monitoring process spins at 100% CPU after unplugging USB headphones

[coldfix]

This happens sometimes on both my desktop/laptop on archlinux. As of yet, I have no clue why this happens or how it can be fixed.

When it happens I usually restart awesome -> which will kill and restart the monitoring process.

[coldfix]

I can confirm this is a problem of alsactl:

• plug in USB headphones
• start alsactl monitor
• unplug headphones

I can observe every time that alsactl now spins at 100%.

This happens only if the headphones are already plugged in at the time alsactl is started.

[coldfix]

I had reported the issue upstream and they very fast with creating a patch. The issue is fixed as of alsa-utils 1.1.7 (in the changelog see the alsactl section: handle detection/disconnection of sound card).

Could now set listen_default = alsa_utils_version >= {1, 1, 7}.