Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Jonathan Wakely]

On 23/09/15 00:09 +0200, Reindl Harald wrote:


Am 22.09.2015 um 23:58 schrieb kendell clark:

but I'm certainly not going to insist on it. I also need to
figure out how to just reply to the list, rather than to the person who
sent the message as well as the list


get a mail-client which supports basic things like mail headers 
instead all this shitty webmail-crap would be a start


Gmail works fine for lists, including quoting and bottom-posting:
https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-help/2015-06/msg00053.html

You just need to make a modicum of effort and click the little [...]
button instead of just banging out an email at the top and quoting the
entire message.

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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[kendell clark]

hi
I use thunderbird. I generally press control+shift+r to reply to all,
including the list. There is a reply to list option, but all it seems to
do is forward, so I'm not sure how. I'll investigate today since I've
got some time on my hands.
Thanks
Kendell clark


On 09/23/2015 10:41 AM, Jonathan Wakely wrote:
> On 23/09/15 00:09 +0200, Reindl Harald wrote:
>>
>> Am 22.09.2015 um 23:58 schrieb kendell clark:
>>> but I'm certainly not going to insist on it. I also need to
>>> figure out how to just reply to the list, rather than to the person who
>>> sent the message as well as the list
>>
>> get a mail-client which supports basic things like mail headers
>> instead all this shitty webmail-crap would be a start
> 
> Gmail works fine for lists, including quoting and bottom-posting:
> https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-help/2015-06/msg00053.html
> 
> You just need to make a modicum of effort and click the little [...]
> button instead of just banging out an email at the top and quoting the
> entire message.
> 
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Samuel Sieb]

On 09/23/2015 12:25 PM, kendell clark wrote:

hi
I use thunderbird. I generally press control+shift+r to reply to all,
including the list. There is a reply to list option, but all it seems to
do is forward, so I'm not sure how. I'll investigate today since I've
got some time on my hands.


I use Thunderbird and a simple reply replies only to the list.  The 
reply-to field is set to go to the list, so unless you've changed some 
setting related to that, there shouldn't be a problem.

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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Simo Sorce]

On Tue, 2015-09-22 at 09:56 -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote:
> On Tue, 2015-09-22 at 15:51 +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> > On Thu, 17.09.15 20:59, Germano Massullo (germano.massu...@gmail.com)
> > wrote:
> > 
> > > Today I had a scary experience with the audio of my computer.
> > > I was listening to music with Amarok, using my headphones... The
> > > KMix
> > > volume level was ~ 35%. When I logged into a video conference
> > > application, the volume suddenly reached the 100%. I was shocked,
> > > having
> > > the maximum audio level shooted in your ears is a painful
> > > experience.
> > > The conference application that triggered PulseAudio pushing volume
> > > to
> > > maximum level probably should have never asked the system for a
> > > 100%
> > > audio level, but on the other hand, PulseAudio should never allow
> > > an
> > > application to make such sudden changes.
> > > To avoid that, you have to set
> > > flat-volumes = no
> > > in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf
> > 
> > This is a non-sensical request. If an app uses the mixer APIs to set
> > the volume of something to very loud, that's what happens. Flat
> > volumes have nothing to do with that.
> > 
> > I mean, the app you are using shouldn't set the volume like this, and
> > that's the key here. If you turn off flat volumes you win about
> > nothing, you just work around this specific app. Soon the next app
> > will come along and play the same game with the actual device volume,
> > and you won *zero*.
> > 
> > Don't mix flat volumes with misbheaving apps. Turning off flat
> > volumes
> > is a hack around the broken apps at best, and completely pointless..
> 
> For better or worse, misbehaving apps are a reality that is probably
> not going to go away... I think we need to have a volume control
> approach that is at least somewhat tolerant against such apps and has
> some safeguards.

Indeed, sticking your head in the sand and saying it is a misbehaving
app is not a useful answer.

Apps misbehave, its a fact of life, you can deal with it, or not deal
with it, if you do not deal with it you have a bad system that causes
grief.

I disabled flat-volumes long ago for the same reasons people had to in
this thread. Yes in theory I can beg every app to be perfect, but in the
mean time I can't get my ears blasted (or in some cases end up with
un-audible input/output). whatever it is with flat-volumes I could never
figure out what was going on, while w/o flat-volumes it is very simple
as each app is individually either low or high and an app raising its
volume doesn't cause all other apps to disappear never to return ...

Disabling flat-volumes may be a workaround but it works very well
apparently. So something probably needs to be improved in flat-volumes,
and until then it is as good an option to disable it by default.

Simo.

-- 
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[kendell clark]

hi
Just a polite request. I'm having trouble following the thread because
there are so many intermingled responses, with different bits of it
quoted and commented on. Would everyone mind putting their responses
either on the top or the bottom of the message? Top would be better for
me, but I also don't want to irritate anyone, since I've been yelled at
on the arch list for top posting, even though as a blind person it makes
following messages, especially long threads like this, easier.
Sorry for the OT
Thanks
Kendell clark


On 09/22/2015 01:29 PM, Simo Sorce wrote:
> On Tue, 2015-09-22 at 09:56 -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote:
>> On Tue, 2015-09-22 at 15:51 +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote:
>>> On Thu, 17.09.15 20:59, Germano Massullo (germano.massu...@gmail.com)
>>> wrote:
>>>
 Today I had a scary experience with the audio of my computer.
 I was listening to music with Amarok, using my headphones... The
 KMix
 volume level was ~ 35%. When I logged into a video conference
 application, the volume suddenly reached the 100%. I was shocked,
 having
 the maximum audio level shooted in your ears is a painful
 experience.
 The conference application that triggered PulseAudio pushing volume
 to
 maximum level probably should have never asked the system for a
 100%
 audio level, but on the other hand, PulseAudio should never allow
 an
 application to make such sudden changes.
 To avoid that, you have to set
 flat-volumes = no
 in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf
>>>
>>> This is a non-sensical request. If an app uses the mixer APIs to set
>>> the volume of something to very loud, that's what happens. Flat
>>> volumes have nothing to do with that.
>>>
>>> I mean, the app you are using shouldn't set the volume like this, and
>>> that's the key here. If you turn off flat volumes you win about
>>> nothing, you just work around this specific app. Soon the next app
>>> will come along and play the same game with the actual device volume,
>>> and you won *zero*.
>>>
>>> Don't mix flat volumes with misbheaving apps. Turning off flat
>>> volumes
>>> is a hack around the broken apps at best, and completely pointless..
>>
>> For better or worse, misbehaving apps are a reality that is probably
>> not going to go away... I think we need to have a volume control
>> approach that is at least somewhat tolerant against such apps and has
>> some safeguards.
> 
> Indeed, sticking your head in the sand and saying it is a misbehaving
> app is not a useful answer.
> 
> Apps misbehave, its a fact of life, you can deal with it, or not deal
> with it, if you do not deal with it you have a bad system that causes
> grief.
> 
> I disabled flat-volumes long ago for the same reasons people had to in
> this thread. Yes in theory I can beg every app to be perfect, but in the
> mean time I can't get my ears blasted (or in some cases end up with
> un-audible input/output). whatever it is with flat-volumes I could never
> figure out what was going on, while w/o flat-volumes it is very simple
> as each app is individually either low or high and an app raising its
> volume doesn't cause all other apps to disappear never to return ...
> 
> Disabling flat-volumes may be a workaround but it works very well
> apparently. So something probably needs to be improved in flat-volumes,
> and until then it is as good an option to disable it by default.
> 
> Simo.
> 
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Simo Sorce]

On Tue, 2015-09-22 at 16:31 -0500, kendell clark wrote:
> hi
> Just a polite request. I'm having trouble following the thread because
> there are so many intermingled responses, with different bits of it
> quoted and commented on. Would everyone mind putting their responses
> either on the top or the bottom of the message? Top would be better for
> me, but I also don't want to irritate anyone, since I've been yelled at
> on the arch list for top posting, even though as a blind person it makes
> following messages, especially long threads like this, easier.
> Sorry for the OT

This list traditionally follows the good rule of *not* top-posting, and
commenting inline.

You are the only one top-posting and breaking the thread as far as I can
see. You also commented on a sub-thread that had no top-posting
whatsoever and seem perfectly understandable, and replied to my post as
if I was the cause of your trouble (which doesn't seem so from the
content of your post), so your comment may come a little bit irritating.

It sucks that gmail has poor threading support and confuses you, but you
chose that tool, maybe you can find something better.

Simo.

