Looks like someone else has narrowed this down to wireplumber: https://www.reddit.com/r/pipewire/comments/1blys11/auto_switch_audio_speakerhdmi_not_works_anymore/ https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/wireplumber/-/issues/629 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/wireplumber/-/issues/613 *** Indeed, protecting the packages libwireplumber-0_4-0, wireplumber, and wireplumber-audio results in correct behavior even after dist upgrade to the latest Slowroll release! ***