Audio not coming through headphones

Game audio isnt coming through my headphones. It comes through my screen speaker and the only fix ive been able to find is to play audio in the background. If i play audio in the background, e.g. a youtube video, game audio comes through fine but if the background audio cuts out for any reason the game audio cuts out and i have to reload the game to get it working again. If I am playing other audio on game startup, the audio comes through my headphones fine. Its a strange problem. All audio drivers are updated and I'm playing on the latest version on Linux