Sennheiser GSX 1000/1200 Volume control is interpreted badly

[roothorick]

These cards are picked up as having mute/VolUp/VolDown buttons, but they only ever report a VolDown. Windows behavior (without manually installed drivers) appears to match OS-side volume to the display on the card, which suggests the card tries to report its volume level as an absolute value. Ubuntu interprets it as turning the volume down (even if the volume was actually turned up).

My workaround was to remap the "buttons" on the card to "reserved" using the hwdb and manage OS-side volume with media keys on my actual keyboard.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: udev 237-3ubuntu10.15
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.18.0-16.17~18.04.1-generic 4.18.20
Uname: Linux 4.18.0-16-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_modeset nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.6
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
CustomUdevRuleFiles: 90-pulseaudio-local.rules 70-snap.core.rules
Date: Sat Mar 23 23:42:31 2019
InstallationDate: Installed on 2018-09-12 (193 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Release amd64 (20180725)
MachineType: ASUS All Series
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.18.0-16-generic root=UUID=fec38878-ce70-47ad-a40b-7710266eb99b ro quiet splash vt.handoff=1
SourcePackage: systemd
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 08/07/2014
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 2004
dmi.board.asset.tag: To be filled by O.E.M.
dmi.board.name: H87M-E
dmi.board.vendor: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
dmi.board.version: Rev X.0x
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: Asset-1234567890
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: Chassis Manufacture
dmi.chassis.version: Chassis Version
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvr2004:bd08/07/2014:svnASUS:pnAllSeries:pvrSystemVersion:rvnASUSTeKCOMPUTERINC.:rnH87M-E:rvrRevX.0x:cvnChassisManufacture:ct3:cvrChassisVersion:
dmi.product.family: ASUS MB
dmi.product.name: All Series
dmi.product.sku: All
dmi.product.version: System Version
dmi.sys.vendor: ASUS

[Kai-Heng Feng (kaihengfeng)]

Please file an upstream bug at https://bugzilla.kernel.org/
Product: Drivers
Component: Sound(ALSA)

[Dan Streetman (ddstreet)]

please reopen if this is still an issue