[Gutsy] gnome panel volume control alternates mute/% volume during sliding

[fwheeler_1]

Gnome panel volume control alternates mute/% volume while being slid to adjust volume. If one stops while it says mute, the mute icon shows in the panel and there is a check next to the mute option when left-clicked. However, the volume is not muted. Left-clicking the volume panel icon and selecting mute does mute the speakers. This is on a Dell Dimension 8300 with a Dell SoundBlaster Live! card and the Alsa mixer with speakers plugged into the speaker-out jack. Using Ubuntu Gutsy 7.10 RC as live cd. --Fw

[Marco Rodrigues (gothicx)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Unfortunately we can't fix it, because your description didn't include enough information.

Please include the information requested from the "Reporting Sound Bugs" section of [WWW] https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DebuggingSoundProblems as separate attachments.

[fwheeler_1 (fwheeler-1)]

Marco- Thanks for the reply. But, please don't just send a canned reply to sound problems as it just wastes everyone's time. If you read the problem, you would see that the sound card was detected and is working. The info about the sound card and computer is given. The only problem is that noted above--the slider is broken. --Fw

[Tarik Jabri (tjabri)]

I have the same problem too, I thought it was just my laptop because I don't have this problem on my desktop which has a different sound card. Running Gutsy final on a Sony Vaio PCG-K23. Never experienced this problem before with any version since 5.04. Attached you will find the output of lspci, lsmod and gnome-volume-control --gst-debug-level=3.

To restate the problem, sliding the volume control from the applet causes the icon to change to mute and the mute checkbox to be checked, but sound still outputs correctly. I noticed if I open the volume control window, sliding the master volume there doesn't affect the icon on the applet or the checkbox. This only seems to happen from the applet directly.

[Tarik Jabri (tjabri)]

This output: 0:00:15.850650000 8963 0x8112a48 WARN default mixer.c:464:gst_mixer_volume_changed: This element has no bus, therefore no message sent!

appeared as I was dragging the slider on the applet up and down and it was doing it's mute/unmute routine. Please see attached for more info.

[Ethan Bissett (draimus-deactivatedaccount)]

This also occurs when I use the volume buttons on my USB keyboard. The little volume OSD thing pops up and the bar skips between 0 and the current volume %.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

No need of a gutsy task, there is no duplicate of this issue, no clear steps to trigger it and the description is confusing, that's not something that needs to be consider for a stable update. Could you describe a way to trigger the bug from a new installation?

[Tarik Jabri (tjabri)]

Sebastien, thank you for reading this bug report.

Let's see if this helps:

To trigger the bug with a brand new install, just drag the volume control applet's slider up and down and watch the volume icon get muted and unmuted.

I recently installed Gutsy on a Dell Optiplex GX520, and it exhibits the same problem. It seems like only certain soundcards exhibit this issue because my desktop running an nForce 2 integrated soundcard does not have this issue.

If this does not explain the problem adequately, I'd be glad to help any way I can.

[Ethan Bissett (draimus-deactivatedaccount)]

J concur with Tarik's assessment that this only effects certain hardware. My laptop has an Ali soundcard (using the ALI_5451 driver) and exhibits this behavior. My desktop has a soundblaster live (uses the emu10k1 driver), and after I upgrade it to Gutsy this morning it does not suffer from this problem. Based on this I'm not sure I believe that it is the applet that is the problem, as was reported.

[Ethan Bissett (draimus-deactivatedaccount)]

Here is all my laptop's relevant information (the rest to follow in additional comments). I do not have any asound.conf files so those are missing.

Also the alsamixer command line app works fine, and the applet icon accurately reflects the set volume. If the gnome volume control program is up though, the alsamixer util seems to confuse the gnome GUI. It occasionally will report mute or unlink the two speakers.

[Miguel (miguel-glug)]

I have de same problem with the mute/unmute when is being slide, but in my case i have a desktop. My audio controler is a "Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)"(from lspci). I have atached several files in one with hardware information.

[Stefan Praszalowicz (stfp)]

I have the same issue, only with gutsy, on multiple computers (mainly DELLs but also an HP), all with an intel sound card (snd_hda_intel module) ...

Trying to describe the problem in other words: Sliding the volume bar from, say, the bottom to the top produces, instead
of a steady volume increase: volume increase, mute, volume increase, volume decrease, mute, volume increase.

Sliding volume bars in the gnome-volume-control windows gives the same weirdness, sometimes also unlocking the
left and right channels and setting one of them to a different random value.

If i "strace" the mixer applet process, I cannot reproduce the problem, which somehow makes me think of a timing related race.

[fwheeler_1 (fwheeler-1)]

Gee, I guess the description was good enough for users to find the bug on Launchpad, confirm it, and add that it was problem they were experiencing. It appears that only devs can't figure out what it is, eh? :)

I don't suppose that enough people have reported the bug that it might be fixed for a stable release, like 8.04 LTS? My impression was that LTS was supposed to be as stable as possible with as many bugs fixed as possible.

[Andreas Schildbach (schildbach)]

I've got the very same problem with this 'soundcard':

00:1e.2 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Dell Unknown device 01ad
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 21
        I/O ports at ec00 [size=256]
        I/O ports at e8c0 [size=64]
        Memory at feabfa00 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512]
        Memory at feabf900 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2

[julesb (j-blundell)]

Happens on my iMic as well

[teamdurka (n8byte)]

I had a similar problem with my home built with a sound blaster audigy, what ever I slid the volume to didnt make a difference on the gnome volume bar and the mute wasnt mute either, i fixed this by right clicking on the icon, selecting preferences and under the ca0106 alsa mixer highlighted analog front and poof it worked. Dunno if this helps at all

[MFauzilkamil Zainuddin (apogee)]

I also had similar problem on my HP compaq nx9010. My Multimedia audio controller is ALi Corporation M5451 PCI AC-Link Controller Audio Device (rev 02)

[Bogdan (bogpetre)]

I get this same problem with a USB sound card. In fact, google indicates it's a standard problem with many such cards and USB devices. The card I use is a "Koss stereophones USB dongle", you can get one off amazon for ~$20, and fixing the problem there should fix the problem with all these cards (most are USB). So devs, if you're looking for cheap hardware on which to test this, try what I have.

The sound on the other hand can be adjusted normally using alsamixer or avant-window-navigator's volume control applet. The problem is exclusive to gnome apps.

[Bogdan (bogpetre)]

Devs, if you need further clarification on the problem, try here: http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-562933.html
It's only two posts and given that information should be easy for you to reproduce.