> 
> 
> On 09/22/2015 01:29 PM, Simo Sorce wrote:
> > On Tue, 2015-09-22 at 09:56 -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote:
> >> On Tue, 2015-09-22 at 15:51 +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> >>> On Thu, 17.09.15 20:59, Germano Massullo (germano.massu...@gmail.com)
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
>  Today I had a scary experience with the audio of my computer.
>  I was listening to music with Amarok, using my headphones... The
>  KMix
>  volume level was ~ 35%. When I logged into a video conference
>  application, the volume suddenly reached the 100%. I was shocked,
>  having
>  the maximum audio level shooted in your ears is a painful
>  experience.
>  The conference application that triggered PulseAudio pushing volume
>  to
>  maximum level probably should have never asked the system for a
>  100%
>  audio level, but on the other hand, PulseAudio should never allow
>  an
>  application to make such sudden changes.
>  To avoid that, you have to set
>  flat-volumes = no
>  in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf
> >>>
> >>> This is a non-sensical request. If an app uses the mixer APIs to set
> >>> the volume of something to very loud, that's what happens. Flat
> >>> volumes have nothing to do with that.
> >>>
> >>> I mean, the app you are using shouldn't set the volume like this, and
> >>> that's the key here. If you turn off flat volumes you win about
> >>> nothing, you just work around this specific app. Soon the next app
> >>> will come along and play the same game with the actual device volume,
> >>> and you won *zero*.
> >>>
> >>> Don't mix flat volumes with misbheaving apps. Turning off flat
> >>> volumes
> >>> is a hack around the broken apps at best, and completely pointless..
> >>
> >> For better or worse, misbehaving apps are a reality that is probably
> >> not going to go away... I think we need to have a volume control
> >> approach that is at least somewhat tolerant against such apps and has
> >> some safeguards.
> > 
> > Indeed, sticking your head in the sand and saying it is a misbehaving
> > app is not a useful answer.
> > 
> > Apps misbehave, its a fact of life, you can deal with it, or not deal
> > with it, if you do not deal with it you have a bad system that causes
> > grief.
> > 
> > I disabled flat-volumes long ago for the same reasons people had to in
> > this thread. Yes in theory I can beg every app to be perfect, but in the
> > mean time I can't get my ears blasted (or in some cases end up with
> > un-audible input/output). whatever it is with flat-volumes I could never
> > figure out what was going on, while w/o flat-volumes it is very simple
> > as each app is individually either low or high and an app raising its
> > volume doesn't cause all other apps to disappear never to return ...
> > 
> > Disabling flat-volumes may be a workaround but it works very well
> > apparently. So something probably needs to be improved in flat-volumes,
> > and until then it is as good an option to disable it by default.
> > 
> > Simo.
> > 


-- 
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Reindl Harald]

Am 22.09.2015 um 23:58 schrieb kendell clark:

Oops? My apologies. I didn't mean to accuse anyone in particular of
causing my problem. It makes it easier if someone either top or bottom
posts


no it does not, nobody needs the whole thread in each message

see my reponse - the context is very clear - how do you know to which of 
your sentecnes i reply if i put both parts just on top?



but I'm certainly not going to insist on it. I also need to
figure out how to just reply to the list, rather than to the person who
sent the message as well as the list


get a mail-client which supports basic things like mail headers instead 
all this shitty webmail-crap would be a start


thunderbird just offers a "reply-to-list" button on any ML aslong 
sombody don't break it by "reply-all" with personal copies


List-Post: 
Reply-To: Development discussions related to Fedora





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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[kendell clark]

hi
If this is true, then why have I had no luck getting PA developers to do
anything? Not to complain, but I've been on their irc channel several
time. If I get a response at all, it's to shrug and tell me to bug
whatever app it is that's misbehaving. This is all well and good if the
app is both free and open source and actively developed, but if one of
those is missing ... I'm not criticizing anyone, at least not on
purpose, but I don't know who's at fault here and how to fix it. If it's
the app, this is going to be tedious, filing the same bug against
multiple apps. If it's pulse audio, then it's the developers'
responsibility to fix it, preferably without passing the buck.
Thanks
Kendell clark


On 09/22/2015 08:51 AM, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> On Thu, 17.09.15 20:59, Germano Massullo (germano.massu...@gmail.com) wrote:
> 
>> Today I had a scary experience with the audio of my computer.
>> I was listening to music with Amarok, using my headphones... The KMix
>> volume level was ~ 35%. When I logged into a video conference
>> application, the volume suddenly reached the 100%. I was shocked, having
>> the maximum audio level shooted in your ears is a painful experience.
>> The conference application that triggered PulseAudio pushing volume to
>> maximum level probably should have never asked the system for a 100%
>> audio level, but on the other hand, PulseAudio should never allow an
>> application to make such sudden changes.
>> To avoid that, you have to set
>> flat-volumes = no
>> in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf
> 
> This is a non-sensical request. If an app uses the mixer APIs to set
> the volume of something to very loud, that's what happens. Flat
> volumes have nothing to do with that.
> 
> I mean, the app you are using shouldn't set the volume like this, and
> that's the key here. If you turn off flat volumes you win about
> nothing, you just work around this specific app. Soon the next app
> will come along and play the same game with the actual device volume,
> and you won *zero*.
> 
> Don't mix flat volumes with misbheaving apps. Turning off flat volumes
> is a hack around the broken apps at best, and completely pointless..
> 
> Lennart
> 
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[kendell clark]

hi
Oops? My apologies. I didn't mean to accuse anyone in particular of
causing my problem. It makes it easier if someone either top or bottom
posts, but I'm certainly not going to insist on it. I also need to
figure out how to just reply to the list, rather than to the person who
sent the message as well as the list. Maybe I should've read my message
through better before sending, I didn't mean to accuse anyone of
anything or sound irritable.
Thanks
Kendell clark


On 09/22/2015 04:51 PM, Simo Sorce wrote:
> On Tue, 2015-09-22 at 16:31 -0500, kendell clark wrote:
>> hi
>> Just a polite request. I'm having trouble following the thread because
>> there are so many intermingled responses, with different bits of it
>> quoted and commented on. Would everyone mind putting their responses
>> either on the top or the bottom of the message? Top would be better for
>> me, but I also don't want to irritate anyone, since I've been yelled at
>> on the arch list for top posting, even though as a blind person it makes
>> following messages, especially long threads like this, easier.
>> Sorry for the OT
> 
> This list traditionally follows the good rule of *not* top-posting, and
> commenting inline.
> 
> You are the only one top-posting and breaking the thread as far as I can
> see. You also commented on a sub-thread that had no top-posting
> whatsoever and seem perfectly understandable, and replied to my post as
> if I was the cause of your trouble (which doesn't seem so from the
> content of your post), so your comment may come a little bit irritating.
> 
> It sucks that gmail has poor threading support and confuses you, but you
> chose that tool, maybe you can find something better.
> 
> Simo.
> 
>>
>>
>> On 09/22/2015 01:29 PM, Simo Sorce wrote:
>>> On Tue, 2015-09-22 at 09:56 -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote:
 On Tue, 2015-09-22 at 15:51 +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> On Thu, 17.09.15 20:59, Germano Massullo (germano.massu...@gmail.com)
> wrote:
>
>> Today I had a scary experience with the audio of my computer.
>> I was listening to music with Amarok, using my headphones... The
>> KMix
>> volume level was ~ 35%. When I logged into a video conference
>> application, the volume suddenly reached the 100%. I was shocked,
>> having
>> the maximum audio level shooted in your ears is a painful
>> experience.
>> The conference application that triggered PulseAudio pushing volume
>> to
>> maximum level probably should have never asked the system for a
>> 100%
>> audio level, but on the other hand, PulseAudio should never allow
>> an
>> application to make such sudden changes.
>> To avoid that, you have to set
>> flat-volumes = no
>> in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf
>
> This is a non-sensical request. If an app uses the mixer APIs to set
> the volume of something to very loud, that's what happens. Flat
> volumes have nothing to do with that.
>
> I mean, the app you are using shouldn't set the volume like this, and
> that's the key here. If you turn off flat volumes you win about
> nothing, you just work around this specific app. Soon the next app
> will come along and play the same game with the actual device volume,
> and you won *zero*.
>
> Don't mix flat volumes with misbheaving apps. Turning off flat
> volumes
> is a hack around the broken apps at best, and completely pointless..

