The Bug
If Minecraft is currently playing music or any other sound (most noticeable with the sounds of ender dragon dying, totem activating, enderman crying), switching audio devices would make it stop. Affects both in game and title screen.
In the video, you cannot hear the sound of the totem activating because I unplugged my headphones as soon as the totem is activated, but you can still hear the husk since two sounds are generated every second.
This also means any currently playing music will stop after an audio device switch.
Reproduce
Do /playsound minecraft:music.dragon voice @p
Switch audio devices
❌ Notice the music stops
Expected Result
The sounds would continue playing and wouldn't stop when switching audio devices
Linked issues
is duplicated by 11
MC-273153
Changing system audio output causes jukeboxes to cut out
Resolved
MC-279683
Sound gets reset when changing output
Resolved
MC-263306
Record player stops playing records after changing the directional audio option
Resolved
MC-262378
Playing sounds
Resolved
MC-239499
Sound and song stops playing after switching the output device
Resolved
6 more links
relates to 4
MC-44055
Game fails to switch the audio output from one device to another after the game has started (from title screen)
Resolved
MC-14665
Jukebox stops playing music after turning music sound all the way down and up again
Resolved
MC-103511
Sound/Song stops playing after adjusting the volume
Resolved
MC-254669
Causes a lot of missing sound spam when the audio device is set to a non-default
Resolved
Comments 3
Try the workaround in MC-44055.
If you are on 1.17.1 and below, this only affects snapshot 21w37a and above as only those versions allow for switching audio devices at all. It is in fact impossible to switch audio devices in earlier versions, which sounds like what you described.