Adjusting Balance and Fade lowers volume

[Alexey Osipov]

Binary package hint: pulseaudio

When I adjust Balance or Fade with gnome-volume-control, it lowers volume.

When I put volume back, it resets the Fade and Balance.

Fade and Balance somehow connected to each other.

See attached screencast (out.ogv).

The same is happening when using "Analog Stereo Output" profile for my card.

ProblemType: Bug
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.21.
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC1: simba 1478 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC2: simba 1478 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC0: simba 1478 F.... pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xfdff8000 irq 16'
   Mixer name : 'Realtek ALC882'
   Components : 'HDA:10ec0882,1462f603,00100101'
   Controls : 38
   Simple ctrls : 22
Card1.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:1 'Audigy'/'SB Audigy 1 ES [SB0160] (rev.3, serial:0x521102) at 0xef00, irq 18'
   Mixer name : 'SigmaTel STAC9721,23'
   Components : 'AC97a:83847609'
   Controls : 198
   Simple ctrls : 34
Card2.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:2 'SAA7134'/'saa7133[0] at 0xfdaff000 irq 17'
   Mixer name : 'SAA7134 Mixer'
   Components : ''
   Controls : 6
   Simple ctrls : 3
Date: Tue Feb 23 01:39:08 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha amd64 (20100113)
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha amd64 (20100113)
Package: pulseaudio 1:0.9.22~0.9.21+stable-queue-32-g8478-0ubuntu10
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=ru_RU.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-14.20-generic
SourcePackage: pulseaudio
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-14-generic x86_64

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

http://pulseaudio.org/wiki/PulseAudioStoleMyVolumes

[Alexey Osipov (lion-simba)]

Checked the link, seems reasonable, BUT:

Did you actually seen the screencast (out.ogv file)? Note that when I adjust balance or fade, they back to middle position immediately (so, don't do what I want), and lower overall volume (so, do want I don't want).

Do you really think this is the right behavior for user-friendly tool?!

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

See the debugging Karmic sound problems page for workarounds.

[Alexey Osipov (lion-simba)]

Where is that page?

And again: "for workarounds" - workaround isn't a fix. So, you admit this is wrong behavior and still "Won't Fix". Why?

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

There is no way to ship a fix for your card that doesn't break others'. On the other hand, there are workarounds for your specific card that you can apply.

It really should be examined and fixed in linux, but it won't happen for Lucid.

[Alexey Osipov (lion-simba)]

Where I can see these workarounds?

Besides, if the problem really exists, and can't be fixed in PulseAudio, and PulseAudio devs think it should be fixed in "linux", so why you mark it "Won't fix" instead of linking it to existing "linux" bug? Or just change the package of this bug to "linux" and adding some comments, explaining WHY this is not PA bug, but linux's?

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

You're free to open a linux task against this symptom. Since you haven't done so, I've done it for you. Now, please stop spamming the bug report with status changes. I've already explained that not every card has the controls that yours does, and the different cards that do have some subset of yours will behave quite differently. This exacerbates fixing the symptom in PA and thus must be fixed for /your/ specific card /in the kernel/.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Also, a simple search for karmic workarounds would have led to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingSoundProblems/KarmicCaveats .

[Alexey Osipov (lion-simba)]

>> You're free to open a linux task against this symptom. Since you haven't done so, I've done it for you.
Thanks. I have not done it, because from user point of view this bug is in PulseAudio, not kernel. PA developers then should move the bug into appropriate place. IMHO.

>> and thus must be fixed for /your/ specific card /in the kernel/
What exactly need to be fixed in the kernel? Wrong volume control names? Wrong volume controls behavior? But the ALSA controls works just GREAT without PulseAudio! What exactly wrong with the kernel driver, which drives PA crazy?

As my main system I use Karmic updated from this PPA: https://launchpad.net/~dtl131/+archive/ppa, which provides GNOME volume control without PulseAudio. And I'm quite happy. But as PulseAudio is mainline in Ubuntu, then I'm interested in my soundcard works with it out of the box.

>> please stop spamming the bug report with status changes
I will, if it will be necessary to get required information - good explanation of what is wrong and what to do to fix it.

[Alexey Osipov (lion-simba)]

Continue spamming with status change.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Sorry, I should have checked (and asked you to confirm) with pavucontrol. This bug is actually a dupe of 532095.

[Alexey Osipov (lion-simba)]

According to bug sequential numbers and report dates, that bug should be duplicate of this, but whatever, I'm glad the bug is confirmed. :)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.