 For better or worse, misbehaving apps are a reality that is probably
 not going to go away... I think we need to have a volume control
 approach that is at least somewhat tolerant against such apps and has
 some safeguards.
>>>
>>> Indeed, sticking your head in the sand and saying it is a misbehaving
>>> app is not a useful answer.
>>>
>>> Apps misbehave, its a fact of life, you can deal with it, or not deal
>>> with it, if you do not deal with it you have a bad system that causes
>>> grief.
>>>
>>> I disabled flat-volumes long ago for the same reasons people had to in
>>> this thread. Yes in theory I can beg every app to be perfect, but in the
>>> mean time I can't get my ears blasted (or in some cases end up with
>>> un-audible input/output). whatever it is with flat-volumes I could never
>>> figure out what was going on, while w/o flat-volumes it is very simple
>>> as each app is individually either low or high and an app raising its
>>> volume doesn't cause all other apps to disappear never to return ...
>>>
>>> Disabling flat-volumes may be a workaround but it works very well
>>> apparently. So something probably needs to be improved in flat-volumes,
>>> and until then it is as good an option to disable it by default.
>>>
>>> Simo.
>>>
> 
> 
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Simo Sorce]

On Tue, 2015-09-22 at 16:58 -0500, kendell clark wrote:
> hi
> Oops? My apologies. I didn't mean to accuse anyone in particular of
> causing my problem. It makes it easier if someone either top or bottom
> posts, but I'm certainly not going to insist on it. I also need to
> figure out how to just reply to the list, rather than to the person who
> sent the message as well as the list. Maybe I should've read my message
> through better before sending, I didn't mean to accuse anyone of
> anything or sound irritable.

No problem, but replying to a specific message tends to carry a meaning
in mailing lists, that's why I pointed it out to you. I did not mean
that I actually am irritated, sorry for the cryptic response on that
part.

On the reply style, it is pretty useful to most of us to get inline
replies in most cases because then you know exactly what has been
replied to. Our clients of choice tend to handle quotation well, and
display it in a manner that makes immediately clear what it is being
responded to.

Perhaps you need to find a way (or a client) that makes it easy for you
to separate quoted text from normal text. I assure you that being able
to just skip back a few lines and read the quoted context of the reply
is often very valuable.

Simo.

> Thanks
> Kendell clark
> 
> 
> On 09/22/2015 04:51 PM, Simo Sorce wrote:
> > On Tue, 2015-09-22 at 16:31 -0500, kendell clark wrote:
> >> hi
> >> Just a polite request. I'm having trouble following the thread because
> >> there are so many intermingled responses, with different bits of it
> >> quoted and commented on. Would everyone mind putting their responses
> >> either on the top or the bottom of the message? Top would be better for
> >> me, but I also don't want to irritate anyone, since I've been yelled at
> >> on the arch list for top posting, even though as a blind person it makes
> >> following messages, especially long threads like this, easier.
> >> Sorry for the OT
> > 
> > This list traditionally follows the good rule of *not* top-posting, and
> > commenting inline.
> > 
> > You are the only one top-posting and breaking the thread as far as I can
> > see. You also commented on a sub-thread that had no top-posting
> > whatsoever and seem perfectly understandable, and replied to my post as
> > if I was the cause of your trouble (which doesn't seem so from the
> > content of your post), so your comment may come a little bit irritating.
> > 
> > It sucks that gmail has poor threading support and confuses you, but you
> > chose that tool, maybe you can find something better.
> > 
> > Simo.
> > 
> >>
> >>
> >> On 09/22/2015 01:29 PM, Simo Sorce wrote:
> >>> On Tue, 2015-09-22 at 09:56 -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote:
>  On Tue, 2015-09-22 at 15:51 +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> > On Thu, 17.09.15 20:59, Germano Massullo (germano.massu...@gmail.com)
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Today I had a scary experience with the audio of my computer.
> >> I was listening to music with Amarok, using my headphones... The
> >> KMix
> >> volume level was ~ 35%. When I logged into a video conference
> >> application, the volume suddenly reached the 100%. I was shocked,
> >> having
> >> the maximum audio level shooted in your ears is a painful
> >> experience.
> >> The conference application that triggered PulseAudio pushing volume
> >> to
> >> maximum level probably should have never asked the system for a
> >> 100%
> >> audio level, but on the other hand, PulseAudio should never allow
> >> an
> >> application to make such sudden changes.
> >> To avoid that, you have to set
> >> flat-volumes = no
> >> in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf
> >
> > This is a non-sensical request. If an app uses the mixer APIs to set
> > the volume of something to very loud, that's what happens. Flat
> > volumes have nothing to do with that.
> >
> > I mean, the app you are using shouldn't set the volume like this, and
> > that's the key here. If you turn off flat volumes you win about
> > nothing, you just work around this specific app. Soon the next app
> > will come along and play the same game with the actual device volume,
> > and you won *zero*.
> >
> > Don't mix flat volumes with misbheaving apps. Turning off flat
> > volumes
> > is a hack around the broken apps at best, and completely pointless..
> 
>  For better or worse, misbehaving apps are a reality that is probably
>  not going to go away... I think we need to have a volume control
>  approach that is at least somewhat tolerant against such apps and has
>  some safeguards.
> >>>
> >>> Indeed, sticking your head in the sand and saying it is a misbehaving
> >>> app is not a useful answer.
> >>>
> >>> Apps misbehave, its a fact of life, you can deal with it, or not deal
> >>> with it, if you do not deal with it you have a bad system that causes
> >>> grief.
> >>>
> >>> I disabled 

Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Vít Ondruch]

Dne 22.9.2015 v 00:00 Owen Taylor napsal(a):
> On Thu, 2015-09-17 at 23:26 +0200, Germano Massullo wrote:
>> Il 17/09/2015 21:13, Andrew Lutomirski ha scritto:
>>> To clarify: did you get blasted by music or by video conference
>>> sounds?  If the music volume got louder, then it sounds like either
>>> a
>>> straight-up bug in PulseAudio (and a severe and dangerous one at
>>> that)
>>> or a serious bug in your video conference volume in which it
>>> adjusts
>>> the volume of streams other than its own.
>>>
>>> If you got blasted by video conference sounds, then I'd say it's a
>>> serious design flaw in PulseAudio.  PulseAudio should offer an
>>> easy-to-configure maximum volume (probably A-weighted power, but
>>> peak
>>> level works, too, if considerably less well) on a per-output basis
>>> with which to protect your ears.
>>>
>>> --Andy
>> I got blasted from the music because I was not making a conference, I
>> only logged into the software, so the music was the only sound I was
>> listening to. PulseAudio pushed the master audio level to 100%
>> (therefore all applications audio level changed to 100%, due flat-
>> volume setting).
> I'm not an expert in the subject, but I'm pretty sure this is not how
> flat volumes are supposed to work - it doesn't sound like useful
> behavior at all!
>
> Experimenting with GNOME, the model presented to the user seems to be:
>
>  - Each application's volume control separate goes from 0-100% of the
>maximum system volume. 
>  - Adjusting each application is independent
>  - Modifying the system global volume slider proportionally adjusts the
>volume of each application
>  - The system global volume slider is always maintained to be at least
>as much as the maximum of any application

If this is true, than it is totally unexpected. I would expect that
system volume proportionally limits all volumes, e.g. if my system
volume is at 50%, the apps 0-100% is actually just 0-50% of system volume.


Vít

>
>  NOTE: The system global volume slider is *not the same as the hardware
>volume and does not represent a multiplication factor for
>application volumes. It's just something that the user can
>drag to change the volume of all applications.
>
> There is danger to the ears if an application assumes that 100% volume
> is a safe volume and blindly sets its volume to 100% without user
> input. But that only affects that application - one application's
> misbehavior never affects another application.
>
> It sounds like KDE ends up implementing a different model, either
> intentionally or because of bugs. It's also possible that lower level
> bugs (sound card driver, for example) might be making things misbehave.
>
> In general, the fact that pulseaudio is configurable in this area is
> going to be the source of almost infinite bug chasing, as applications
> and desktop environments are "fixed" for one setting or another. It's
> also very easy for people to stop investigating problems and say that
> "changing the setting fixed it for me." :-(
>
> - Owen
>

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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Matthias Clasen]

On Tue, 2015-09-22 at 05:31 -0500, kendell clark wrote:
> hi
> I'm ambivolent on the subject. If flat volumes become a problem, I
> know
> how to turn them off. However, I think because of all the complaints
> here by people who have a very good track record and don't complain
> often, this seems to bear out what I've been trying to say.

You can't really draw too many conclusions from the fact that people
complain on this list - its what you do on this list. Other people with
good track record who don't have a problem with volume handling (like
me) will not show up here to praise and defend PA.

Now, we should certainly look at ways to improve the situation, but
that that will require talking to PA developers...

