I previously had 18.04 and sound was working. If I plugged in a USB-C headset I could hit the volume controls and it would display an overlay on the screen showing me the volume going up and down.
Now I recently installed 20.10 from scratch (mainly because 18.04 refused to upgrade for many reasons) and I just noticed that when I try to play sound I hear it from the speakers, even when the USB headset is plugged in. Additionally, I cannot turn the volume up or down.
If I plug in a headset to the 2.5mm headset plug, sound no longer comes out of the speakers, but it also doesn't come out of the headset.
When I go to Settings > Sound I am able to move the "System Volume" slider, but it does not affect the volume. Under "Output Device" there are no output devices shown as available.
How can I get sound working properly so I can control the volume through my Fn+F1/2/3 keys as well as working via the USB-C headset?
update: In a comment to another answer I found a suggestion to run pulseaudio -vvv. But what I discovered is that running pulseaudio at all from the command line fixes the issue. But this requires me to run it manually, ties up a terminal, and stops working if pulseaudio is killed. So I suspect that something should be starting/retaining pulseaudio and isn't.
