Bug 1230309

Summary:	Pidgin notification sounds set output volume to 100% on Fedora 22
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Chris Bredesen <cbredesen>
Component:	pidgin	Assignee:	Jan Synacek <jsynacek>
Status:	CLOSED DUPLICATE	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	unspecified	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	22	CC:	ali+rhbugzilla, baptiste.darthenay, bgoncalv, itamar, jorti, jphxxxx, jskarvad, jsynacek, larieu, linux, lkundrak, lpoetter, rdieter, samuel-rhbugs, stu, ttaylor, wtaymans
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Hardware:	Unspecified
OS:	Unspecified
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Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
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Last Closed:	2015-11-10 23:49:28 UTC	Type:	Bug
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oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Embargoed:

Description Chris Bredesen 2015-06-10 15:32:42 UTC

Description of problem:

After a Fedup-grade from F21 to F22, Pidin's notification sounds have the side effect of setting the currently selected output device's volume to 100%. This is equivalent to changing my system's master volume to 100% and, when plugged into my amplified speakers, making quite a racket. I discussed this with #pulseaudio on Freenode and one person's suggestion was to disable flat volumes which I did, and which fixes the issue.

It is not clear to me whether this is a Pidgin or PA problem but since both #fedora and #pulseaudio blamed PA, and a PA config setting fixed it, I'm starting here.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

pulseaudio-6.0-2.fc22.x86_64
pidgin-2.10.11-12.fc22.x86_64

How reproducible:

Always happens when pidgin notifies via audio prompt.

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Set GNOME volume (i.e. currently selected output device) to <100%
2. Receive nick mention in Pidgin
3. If using a high wattage amplifier, cover ears.

Actual results:

Check volume, it is now at 100% for the device

Expected results:

Volume unaffected by sounds played by applications.

Additional info:

Other system sounds such as the terminal bell do not affect the output device's volume setting.

Comment 1 Chris Bredesen 2015-06-10 15:34:19 UTC

As mentioned in the original post, the workaround is to disable flat-volumes in the PA daemon:

$ grep flat /etc/pulse/daemon.conf 
flat-volumes = no

Restart the PA daemon with pulseaudio -k && pulseaudio -D

Comment 2 Wim Taymans 2015-06-10 15:34:56 UTC

pidgin should not set the volume to 100% but let pulseaudio decide on the volume.

Comment 3 Chris Bredesen 2015-06-10 15:38:15 UTC

Thanks for the redirect, Wim ... any idea why this suddenly appeared in F22? Was flat-volumes always OFF, thus uncovering this when enabled by default? Or did Pidgin change?

Comment 4 Wim Taymans 2015-06-10 15:48:04 UTC

Fedora has been using flat volumes for a long time, it must be something with pidgin. I'll have a look later.

Comment 5 Wim Taymans 2015-06-10 16:19:11 UTC

pidgin sets the volume to 100% (it's a config option). it should probably not do this but I think the real problem is that GStreamer should not pass the 100% volume to pulseaudio (I think it didn't do that in older versions, the default is 100%, if you don't change it, it doesn't set anything on pulseaudio). I'll have a closer look tomorrow.

Comment 6 batisteo 2015-08-27 10:46:42 UTC

Any updates? I've got the same problem.
Does the flat-volume=no hack has side effects?

Comment 7 Chris Bredesen 2015-08-27 11:50:57 UTC

(In reply to batisteo from comment #6)
> Any updates? I've got the same problem.
> Does the flat-volume=no hack has side effects?

I have seen no change in behavior. Best I can tell, it behaves like F-21 did for me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Comment 8 batisteo 2015-08-28 08:20:52 UTC

As a workaround, in the sound settings in Pidgin I put Method: ALSA, instead of Automatic.
Works fine.

Comment 9 Samuel Sieb 2015-09-17 19:23:54 UTC

So is this a bug in pidgin, pulseaudio, or gstreamer?

Comment 10 Rex Dieter 2015-09-17 19:29:24 UTC

pigdin bug but could be addressed in gstreamer too, see comment #5:
"pidgin sets the volume to 100% (it's a config option). it should probably not do this but I think the real problem is that GStreamer should not pass the 100% volume to pulseaudio"

Comment 11 Lari Tanase 2015-11-10 23:25:30 UTC

it seems to be a duplicate of
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1225276

the method used there to change from Automatic to ALSA worked for me on 2 different installs on Fedora 23)

Comment 12 Rex Dieter 2015-11-10 23:49:28 UTC

Indeed, dup'ing

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 1225276 ***