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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Lennart Poettering]

On Thu, 17.09.15 20:59, Germano Massullo (germano.massu...@gmail.com) wrote:

> Today I had a scary experience with the audio of my computer.
> I was listening to music with Amarok, using my headphones... The KMix
> volume level was ~ 35%. When I logged into a video conference
> application, the volume suddenly reached the 100%. I was shocked, having
> the maximum audio level shooted in your ears is a painful experience.
> The conference application that triggered PulseAudio pushing volume to
> maximum level probably should have never asked the system for a 100%
> audio level, but on the other hand, PulseAudio should never allow an
> application to make such sudden changes.
> To avoid that, you have to set
> flat-volumes = no
> in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf

This is a non-sensical request. If an app uses the mixer APIs to set
the volume of something to very loud, that's what happens. Flat
volumes have nothing to do with that.

I mean, the app you are using shouldn't set the volume like this, and
that's the key here. If you turn off flat volumes you win about
nothing, you just work around this specific app. Soon the next app
will come along and play the same game with the actual device volume,
and you won *zero*.

Don't mix flat volumes with misbheaving apps. Turning off flat volumes
is a hack around the broken apps at best, and completely pointless..

Lennart

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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Germano Massullo]

Il 22/09/2015 03:43, Rex Dieter ha scritto:
> Germano Massullo wrote:
>
>> Il 21/09/2015 21:45, Thomas Daede ha scritto:
>>> Is there currently a bug open for this? I'd rather it not get lost.
>> I think that a FESCo ticket would be more appropriate.
> I think it would be premature to appeal to FESCo without giving pulseaudio 
> maintainers a chance to respond to your proposal first.
>
> Mind filing a bug with your proposal ?
>
> -- Rex
>
Here we go
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1265267
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Bastien Nocera]

- Original Message -
> On Mon, 2015-09-21 at 18:00 -0400, Owen Taylor wrote:
> > There is danger to the ears if an application assumes that 100%
> > volume
> > is a safe volume and blindly sets its volume to 100% without user
> > input. But that only affects that application - one application's
> > misbehavior never affects another application.
> 
> That's definitely not correct. With flat volumes, applications can and
> do set the system volume to 100%. I've received numerous complaints
> about this. It's particularly frustrating when watching YouTube videos,
> since YouTube sets the system volume to 1 when starting a video. We are
> still waiting for some promised "browsers API" in PulseAudio to fix
> this easily.
> 
> I think it's telling that this thread is full of complaints about flat
> volumes, with no supporters. Also, Ubuntu does not seem to be getting
> any complaints about the lack of flat volumes. :)

Given that I don't want per-app volumes either, not sure that my opinion
is required to choose between 2 schemes that are per-app.
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[kendell clark]

hi
I'm ambivolent on the subject. If flat volumes become a problem, I know
how to turn them off. However, I think because of all the complaints
here by people who have a very good track record and don't complain
often, this seems to bear out what I've been trying to say. That this
should be fixed in pulse audio. I'll stop repeating myself and ask for
where to go from here. Should I file a bug against pulse audio, comment
on the redhat bug previously mentioned here, something else? I want to
get the ball rolling on this. I do know that I've tried a few times to
approach pulse audio devs on their irc channel, to no luck. I rarely get
a response. When I do, it's generally something like a shrug and, not my
problem, go file a bug against the app. Not that everyone's like that,
just saying what my personal experience has been.
Thanks
Kendell clark


On 09/22/2015 05:23 AM, Bastien Nocera wrote:
> 
> 
> - Original Message -
>> On Mon, 2015-09-21 at 18:00 -0400, Owen Taylor wrote:
>>> There is danger to the ears if an application assumes that 100%
>>> volume
>>> is a safe volume and blindly sets its volume to 100% without user
>>> input. But that only affects that application - one application's
>>> misbehavior never affects another application.
>>
>> That's definitely not correct. With flat volumes, applications can and
>> do set the system volume to 100%. I've received numerous complaints
>> about this. It's particularly frustrating when watching YouTube videos,
>> since YouTube sets the system volume to 1 when starting a video. We are
>> still waiting for some promised "browsers API" in PulseAudio to fix
>> this easily.
>>
>> I think it's telling that this thread is full of complaints about flat
>> volumes, with no supporters. Also, Ubuntu does not seem to be getting
>> any complaints about the lack of flat volumes. :)
> 
> Given that I don't want per-app volumes either, not sure that my opinion
> is required to choose between 2 schemes that are per-app.
> 
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[drago01]

On Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 12:00 AM, Owen Taylor  wrote:
> On Thu, 2015-09-17 at 23:26 +0200, Germano Massullo wrote:
>> Il 17/09/2015 21:13, Andrew Lutomirski ha scritto:
>> >
>> > To clarify: did you get blasted by music or by video conference
>> > sounds?  If the music volume got louder, then it sounds like either
>> > a
>> > straight-up bug in PulseAudio (and a severe and dangerous one at
>> > that)
>> > or a serious bug in your video conference volume in which it
>> > adjusts
>> > the volume of streams other than its own.
>> >
>> > If you got blasted by video conference sounds, then I'd say it's a
>> > serious design flaw in PulseAudio.  PulseAudio should offer an
>> > easy-to-configure maximum volume (probably A-weighted power, but
>> > peak
>> > level works, too, if considerably less well) on a per-output basis
>> > with which to protect your ears.
>> >
>> > --Andy
>> I got blasted from the music because I was not making a conference, I
>> only logged into the software, so the music was the only sound I was
>> listening to. PulseAudio pushed the master audio level to 100%
>> (therefore all applications audio level changed to 100%, due flat-
>> volume setting).
>
> I'm not an expert in the subject, but I'm pretty sure this is not how
> flat volumes are supposed to work - it doesn't sound like useful
> behavior at all!
>
> Experimenting with GNOME, the model presented to the user seems to be:
>
>  - Each application's volume control separate goes from 0-100% of the
>maximum system volume.
>  - Adjusting each application is independent
>  - Modifying the system global volume slider proportionally adjusts the
>volume of each application
>  - The system global volume slider is always maintained to be at least
>as much as the maximum of any application
>
>  NOTE: The system global volume slider is *not the same as the hardware
>volume and does not represent a multiplication factor for
>application volumes. It's just something that the user can
>drag to change the volume of all applications.
>
> There is danger to the ears if an application assumes that 100% volume
> is a safe volume and blindly sets its volume to 100% without user
> input. But that only affects that application - one application's
> misbehavior never affects another application.
>
> It sounds like KDE ends up implementing a different model, either
> intentionally or because of bugs. It's also possible that lower level
> bugs (sound card driver, for example) might be making things misbehave.
>
> In general, the fact that pulseaudio is configurable in this area is
> going to be the source of almost infinite bug chasing, as applications
> and desktop environments are "fixed" for one setting or another. It's
> also very easy for people to stop investigating problems and say that
> "changing the setting fixed it for me." :-(

Flat volumes only make sense if we have an appropriate UI for them ...
but we do not.
Such a UI would show all volumes in relation to each other and the
system volume like windows does:
http://blog.nirsoft.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/volume_mixer_win7.png

What we currently have makes no sense the user has to guess what each
volume control actually does and how it affects the global volume.
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Matthias Clasen]

On Tue, 2015-09-22 at 15:51 +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> On Thu, 17.09.15 20:59, Germano Massullo (germano.massu...@gmail.com)
> wrote:
> 
> > Today I had a scary experience with the audio of my computer.
> > I was listening to music with Amarok, using my headphones... The
> > KMix
> > volume level was ~ 35%. When I logged into a video conference
> > application, the volume suddenly reached the 100%. I was shocked,
> > having
> > the maximum audio level shooted in your ears is a painful
> > experience.
> > The conference application that triggered PulseAudio pushing volume
> > to
> > maximum level probably should have never asked the system for a
> > 100%
> > audio level, but on the other hand, PulseAudio should never allow
> > an
> > application to make such sudden changes.
> > To avoid that, you have to set
> > flat-volumes = no
> > in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf
> 
> This is a non-sensical request. If an app uses the mixer APIs to set
> the volume of something to very loud, that's what happens. Flat
> volumes have nothing to do with that.
> 
> I mean, the app you are using shouldn't set the volume like this, and
> that's the key here. If you turn off flat volumes you win about
> nothing, you just work around this specific app. Soon the next app
> will come along and play the same game with the actual device volume,
> and you won *zero*.
> 
> Don't mix flat volumes with misbheaving apps. Turning off flat
> volumes
> is a hack around the broken apps at best, and completely pointless..

