[jubilex]

My PC outputs to a projector in the basement and a tv in the living room. I use Autohotkey and a remote control to write an advancedsettings.xml with the appropriate <audiooutput> settings before launching Kodi, to output audio to the receiver in the basement or the tv in the living room. The respective <audiooutput> settings were copied from the guisettings.xml after manually setting them properly within Kodi.

This worked fine all the way up until Isengard. Now the settings in <audiooutput> don't appear to be applied correctly even though I've re-copied them from guisettings.xml. When I launch Kodi, the audio settings are clearly not set properly (I get no audio) and of course then I cannot change them in the menus because that menu is blanked out due to those settings being in advancedsettings.xml. So I've had to remove the advancedsettings.xml stuff from my Autohotkey script and, every time I launch Kodi, manually change all the relevant audio settings (it always defaults to a third audio output which is not correct for either of my displays).

What could have changed between Helix and Isengard?

[jubilex]

So I changed the settings manually and then compared the guisettings to my (commented out) advancedsettings. Sure enough, the <audiodevice> ID for the device I want is different. So I guess my receiver does not get the same device ID every time I start Kodi (apparently it flip-flops between two different ones), so I cannot pre-set it in advancedsettings. What on earth is the solution to this? This means I have no way to start Kodi with the proper audio device selected and have to manually change that every single time (same goes for my wife).

[Jogee]

Does Isengard have the "default" audio option?

If so, you could configure Isengard to use the DEFAULT audio device and change your Autohotkey script to change the default audio device in windows based on your scenario. Basically making the same change in Windows, not Isengard.

Maybe you'll have more luck at that end.