[Hardy] Sound very loud after login

[Mark Pokorny]

After a new install of 8.04 beta, the sound at the GDM login screen is quite quiet, prompting the user to possibly turn the volume up slightly. However, after login, the volume suddenly increases, becoming very loud when the login sounds play.

[James Collier (james-collier412)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering is this still an issue for you? Can you try with latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.

[Bogdan Bădic-Spătariu (thelad33)]

Well, like in most distros I've tried, the sound is a bit loud but that isn't such a big problem. What I consider to be an issue is that the Headphone Jack Sense isn't enabled by default. What happens is that I wake up the entire house if I only have time to install Ubuntu after midnight.
I noticed that openSUSE has enabled by default Headphone Jack Sense so why not do this in Ubuntu. It's a small issue but it kind of gives Ubuntu a bit more of a professional touch for some people.

[Mark Pokorny (iridium193)]

Hi James.

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, I am currently not running 8.04, though this was still an issue immediately after the final release. I will be returning to 8.04 soon, but I am unable to give you a definite date as to when at this time. Once I do, however, I will let you know what the latest is regarding this issue.

Regards,

Mark.

[Mark Pokorny (iridium193)]

I've re-installed 8.04 and upgraded to the latest packages, and unfortunately this is still an issue.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Is this symptom still reproducible in 8.10 or 9.04?

[Mark Pokorny (iridium193)]

I'm afraid I haven't tested 8.10 or 9.04.

[Mark Pokorny (iridium193)]

I have found the cause and offer an interim solution:

The cause seems to be in the default volume levels assigned by 'alsamixer'. The master volume is set quite high (80%), causing the very loud system sounds. The 'PCM' and 'Front' levels were also set to 80% (it seems that this is 80% of the 80% master volume), making any PCM sounds relatively quiet. This affects anything played with 'aplay' (such as the GDM sounds), but not those played by the nautilus previewer or totem, for example.

The solution is to increase the 'PCM' and 'Front' volume levels in 'alsamixer' to 100%, and reduce the master volume level to a lower value (I suggest 50%, but whichever you are happy with yourself). These can be done from the command line thus:

$ amixer set PCM 100%
$ amixer set Front 100%
$ amixer set Master 50%

Of course you can also do it manually using 'alsamixer' or 'gnome-volume-control'.

P.S. In response to Daniel's question above, I have now tried it in 8.10 and it is reproducible there too.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

fixed in git HEAD with merge of flat-volume branch

[tsh (tsh)]

This is an issue for me with 11.10.