For better or worse, misbehaving apps are a reality that is probably
not going to go away... I think we need to have a volume control
approach that is at least somewhat tolerant against such apps and has
some safeguards.
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Michael Catanzaro]

On Mon, 2015-09-21 at 17:46 -0700, Thomas Daede wrote:
> In the case of Youtube, you shouldn't be having any issues because
> Mozilla switched to using a soft mixer internal to Firefox:
> 
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1046814
> 
> If you still have issues, you should report them upstream.
> 
> (note that this means all website volume sliders are designed to
> behave
> as a mixer, not as flat volumes)

Hi, sorry I forgot to say "in WebKit," which rather changes the meaning
of my email. The relevant developer is still trying to avoid mixing
streams internally. I do not understand it all very well, except the
problem goes away when flat volumes are disabled. :) PulseAudio is
going to offer some "browsers API" that will somehow allow fixing this
properly, but that does nothing to help with all the applications that
don't understand flat volumes, and in the meantime we are stuck with
the bug

Cheers,

Michael
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Rex Dieter]

Thomas Daede wrote:

> Um, that bug looks totally unrelated to the problems reported here.

It was referenced in the first post of this thread. :)

-- Rex

> On 09/21/2015 06:51 PM, Rex Dieter wrote:
>> Rex Dieter wrote:
>> 
>>> Germano Massullo wrote:
>>>
 Il 21/09/2015 21:45, Thomas Daede ha scritto:
> Is there currently a bug open for this? I'd rather it not get lost.
 I think that a FESCo ticket would be more appropriate.
>>>
>>> I think it would be premature to appeal to FESCo without giving
>>> pulseaudio maintainers a chance to respond to your proposal first.
>>>
>>> Mind filing a bug with your proposal ?
>> 
>> We could recycle the bug you filed for that purpose,
>> 
>> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1264177
>> 
>> -- Rex
>> 


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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[kendell clark]

hi
I don't know, but if there's not, I'll go file one and post the link here.
Thanks
Kendell clark


On 09/21/2015 02:45 PM, Thomas Daede wrote:
> Is there currently a bug open for this? I'd rather it not get lost.
> 
> On 09/17/2015 11:59 AM, Germano Massullo wrote:
>> ===
>> Definition of flat-volumes from [1] : it scales the device-volume with
>> the volume of the "loudest" application. For example, raising the VoIP
>> call volume will raise the hardware volume and adjust the music-player
>> volume so it stays where it was, without having to lower the volume of
>> the music-player manually.
>> ===
>>
>> Today I had a scary experience with the audio of my computer.
>> I was listening to music with Amarok, using my headphones... The KMix
>> volume level was ~ 35%. When I logged into a video conference
>> application, the volume suddenly reached the 100%. I was shocked, having
>> the maximum audio level shooted in your ears is a painful experience.
>> The conference application that triggered PulseAudio pushing volume to
>> maximum level probably should have never asked the system for a 100%
>> audio level, but on the other hand, PulseAudio should never allow an
>> application to make such sudden changes.
>> To avoid that, you have to set
>> flat-volumes = no
>> in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf
>>
>> I found many users stories complaining about this default setting [2]
>> [3] [4] and you can easily find other by searching "pulseaudio flat
>> volumes".
>> I completely agree with user gaggra comment at [3]
>>
>> <> misbehaving software can /physically hurt you/. You would think that
>> once that was understood, the design of this sort of behaviour would be
>> treated in a very conservative, careful manner.>>
>>
>> Moreover this default setting can cause sound crackling [5].
>>
>> So I would like to start a discussion about disabling this default
>> behaviour for the mentioned reasons.
>>
>>
>> [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio
>> [2]
>> https://major.io/2015/06/08/pulseaudio-popping-with-multiple-sounds-in-fedora-22/
>> [3]
>> https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/2rjiaa/horrible_decisions_flat_volumes_in_pulseaudio_a/
>> [4]
>> http://awesomelinux.blogspot.it/2013/06/pulseaudios-dynamic-volume-levels-are.html
>> [5] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1264177
>>
>>
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[kendell clark]

hi
Yup, I've seen all these use cases. TBH, this really should be handled
in pulse audio. IE this isn't so much a problem of gnome, although I do
agree taht they should make app volumes easier to set, as it is a pulse
audio problem. Pulse audio should be smart enough to handle such use
cases and adjust for them. In particular, the case where you adjust the
master volume and then adjust an application's volume downward. You're
correct, the system volume doesn't compensate. I thought this was a
problem with speech-dispatcher, since being blind I depend on it nearly
constantly to hear speech, but it apparently isn't limited to a single
application.
Thanks
Kendell clark


On 09/21/2015 05:41 AM, Kamil Paral wrote:
>> Today I had a scary experience with the audio of my computer.
>> I was listening to music with Amarok, using my headphones... The KMix volume
>> level was ~ 35%. When I logged into a video conference application, the
>> volume suddenly reached the 100%. I was shocked, having the maximum audio
>> level shooted in your ears is a painful experience.
>> The conference application that triggered PulseAudio pushing volume to
>> maximum level probably should have never asked the system for a 100% audio
>> level, but on the other hand, PulseAudio should never allow an application
>> to make such sudden changes.
>> To avoid that, you have to set
>> flat-volumes = no
>> in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf
> 
> I disable flat volumes on every computer that I own. In my experience there 
> are too many applications that interact with it improperly, and having the 
> master volume raised suddenly can be extremely unpleasant. It's naive to 
> think that all apps will behave and will not contain any bugs. The system 
> should not allow the apps to physically hurt the user just because of bugs or 
> improper implementation. Flat volumes allow exactly that.
> 
> A colleague of mine experienced music volume bursts every time Pidgin played 
> a notification. No amount of fiddling with Pidgin settings seemed to be able 
> to fix that. I recommended him to disable flat volumes and the problem was of 
> course gone. And this is Pidgin, one of the most prominent IM apps in the 
> Linux world. What about third-party apps, how can we expect them to behave?
> 
> The problem is not related just to increasing the volume suddenly. There are 
> other confusing and annoying use cases. If you have a game without a volume 
> slider (think of something along the lines of Extreme Tux Racer) and you want 
> to temporarily increase other volume source (let's say a youtube video, or a 
> skype), if you raise the volume, it makes it at the expense of the other 
> apps. So your game is now at e.g. 30% of the master volume (that value is 
> remembered and applied for future app executions as well). The end result is 
> that after you finish e.g. calling with someone and switch back to the game, 
> it's suddenly way too silent, no matter how much you turn the knob of the 
> master volume (and if you crank it fully up, sounds from other apps might 
> pierce your ear drums). Closing and starting the game again doesn't help. The 
> only way to fix this is to go to deeply buried sound settings in gnome 
> control center and adjust your app's slider. Hardly discoverable for a 
> standard user. And 
 y
ou need to do this every time such a use case happens. If GNOME implemented a 
slider for every playing application in the user menu [1], this wouldn't be so 
bad, but it doesn't.
> 
> Another confusing use case is when you have temporarily increase the volume 
> too much and quickly drag it down (let's say you have rhythmbox playing and 
> you increase the volume to 100% percent by accident, then lower it down 
> immediately). When you turned the app volume up, the master volume went up 
> (let's say it's 100% now). When you turned it down, only the app volume went 
> down, the master volume stayed at 100%. So when you run a different app and 
> it emits some sounds, it's going to blast your ears off, without warning.
> 
> Overall I think the flat volumes idea might be appealing in theory, but 
> breaks hard in a number of not-so-edge cases, which unfortunately are not 
> that rare as they might have seemed to PA developers. Also, these cases 
> either result in an annoyance ("the volume is too low and I don't see how to 
> fix it") or even a physical attack (if an OS allows to blast 100% volume into 
> my headphones even for regular, non-malicious apps, just because of "missing 
> implementation", I won't be using that OS for long). The impact of these 
> "bugs" is simply too high. I'd love to see flat volumes disabled by default.
> 
> [1] https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/858/volume-mixer/
> 
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Kamil Paral]

> Today I had a scary experience with the audio of my computer.
> I was listening to music with Amarok, using my headphones... The KMix volume
> level was ~ 35%. When I logged into a video conference application, the
> volume suddenly reached the 100%. I was shocked, having the maximum audio
> level shooted in your ears is a painful experience.
> The conference application that triggered PulseAudio pushing volume to
> maximum level probably should have never asked the system for a 100% audio
> level, but on the other hand, PulseAudio should never allow an application
> to make such sudden changes.
> To avoid that, you have to set
> flat-volumes = no
> in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf

I disable flat volumes on every computer that I own. In my experience there are 
too many applications that interact with it improperly, and having the master 
volume raised suddenly can be extremely unpleasant. It's naive to think that 
all apps will behave and will not contain any bugs. The system should not allow 
the apps to physically hurt the user just because of bugs or improper 
implementation. Flat volumes allow exactly that.

