Comment 22 for bug 432660

On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 11:38 AM, Kevin <email address hidden> wrote:
> I am experiencing a similar problem. I am using external speakers which
> have a light on top which is normally blue but turns red when audio is
> muted. When I start my machine, the light is blue until gdm starts. When
> gdm starts the speaker light goes red.

So the hardware mute state is "unmuted" until PA runs as the gdm user,
upon which the hardware mute state is restored to "muted".

> When I login to my user account and start the Gnome ALSA Mixer program
> it shows me the Master volume and Front channel volume on the "Realtek
> ALC889A" tab are muted. Also, on the "USB Mixer" tab, PCM volume has
> been set to almost zero and the channel muted. I have to reset all four
> of these settings every time I login. If I log out, the speaker light
> goes from blue to red once more. I login again and have to reset all
> four settings.

So the hardware volume and mute states are different per pulse user,
which is expected. However, what appears to be happening for you is
that volumes and mutes are preserved across the gdm -> $USER switch.
Do you have visual verification from the mute led that upon logging
in, the mute state is "unmuted"?

There's some serious screwage with module-{device,stream}-restore going on here.