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
Related issues
is duplicated by
MC-239499
Sound and song stops playing after switching the output device
MC-262292
Toggling Speakers in audio options or enabling Turn off Directional Audio causes the turnkey to play no sound
MC-262378
Playing sounds
MC-263306
Record player stops playing records after changing the directional audio option
MC-273153
Changing system audio output causes jukeboxes to cut out
MC-279683
Sound gets reset when changing output
MC-298202
Music stops when switching the audio device
MC-298281
Music changes/stops when switching audio outputs
Comments
migrated
migrated
Try the workaround in MC-44055.
migrated
this was actually already a thing as when you switch or reload resource packs all sound, including(and most notably) background music, stops.
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.