A colleague of mine experienced music volume bursts every time Pidgin played a 
notification. No amount of fiddling with Pidgin settings seemed to be able to 
fix that. I recommended him to disable flat volumes and the problem was of 
course gone. And this is Pidgin, one of the most prominent IM apps in the Linux 
world. What about third-party apps, how can we expect them to behave?

The problem is not related just to increasing the volume suddenly. There are 
other confusing and annoying use cases. If you have a game without a volume 
slider (think of something along the lines of Extreme Tux Racer) and you want 
to temporarily increase other volume source (let's say a youtube video, or a 
skype), if you raise the volume, it makes it at the expense of the other apps. 
So your game is now at e.g. 30% of the master volume (that value is remembered 
and applied for future app executions as well). The end result is that after 
you finish e.g. calling with someone and switch back to the game, it's suddenly 
way too silent, no matter how much you turn the knob of the master volume (and 
if you crank it fully up, sounds from other apps might pierce your ear drums). 
Closing and starting the game again doesn't help. The only way to fix this is 
to go to deeply buried sound settings in gnome control center and adjust your 
app's slider. Hardly discoverable for a standard user. And you need to do this 
every time such a use case happens. If GNOME implemented a slider for every 
playing application in the user menu [1], this wouldn't be so bad, but it 
doesn't.

Another confusing use case is when you have temporarily increase the volume too 
much and quickly drag it down (let's say you have rhythmbox playing and you 
increase the volume to 100% percent by accident, then lower it down 
immediately). When you turned the app volume up, the master volume went up 
(let's say it's 100% now). When you turned it down, only the app volume went 
down, the master volume stayed at 100%. So when you run a different app and it 
emits some sounds, it's going to blast your ears off, without warning.

Overall I think the flat volumes idea might be appealing in theory, but breaks 
hard in a number of not-so-edge cases, which unfortunately are not that rare as 
they might have seemed to PA developers. Also, these cases either result in an 
annoyance ("the volume is too low and I don't see how to fix it") or even a 
physical attack (if an OS allows to blast 100% volume into my headphones even 
for regular, non-malicious apps, just because of "missing implementation", I 
won't be using that OS for long). The impact of these "bugs" is simply too 
high. I'd love to see flat volumes disabled by default.

[1] https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/858/volume-mixer/
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Paul Wouters]

On Mon, 21 Sep 2015, Owen Taylor wrote:


Experimenting with GNOME, the model presented to the user seems to be:

 - Each application's volume control separate goes from 0-100% of the
   maximum system volume. 
 - Adjusting each application is independent
 - Modifying the system global volume slider proportionally adjusts the
   volume of each application
 - The system global volume slider is always maintained to be at least
   as much as the maximum of any application


Unfortunately, for endusers like me, who want pidgin to not blare
out, there isn't a simple user interface to let me select
that. Like let's say a right click on the top right volume icon that
would show all apps with volume so I can bring pidgin volume down.

So as a result, I always end up using the system volume control, and
after I play a movie or an mp3, pidgin blares out loudly.

So the current system is clearly not working for me.

Paul
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Rex Dieter]

Germano Massullo wrote:

> Il 21/09/2015 21:45, Thomas Daede ha scritto:
>> Is there currently a bug open for this? I'd rather it not get lost.
> I think that a FESCo ticket would be more appropriate.

I think it would be premature to appeal to FESCo without giving pulseaudio 
maintainers a chance to respond to your proposal first.

Mind filing a bug with your proposal ?

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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Thomas Daede]

Um, that bug looks totally unrelated to the problems reported here.

On 09/21/2015 06:51 PM, Rex Dieter wrote:
> Rex Dieter wrote:
> 
>> Germano Massullo wrote:
>>
>>> Il 21/09/2015 21:45, Thomas Daede ha scritto:
 Is there currently a bug open for this? I'd rather it not get lost.
>>> I think that a FESCo ticket would be more appropriate.
>>
>> I think it would be premature to appeal to FESCo without giving pulseaudio
>> maintainers a chance to respond to your proposal first.
>>
>> Mind filing a bug with your proposal ?
> 
> We could recycle the bug you filed for that purpose,
> 
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1264177
> 
> -- Rex
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[kendell clark]

hi
Not to go off topic, but I keep hearing comparisons between linux and
windows in this regard. I haven't used windows in ages, but how does
windows avoid this problem, or does it? Maybe we could do something
similar to what they do? I still say pulse audio needs to fix this, and
keep it fixed. It's unfeasable for all of the applications that don't
play nice with pulse audio to be updated to work with it. In addition to
some possibly no longer being updated, some developers are dead set
against pulse audio and will simply refuse to make their application
play nice with it. The multi system emulator mednafen is one example.
The developer is well aware that pulse audio causes problems, but simply
refuses to fix it. Yet she insists that she doesn't run into problems on
windows, which is what prompted me to bring it up.
Thanks
Kendell clark


On 09/21/2015 09:10 PM, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
> On Mon, 2015-09-21 at 17:46 -0700, Thomas Daede wrote:
>> In the case of Youtube, you shouldn't be having any issues because
>> Mozilla switched to using a soft mixer internal to Firefox:
>>
>> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1046814
>>
>> If you still have issues, you should report them upstream.
>>
>> (note that this means all website volume sliders are designed to
>> behave
>> as a mixer, not as flat volumes)
> 
> Hi, sorry I forgot to say "in WebKit," which rather changes the meaning
> of my email. The relevant developer is still trying to avoid mixing
> streams internally. I do not understand it all very well, except the
> problem goes away when flat volumes are disabled. :) PulseAudio is
> going to offer some "browsers API" that will somehow allow fixing this
> properly, but that does nothing to help with all the applications that
> don't understand flat volumes, and in the meantime we are stuck with
> the bug
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Michael
> 
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Michael Catanzaro]

On Mon, 2015-09-21 at 18:00 -0400, Owen Taylor wrote:
> There is danger to the ears if an application assumes that 100%
> volume
> is a safe volume and blindly sets its volume to 100% without user
> input. But that only affects that application - one application's
> misbehavior never affects another application.

That's definitely not correct. With flat volumes, applications can and
do set the system volume to 100%. I've received numerous complaints
about this. It's particularly frustrating when watching YouTube videos,
since YouTube sets the system volume to 1 when starting a video. We are
still waiting for some promised "browsers API" in PulseAudio to fix
this easily.

I think it's telling that this thread is full of complaints about flat
volumes, with no supporters. Also, Ubuntu does not seem to be getting
any complaints about the lack of flat volumes. :)

Michael
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Thomas Daede]

In the case of Youtube, you shouldn't be having any issues because
Mozilla switched to using a soft mixer internal to Firefox:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1046814

If you still have issues, you should report them upstream.

(note that this means all website volume sliders are designed to behave
as a mixer, not as flat volumes)

On 09/21/2015 04:59 PM, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
> That's definitely not correct. With flat volumes, applications can and
> do set the system volume to 100%. I've received numerous complaints
> about this. It's particularly frustrating when watching YouTube videos,
> since YouTube sets the system volume to 1 when starting a video. We are
> still waiting for some promised "browsers API" in PulseAudio to fix
> this easily.
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Owen Taylor]

On Thu, 2015-09-17 at 23:26 +0200, Germano Massullo wrote:
> Il 17/09/2015 21:13, Andrew Lutomirski ha scritto:
> > 
> > To clarify: did you get blasted by music or by video conference
> > sounds?  If the music volume got louder, then it sounds like either
> > a
> > straight-up bug in PulseAudio (and a severe and dangerous one at
> > that)
> > or a serious bug in your video conference volume in which it
> > adjusts
> > the volume of streams other than its own.
> > 
> > If you got blasted by video conference sounds, then I'd say it's a
> > serious design flaw in PulseAudio.  PulseAudio should offer an
> > easy-to-configure maximum volume (probably A-weighted power, but
> > peak
> > level works, too, if considerably less well) on a per-output basis
> > with which to protect your ears.
> > 
> > --Andy
> I got blasted from the music because I was not making a conference, I
> only logged into the software, so the music was the only sound I was
> listening to. PulseAudio pushed the master audio level to 100%
> (therefore all applications audio level changed to 100%, due flat-
> volume setting).

I'm not an expert in the subject, but I'm pretty sure this is not how
flat volumes are supposed to work - it doesn't sound like useful
behavior at all!

Experimenting with GNOME, the model presented to the user seems to be:

 - Each application's volume control separate goes from 0-100% of the
   maximum system volume. 
 - Adjusting each application is independent
 - Modifying the system global volume slider proportionally adjusts the
   volume of each application
 - The system global volume slider is always maintained to be at least
   as much as the maximum of any application

 NOTE: The system global volume slider is *not the same as the hardware
       volume and does not represent a multiplication factor for
       application volumes. It's just something that the user can
       drag to change the volume of all applications.

