[pulseaudio-discuss] pulseaudio not loading plugin/sink after upgrade

[baby turtle]

Upgraded Ubuntu 19.10 -> 20.10
pulseaudio dynamic range compression plugin/sink stopped working after reboot (other than that pulseaudio is working)
But if (after boot up) I kill the daemon manually from a terminal it auto restarts and the plugin/sink is loaded and working!

I have a ~/.config/pulse/default.pa (the relevant lines are):
[CODE]
  ## load ladspa module
  set-default-sink alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.3.analog-stereo

  .ifexists module-ladspa-sink.so
  .nofail
  load-module module-ladspa-sink sink_name=compressor-stereo plugin=sc4_1882 label=sc4 control=1,1.5,401,-30,20,5,12
  .fail
  .endif

  # set our custom compressor audio as default
  set-default-sink compressor-stereo
[/CODE]

In the journal log this is the only error:
[CODE]
  pulseaudio[1842]: Sink alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.3.analog-stereo does not exist.
[/CODE]

After a fresh boot the sinks look like this:
[CODE]
  pacmd list-sinks | awk '/index/ || /name:/ || /alsa.card_name/ || /device.description/'
  * index: 2
        name: <alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.3.analog-stereo>
                alsa.card_name = "HDA Intel PCH"
                device.description = "Built-in Audio Analogue Stereo"
[/CODE]

Then after a manual restart of pulse audio from a terminal (the problem is fixed -- but I have to do this every time I boot):
[CODE]
  systemctl --user stop pulseaudio.service #(auto restarts)
  pacmd list-sinks | awk '/index/ || /name:/ || /alsa.card_name/ || /device.description/'
      index: 0
          name: <alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.3.analog-stereo>
                  alsa.card_name = "HDA Intel PCH"
                  device.description = "Built-in Audio Analogue Stereo"
    * index: 1
          name: <compressor-stereo>
                  device.description = "LADSPA Plugin SC4 on Built-in Audio Analogue Stereo"
[/CODE]

I've tried putting a script in ~/.config/autostart  to restart pulseaudio there... but that doesn't work. It only works from my terminal.
Could it be some path or library variable?
When I run env command I don't see anything special related to this. Also if that's the case why doesn't pulseaudio show an error related to it?

Thanks