aspire E5-574G v: V1.18 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: Acer model: Zoro_SL v: V1.18 serial: <filter> UEFI: Insyde v: 1.18 date: 05/25/2017 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT1 charge: 31.5 Wh condition: 31.5/37.0 Wh (85%) volts: 17.3/14.8 model: SANYO AL15A32 type: Li-ion 
           serial: <filter> status: Full 
CPU:       Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-6200U socket: BGA1168 (U3E1) note: check bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Skylake 
           family: 6 model-id: 4E (78) stepping: 3 microcode: E2 L1 cache: 128 KiB L2 cache: 3 MiB L3 cache: 2.9 MiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 19204 
           Speed: 500 MHz min/max: 400/2800 MHz base/boost: 2200/2400 volts: 0.9 V ext-clock: 100 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 
           1: 500 2: 499 3: 500 4: 499 
           Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: Split huge pages 
           Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable 
           Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable 
           Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
           Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
           Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
           Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, IBRS_FW, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling 
           Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode 
           Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel Skylake GT2 [HD Graphics 520] vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
           chip ID: 8086:1916 class ID: 0300 
           Device-2: NVIDIA GM108M [GeForce 940M] driver: N/A alternate: nouveau, nvidia_drm, nvidia bus ID: 01:00.0 
           chip ID: 10de:1347 class ID: 0302 
           Device-3: Chicony HD WebCam type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus ID: 1-7:4 chip ID: 04f2:b526 class ID: 0e02 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.10 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: loaded: intel display ID: :0 screens: 1 
           Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.0x11.2") s-diag: 582mm (22.9") 
           Monitor-1: eDP1 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 143 size: 340x190mm (13.4x7.5") diag: 389mm (15.3") 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 520 (SKL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.3.4 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
           alternate: snd_soc_skl bus ID: 00:1f.3 chip ID: 8086:9d70 class ID: 0403 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.100-1-MANJARO 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: r8168 
           v: 8.048.03-NAPI modules: r8169 port: 3000 bus ID: 02:00.0 chip ID: 10ec:8168 class ID: 0200 
           IF: enp2s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Foxconn driver: ath10k_pci v: kernel 
           port: 3000 bus ID: 03:00.0 chip ID: 168c:0042 class ID: 0280 
           IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
Bluetooth: Device-1: Foxconn / Hon Hai type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus ID: 1-5:3 chip ID: 0489:e09c class ID: e001 
           Message: Required tool hciconfig not installed. Check --recommends 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 577.97 GiB (62.0%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Western Digital model: WD10JPVX-22JC3T0 family: Blue Mobile size: 931.51 GiB 
           block size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B sata: 3.0 speed: 6.0 Gb/s rotation: 5400 rpm serial: <filter> rev: 1A01 
           temp: 34 C scheme: GPT 
           SMART: yes state: enabled health: PASSED on: 192d 18h cycles: 2266 
Partition: ID-1: / raw size: 922.42 GiB size: 906.94 GiB (98.32%) used: 577.97 GiB (63.7%) fs: ext4 block size: 4096 B 
           dev: /dev/sda2 maj-min: 8:2 
           ID-2: /boot/efi raw size: 300 MiB size: 299.4 MiB (99.80%) used: 264 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat block size: 512 B 
           dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1 
Swap:      Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default) cache pressure: 100 (default) 
           ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8.8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 dev: /dev/sda3 maj-min: 8:3 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 43.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:      Processes: 181 Uptime: 1h 40m wakeups: 1 Memory: 7.65 GiB used: 2.33 GiB (30.5%) Init: systemd v: 247 Compilers: 
           gcc: 10.2.0 Packages: pacman: 1362 lib: 414 flatpak: 0 Shell: Bash (su) v: 5.1.0 running in: yakuake inxi: 3.3.01 
System:    Kernel: 5.4.100-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.1 
           parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.4-x86_64 root=UUID=bf959f03-4b92-4ee2-9af4-22815af30585 rw rw 
           resume=UUID=7732d01a-21e3-49ff-aa37-fe6cce88c251 quiet audit=0 
           Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.21.1 tk: Qt 5.15.2 wm: kwin_x11 dm: SDDM Distro: Manjaro Linux 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: Acer product: Aspire E5-574G v: V1.18 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: Acer model: Zoro_SL v: V1.18 serial: <filter> UEFI: Insyde v: 1.18 date: 05/25/2017 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT1 charge: 31.5 Wh condition: 31.5/37.0 Wh (85%) volts: 17.3/14.8 model: SANYO AL15A32 type: Li-ion 
           serial: <filter> status: Full 
CPU:       Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-6200U socket: BGA1168 (U3E1) note: check bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Skylake 
           family: 6 model-id: 4E (78) stepping: 3 microcode: E2 L1 cache: 128 KiB L2 cache: 3 MiB L3 cache: 2.9 MiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 19204 
           Speed: 500 MHz min/max: 400/2800 MHz base/boost: 2200/2400 volts: 0.9 V ext-clock: 100 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 
           1: 500 2: 499 3: 500 4: 499 
           Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: Split huge pages 
           Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable 
           Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable 
           Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
           Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
           Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
           Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, IBRS_FW, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling 
           Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode 
           Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel Skylake GT2 [HD Graphics 520] vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
           chip ID: 8086:1916 class ID: 0300 
           Device-2: NVIDIA GM108M [GeForce 940M] driver: N/A alternate: nouveau, nvidia_drm, nvidia bus ID: 01:00.0 
           chip ID: 10de:1347 class ID: 0302 
           Device-3: Chicony HD WebCam type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus ID: 1-7:4 chip ID: 04f2:b526 class ID: 0e02 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.10 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: loaded: intel display ID: :0 screens: 1 
           Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.0x11.2") s-diag: 582mm (22.9") 
           Monitor-1: eDP1 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 143 size: 340x190mm (13.4x7.5") diag: 389mm (15.3") 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 520 (SKL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.3.4 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
           alternate: snd_soc_skl bus ID: 00:1f.3 chip ID: 8086:9d70 class ID: 0403 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.100-1-MANJARO 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: r8168 
           v: 8.048.03-NAPI modules: r8169 port: 3000 bus ID: 02:00.0 chip ID: 10ec:8168 class ID: 0200 
           IF: enp2s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Foxconn driver: ath10k_pci v: kernel 
           port: 3000 bus ID: 03:00.0 chip ID: 168c:0042 class ID: 0280 
           IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
Bluetooth: Device-1: Foxconn / Hon Hai type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus ID: 1-5:3 chip ID: 0489:e09c class ID: e001 
           Message: Required tool hciconfig not installed. Check --recommends 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 577.97 GiB (62.0%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Western Digital model: WD10JPVX-22JC3T0 family: Blue Mobile size: 931.51 GiB 
           block size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B sata: 3.0 speed: 6.0 Gb/s rotation: 5400 rpm serial: <filter> rev: 1A01 
           temp: 34 C scheme: GPT 
           SMART: yes state: enabled health: PASSED on: 192d 18h cycles: 2266 
Partition: ID-1: / raw size: 922.42 GiB size: 906.94 GiB (98.32%) used: 577.97 GiB (63.7%) fs: ext4 block size: 4096 B 
           dev: /dev/sda2 maj-min: 8:2 
           ID-2: /boot/efi raw size: 300 MiB size: 299.4 MiB (99.80%) used: 264 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat block size: 512 B 
           dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1 
Swap:      Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default) cache pressure: 100 (default) 
           ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8.8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 dev: /dev/sda3 maj-min: 8:3 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 43.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:      Processes: 181 Uptime: 1h 40m wakeups: 1 Memory: 7.65 GiB used: 2.33 GiB (30.5%) Init: systemd v: 247 Compilers: 
           gcc: 10.2.0 Packages: pacman: 1362 lib: 414 flatpak: 0 Shell: Bash (su) v: 5.1.0 running in: yakuake inxi: 3.3.01 

alsa-info.sh is here

1 Like

I’m very sorry but it seems the error was in front of the computer. More specifically: the headset is broken…
Nevertheless, I really like to know what happened here. “broken” does not mean here that I cannot hear sound at all. Maybe there was some kind of shortage that “simulated” a different output device? Which component is then responsible for assigning a different audio channel to an output? Where can I look up the current assignment?