Hi Mark, On +2020-12-07 18:36:10 -0500, Mark H Weaver wrote: > Since the recent merge of the 'staging' branch into 'master' on 28 Nov > 2020, I'm no longer able to configure the alert sound in GNOME. That's > a pity, since I find the default "drip" sound extremely unpleasant. > I find it annoying too -- thanks for nudging me to change it ;)
It looks like a brute force "fix" -- while waiting for a proper one -- would be to substitute another ogg file for drip.ogg. (or just switch the names on drip.ogg and sonar.ogg, if you don't want to fiddle further). $ find /usr -iname '*drip*' /usr/include/X11/dri/xf86driproto.h /usr/share/sounds/gnome/default/alerts/drip.ogg /usr/share/pkgconfig/xf86driproto.pc /usr/lib/libreoffice/share/gallery/environment/DrippingFaucet.png ]$ file /usr/share/sounds/gnome/default/alerts/* /usr/share/sounds/gnome/default/alerts/bark.ogg: Ogg data, Vorbis audio, stereo, 48000 Hz, ~192000 bps, created by: Xiph.Org libVorbis I (1.2.0) /usr/share/sounds/gnome/default/alerts/drip.ogg: Ogg data, Vorbis audio, stereo, 44100 Hz, ~192000 bps, created by: Xiph.Org libVorbis I (1.2.0) /usr/share/sounds/gnome/default/alerts/glass.ogg: Ogg data, Vorbis audio, stereo, 44100 Hz, ~192000 bps, created by: Xiph.Org libVorbis I (1.2.0) /usr/share/sounds/gnome/default/alerts/sonar.ogg: Ogg data, Vorbis audio, stereo, 44100 Hz, ~192000 bps, created by: Xiph.Org libVorbis I (1.2.0) > In more detail: > > To configure the alert sound, I first open GNOME Settings by clicking on > the gear icon in the pull-down menu on the right side of GNOME Shell's > top bar. From there, I navigate to the "Sound" section and scroll to > the bottom of that section, where I'm given a choice of 4 options for > the "Alert Sound". > To find where a change of alert sound is stored, a script of mine will touch a file (~/.wha-time) for later use with find, to find files in a directory tree modified (-c option) since ~/.wha-time). So I did "wha -t" to do the touch, chose a new sound in settings, exited, and then "wha -c ~/" resulted in the following (it echoes the find command just before doing it): --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- find /home/bokr/ -cnewer /home/bokr/.wha-time -print0 | xargs -0 ls -ladc --time-style=+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S drwx------ 2 bokr bokr 4096 2020-12-08 07:52:13 /home/bokr/.cache/babl -rw-r--r-- 1 bokr bokr 495 2020-12-08 07:52:13 /home/bokr/.cache/babl/babl-fishes drwx------ 2 bokr bokr 4096 2020-12-08 07:52:13 /home/bokr/.cache/libgweather -rw-r--r-- 1 bokr bokr 687 2020-12-08 07:52:13 /home/bokr/.cache/libgweather/soup.cache2 drwxr-xr-x 2 bokr bokr 4096 2020-12-08 07:52:15 /home/bokr/.config/dconf -rw-r--r-- 1 bokr bokr 33852 2020-12-08 07:52:15 /home/bokr/.config/dconf/user drwx------ 32 bokr bokr 4096 2020-12-08 07:52:25 /home/bokr/.local/share drwxr-x--- 5 bokr bokr 4096 2020-12-08 07:52:12 /home/bokr/.local/share/epiphany -rw-r--r-- 1 bokr bokr 941 2020-12-08 07:52:12 /home/bokr/.local/share/epiphany/bookmarks.gvdb -rw-r--r-- 1 bokr bokr 32768 2020-12-08 07:52:15 /home/bokr/.local/share/gvfs-metadata/home-776cc71e.log -rw------- 1 bokr bokr 115799 2020-12-08 07:52:25 /home/bokr/.local/share/recently-used.xbel drwx------ 2 bokr bokr 4096 2020-12-08 07:52:39 /home/bokr/.local/share/sounds/__custom lrwxrwxrwx 1 bokr bokr 47 2020-12-08 07:52:39 /home/bokr/.local/share/sounds/__custom/bell-terminal.ogg -> /usr/share/sounds/gnome/default/alerts/bark.ogg lrwxrwxrwx 1 bokr bokr 47 2020-12-08 07:52:39 /home/bokr/.local/share/sounds/__custom/bell-window-system.ogg -> /usr/share/sounds/gnome/default/alerts/bark.ogg --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Apparently my selection of "bark" is stored as links in ~/.local/share/sounds/__custom/ Perhaps this is a change of preference persistence method that all parts of your system have not gotten updated to? > For as long as I can remember, and even today, this pane *does* remember > my preferred Alert Sound (sonar), and correctly highlights it as my > selected choice. However, the default "drip" sound is the one that is > actually used by applications, e.g. by GNOME Terminal and Emacs. > > Note that even before the recent staging merge, periodically (maybe once > a week or so), I would log in and find that the dreaded "drip" sound was > being used as my alert sound. Each time, I was able to fix it by going > back to the Sound section of GNOME Settings, and clicking again on my > preferred alert sound (although it was already selected as my configured > alert sound). Now, since the recent staging merge, that no longer > works. > > If anyone can suggest a way to successfully change my alert sound, I > would be grateful. > > Mark You could just make all 4 files dupes of sonar.ogg ;)) I am afraid that kind of "fix" becomes more and more tempting ;/ I still don't know what the proper fix for your observed prolem is, sorry. But HTH :) -- Regards, Bengt Richter