There is danger to the ears if an application assumes that 100% volume
is a safe volume and blindly sets its volume to 100% without user
input. But that only affects that application - one application's
misbehavior never affects another application.

It sounds like KDE ends up implementing a different model, either
intentionally or because of bugs. It's also possible that lower level
bugs (sound card driver, for example) might be making things misbehave.

In general, the fact that pulseaudio is configurable in this area is
going to be the source of almost infinite bug chasing, as applications
and desktop environments are "fixed" for one setting or another. It's
also very easy for people to stop investigating problems and say that
"changing the setting fixed it for me." :-(

- Owen

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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Thomas Daede]

OK, here's a couple of counterexamples, still using default apps:

- I start chatting on Firefox with WebRTC and I can't hear the person
talking over my music. So I open the GNOME control center and make
Firefox louder. Pulseaudio is awesome. But now, the volume of all of my
other applications is permanently lowered, and can no longer reach max
volume. When I unplug my headphones and want to crank up my laptop
speakers, I discover my music plays back too quietly. In fact, it turns
out that now I have to open the settings and adjust every application
back up to 100%, whenever I open a new application.

- Rhythmbox's volume slider goes from 0-100%, and this changes system
master volume. I don't know of any other OS that does this - it's
certainly not the skeumorphic thing to do.

- Many web pages include a volume control, e.g. Youtube. This is always
expected to behave in the traditional (multiplicative) way, so Firefox
had to implement a soft volume control before hitting pulseaudio:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1046814

With flat volumes, applications initially start at 100%, and you can
change the volume up or down. Without, you can only adjust them down.
While being able to adjust both ways might be nice at first, it quickly
becomes a mess when your application's volumes end up all over the place
with some use of this feature.

To me, flat volumes seems to be a result of discovering that HD Audio's
spec provides well defined amplitude levels for the master mixer
control, and then trying to find a problem to solve with that new
ability. I don't think this one worked out.

On 09/21/2015 03:00 PM, Owen Taylor wrote:
> On Thu, 2015-09-17 at 23:26 +0200, Germano Massullo wrote:
>> Il 17/09/2015 21:13, Andrew Lutomirski ha scritto:
>>>
>>> To clarify: did you get blasted by music or by video conference
>>> sounds?  If the music volume got louder, then it sounds like either
>>> a
>>> straight-up bug in PulseAudio (and a severe and dangerous one at
>>> that)
>>> or a serious bug in your video conference volume in which it
>>> adjusts
>>> the volume of streams other than its own.
>>>
>>> If you got blasted by video conference sounds, then I'd say it's a
>>> serious design flaw in PulseAudio.  PulseAudio should offer an
>>> easy-to-configure maximum volume (probably A-weighted power, but
>>> peak
>>> level works, too, if considerably less well) on a per-output basis
>>> with which to protect your ears.
>>>
>>> --Andy
>> I got blasted from the music because I was not making a conference, I
>> only logged into the software, so the music was the only sound I was
>> listening to. PulseAudio pushed the master audio level to 100%
>> (therefore all applications audio level changed to 100%, due flat-
>> volume setting).
> 
> I'm not an expert in the subject, but I'm pretty sure this is not how
> flat volumes are supposed to work - it doesn't sound like useful
> behavior at all!
> 
> Experimenting with GNOME, the model presented to the user seems to be:
> 
>  - Each application's volume control separate goes from 0-100% of the
>maximum system volume. 
>  - Adjusting each application is independent
>  - Modifying the system global volume slider proportionally adjusts the
>volume of each application
>  - The system global volume slider is always maintained to be at least
>as much as the maximum of any application
> 
>  NOTE: The system global volume slider is *not the same as the hardware
>volume and does not represent a multiplication factor for
>application volumes. It's just something that the user can
>drag to change the volume of all applications.
> 
> There is danger to the ears if an application assumes that 100% volume
> is a safe volume and blindly sets its volume to 100% without user
> input. But that only affects that application - one application's
> misbehavior never affects another application.
> 
> It sounds like KDE ends up implementing a different model, either
> intentionally or because of bugs. It's also possible that lower level
> bugs (sound card driver, for example) might be making things misbehave.
> 
> In general, the fact that pulseaudio is configurable in this area is
> going to be the source of almost infinite bug chasing, as applications
> and desktop environments are "fixed" for one setting or another. It's
> also very easy for people to stop investigating problems and say that
> "changing the setting fixed it for me." :-(
> 
> - Owen
> 
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Thomas Daede]

Is there currently a bug open for this? I'd rather it not get lost.

On 09/17/2015 11:59 AM, Germano Massullo wrote:
> ===
> Definition of flat-volumes from [1] : it scales the device-volume with
> the volume of the "loudest" application. For example, raising the VoIP
> call volume will raise the hardware volume and adjust the music-player
> volume so it stays where it was, without having to lower the volume of
> the music-player manually.
> ===
> 
> Today I had a scary experience with the audio of my computer.
> I was listening to music with Amarok, using my headphones... The KMix
> volume level was ~ 35%. When I logged into a video conference
> application, the volume suddenly reached the 100%. I was shocked, having
> the maximum audio level shooted in your ears is a painful experience.
> The conference application that triggered PulseAudio pushing volume to
> maximum level probably should have never asked the system for a 100%
> audio level, but on the other hand, PulseAudio should never allow an
> application to make such sudden changes.
> To avoid that, you have to set
> flat-volumes = no
> in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf
> 
> I found many users stories complaining about this default setting [2]
> [3] [4] and you can easily find other by searching "pulseaudio flat
> volumes".
> I completely agree with user gaggra comment at [3]
> 
> < misbehaving software can /physically hurt you/. You would think that
> once that was understood, the design of this sort of behaviour would be
> treated in a very conservative, careful manner.>>
> 
> Moreover this default setting can cause sound crackling [5].
> 
> So I would like to start a discussion about disabling this default
> behaviour for the mentioned reasons.
> 
> 
> [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio
> [2]
> https://major.io/2015/06/08/pulseaudio-popping-with-multiple-sounds-in-fedora-22/
> [3]
> https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/2rjiaa/horrible_decisions_flat_volumes_in_pulseaudio_a/
> [4]
> http://awesomelinux.blogspot.it/2013/06/pulseaudios-dynamic-volume-levels-are.html
> [5] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1264177
> 
> 
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Germano Massullo]

Il 21/09/2015 21:45, Thomas Daede ha scritto:
> Is there currently a bug open for this? I'd rather it not get lost.
I think that a FESCo ticket would be more appropriate.
I will open it during next days.

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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Andrew Lutomirski]

On Thu, Sep 17, 2015 at 11:59 AM, Germano Massullo
 wrote:
>
> Today I had a scary experience with the audio of my computer.
> I was listening to music with Amarok, using my headphones... The KMix volume
> level was ~ 35%. When I logged into a video conference application, the
> volume suddenly reached the 100%. I was shocked, having the maximum audio
> level shooted in your ears is a painful experience.
> The conference application that triggered PulseAudio pushing volume to
> maximum level probably should have never asked the system for a 100% audio
> level, but on the other hand, PulseAudio should never allow an application
> to make such sudden changes.

To clarify: did you get blasted by music or by video conference
sounds?  If the music volume got louder, then it sounds like either a
straight-up bug in PulseAudio (and a severe and dangerous one at that)
or a serious bug in your video conference volume in which it adjusts
the volume of streams other than its own.

If you got blasted by video conference sounds, then I'd say it's a
serious design flaw in PulseAudio.  PulseAudio should offer an
easy-to-configure maximum volume (probably A-weighted power, but peak
level works, too, if considerably less well) on a per-output basis
with which to protect your ears.

--Andy
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Major Hayden]

On 09/17/2015 01:59 PM, Germano Massullo wrote:
> I found many users stories complaining about this default setting [2] [3] [4] 
> and you can easily find other by searching "pulseaudio flat volumes".
> I completely agree with user gaggra comment at [3]
> 
> < misbehaving software can /physically hurt you/. You would think that once 
> that was understood, the design of this sort of behaviour would be treated in 
> a very conservative, careful manner.>>
> 
> Moreover this default setting can cause sound crackling [5].

I've experienced the crackling and deafening sounds as well (as referenced in 
my blog post).  I've have zero issues for months after setting flat-volumes to 
'no'.

What are the negative aspects of setting flat-volumes = no?

