So I use Fedora with ffmpeg-free and the AMD drivers swapped out with the RPM fusion versions. My default mp4-player is Firefox so I never had any issues but for academic reasons I decided to test Elisa.
No sound plays.
I enable my built-in speakers, the sound plays through them.
I try Dragon Player, same issue.
I google it, no solution.
I ask AI, still no solution.
I uninstall both of them and swap to Firefox, problem solved.
Installed mpv (flatpak) just to check, works fine (other than the media controls being tiny and there being no settings menu).
So my question is, is this a normal thing for KDE or is this a Fedora thing? I tried various steps but nothing seemed to work. Apparently others have solved this with different media players (like I have), and apparently in the past Fedora lacked mp3 support (but not currently).
I need to know if I can blame KDE for this and thus recommend Fedora, or whether this is a Fedora issue.
EDIT: I reinstalled them as flatpaks and they’re fixed. I would still ideally like to know why they refuse to use the selected bluetooth headphones and instead use the speakers.
EDIT 2: I installed Elisa on my CachyOS desktop that doesn’t have built-in speakers and it played through Bluetooth properly. Next I’ll need to liveboot into Kubuntu or something and see if the issue persists.
Audio routing is not usually handled by apps, but by the distro itself, this sounds like an Fedora/Arch problem, what Fedora spin are you using?
Stock KDE Plasma Fedora with ffmpeg-free and the mesa drivers swapped out using RPM fusion.
This borderline looks like a troll post.
Sound to a device is handled via the audio server, not whatever ffmpeg or a media player is doing. You are very lost.
Maybe learn that part and come back to the table with better questions.
In either case, make sure pipewire is installed along with pipewire-pulse and pipewire-alsa
Additionally, bluetooth headsets have connection mode profiles, controlled by the sound server as well.
It should be controlled by the sound server, but it isn’t. They both kept using the built-in speakers and refused to use the bluetooth headphones. I tested it and it was simultaneously playing a song on Firefox through my bluetooth headphones and an mp3 on Eliza through my speakers. This seems to be just a weird issue with the built-in KDE apps.
Yes I have pipewire-pulse installed. Don’t know about pipewire-alsa (my Fedora device is turned off right now).
I use the SBC-XQ bluetooth profile (the only that is stable and of decent quality on Linux).
EDIT: Booted it up again and pipewire-alsa was installed too. I also installed Elisa and Dragon Player as flatpaks and now they use my bluetooth headphones.