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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Germano Massullo]

Il 17/09/2015 21:13, Andrew Lutomirski ha scritto:
>
> To clarify: did you get blasted by music or by video conference
> sounds?  If the music volume got louder, then it sounds like either a
> straight-up bug in PulseAudio (and a severe and dangerous one at that)
> or a serious bug in your video conference volume in which it adjusts
> the volume of streams other than its own.
>
> If you got blasted by video conference sounds, then I'd say it's a
> serious design flaw in PulseAudio.  PulseAudio should offer an
> easy-to-configure maximum volume (probably A-weighted power, but peak
> level works, too, if considerably less well) on a per-output basis
> with which to protect your ears.
>
> --Andy
I got blasted from the music because I was not making a conference, I
only logged into the software, so the music was the only sound I was
listening to. PulseAudio pushed the master audio level to 100%
(therefore all applications audio level changed to 100%, due flat-volume
setting).
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[kendell clark]

hi
I can second this. Currently we do this in sonar on versions after
2015.3, which have to be built atm. There are two applications off the
top of my head I know of that will currently do this. They are, kodi
media center, and qemu virtualization software, if you emulate a sound
card of anything other than es1370. I'll add your voip application to
this list, though I don't know what it's called. To disable flat
volumes, edit /etc/pulse/daemon.conf, and change the "flat volumes" line
from yes to no, and remove the semicolon, which is the comment. Then
restart pulseaudio, either by killing pulseaudio, causing it to respawn
or restart your computer.
I'm not sure what should be done to prevent this. Usually, the only
applications that do this are applications that are not pulse audio
aware. Applications that are use the pulse audio API, and thus don't
jump the volume. I completely agree, this requires a change to pulse
audio, but I've had no luck contacting the pulse audio devs. I go onto
their irc channel, and there's literally no response to queries.
Thanks
Kendell clark


On 09/17/2015 01:59 PM, Germano Massullo wrote:
> ===
> Definition of flat-volumes from [1] : it scales the device-volume with
> the volume of the "loudest" application. For example, raising the VoIP
> call volume will raise the hardware volume and adjust the music-player
> volume so it stays where it was, without having to lower the volume of
> the music-player manually.
> ===
> 
> Today I had a scary experience with the audio of my computer.
> I was listening to music with Amarok, using my headphones... The KMix
> volume level was ~ 35%. When I logged into a video conference
> application, the volume suddenly reached the 100%. I was shocked, having
> the maximum audio level shooted in your ears is a painful experience.
> The conference application that triggered PulseAudio pushing volume to
> maximum level probably should have never asked the system for a 100%
> audio level, but on the other hand, PulseAudio should never allow an
> application to make such sudden changes.
> To avoid that, you have to set
> flat-volumes = no
> in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf
> 
> I found many users stories complaining about this default setting [2]
> [3] [4] and you can easily find other by searching "pulseaudio flat
> volumes".
> I completely agree with user gaggra comment at [3]
> 
> < misbehaving software can /physically hurt you/. You would think that
> once that was understood, the design of this sort of behaviour would be
> treated in a very conservative, careful manner.>>
> 
> Moreover this default setting can cause sound crackling [5].
> 
> So I would like to start a discussion about disabling this default
> behaviour for the mentioned reasons.
> 
> 
> [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio
> [2]
> https://major.io/2015/06/08/pulseaudio-popping-with-multiple-sounds-in-fedora-22/
> [3]
> https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/2rjiaa/horrible_decisions_flat_volumes_in_pulseaudio_a/
> [4]
> http://awesomelinux.blogspot.it/2013/06/pulseaudios-dynamic-volume-levels-are.html
> [5] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1264177
> 
> 
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Thomas Daede]

I also absolutely hate flat-volumes. Often I have trouble getting an
application loud enough, and discover that it's too low in the mixer.
The idea of flat volumes is to avoid a global volume, but the way it
interacts is super confusing and unlike any other system people use
(except maybe Android, but all of its "content" apps are still coalesced
under one mixer).

That said, apps shouldn't be setting their own Pulseaudio volume in
general. Firefox did that for a while and ran into a similar bug as you
got with Amarok, so they implemented their own internal soft volume
rather than adjusting their Pulseaudio volume.

That said, flat-volume is the upstream default so we might want their
input, as well as looking at what other distros do.

On 09/17/2015 11:59 AM, Germano Massullo wrote:
> ===
> Definition of flat-volumes from [1] : it scales the device-volume with
> the volume of the "loudest" application. For example, raising the VoIP
> call volume will raise the hardware volume and adjust the music-player
> volume so it stays where it was, without having to lower the volume of
> the music-player manually.
> ===
> 
> Today I had a scary experience with the audio of my computer.
> I was listening to music with Amarok, using my headphones... The KMix
> volume level was ~ 35%. When I logged into a video conference
> application, the volume suddenly reached the 100%. I was shocked, having
> the maximum audio level shooted in your ears is a painful experience.
> The conference application that triggered PulseAudio pushing volume to
> maximum level probably should have never asked the system for a 100%
> audio level, but on the other hand, PulseAudio should never allow an
> application to make such sudden changes.
> To avoid that, you have to set
> flat-volumes = no
> in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf
> 
> I found many users stories complaining about this default setting [2]
> [3] [4] and you can easily find other by searching "pulseaudio flat
> volumes".
> I completely agree with user gaggra comment at [3]
> 
> < misbehaving software can /physically hurt you/. You would think that
> once that was understood, the design of this sort of behaviour would be
> treated in a very conservative, careful manner.>>
> 
> Moreover this default setting can cause sound crackling [5].
> 
> So I would like to start a discussion about disabling this default
> behaviour for the mentioned reasons.
> 
> 
> [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio
> [2]
> https://major.io/2015/06/08/pulseaudio-popping-with-multiple-sounds-in-fedora-22/
> [3]
> https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/2rjiaa/horrible_decisions_flat_volumes_in_pulseaudio_a/
> [4]
> http://awesomelinux.blogspot.it/2013/06/pulseaudios-dynamic-volume-levels-are.html
> [5] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1264177
> 
> 
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[Michael Catanzaro]

On Thu, 2015-09-17 at 15:33 -0700, Thomas Daede wrote:
> That said, flat-volume is the upstream default so we might want their
> input, as well as looking at what other distros do.

Ubuntu disables it. To the best of my knowledge, all other distros
stick with the upstream default.

I am in favor of disabling. It can be extremely frustrating when apps
are misbehaving.

Michael
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[kendell clark]

hi
The only negative issue, although to me it's more of an oh, that's right
moment, is that you can no longer adjust application volumes up beyond
the master volume, only down, but that's kind of the idea. I do suggest,
and I don't know how easy this would be to do, that sound application
settings, such as gnome's control center, display volumes as percentages
rather than arbitrary numbers. I'm smart enough to know that 65536 is
somewhat equal to sorry, you've reached max, you can't go further, but
to most people, they'll see taht and go huh? Mind you I'm blind, and
there might be a percentage hidden somewhere. This is the case with the
volume slider on the top bar, and I have to use orca's where am I
functionality to read it. I then get output that looks like, volume
slider 0.5 47 percent, as opposed to just volume slider 0.5.
Thanks
Kendell clark


On 09/17/2015 04:30 PM, Major Hayden wrote:
> On 09/17/2015 01:59 PM, Germano Massullo wrote:
>> I found many users stories complaining about this default setting [2] [3] 
>> [4] and you can easily find other by searching "pulseaudio flat volumes".
>> I completely agree with user gaggra comment at [3]
>>
>> <> misbehaving software can /physically hurt you/. You would think that once 
>> that was understood, the design of this sort of behaviour would be treated 
>> in a very conservative, careful manner.>>
>>
>> Moreover this default setting can cause sound crackling [5].
> 
> I've experienced the crackling and deafening sounds as well (as referenced in 
> my blog post).  I've have zero issues for months after setting flat-volumes 
> to 'no'.
> 
> What are the negative aspects of setting flat-volumes = no?
> 
> --
> Major Hayden
> 
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Re: Disable PulseAudio flat volumes to prevent it from pushing volume level to max

[kendell clark]

hi
I'll second michael. Although I'll add that this should probably be a
temporary measure. This really should be addressed by pulseaudio
upstream, so that flat volumes can still be used, even with misbehaving
applications. There's currently zero documentation on what causes this,
whic means for me at least it was trial and error.
Thanks
Kendell clark


On 09/17/2015 05:53 PM, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
> On Thu, 2015-09-17 at 15:33 -0700, Thomas Daede wrote:
>> That said, flat-volume is the upstream default so we might want their
>> input, as well as looking at what other distros do.
> 
> Ubuntu disables it. To the best of my knowledge, all other distros
> stick with the upstream default.
> 
> I am in favor of disabling. It can be extremely frustrating when apps
> are misbehaving.
> 
> Michael
> 
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