1524849 - Firefox resets system-volume to 100% on video/tab unmute audio controls

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1515549

(Core :: Audio/Video: Playback, defect)

Description

[t-ask]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:67.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/67.0

Steps to reproduce:

Issue

0. (optional) Set media.default_volume = 0.5 --> any changes have no effect on default media volume, If I understand this setting right

1. Starting Firefox Nightly (65+67) in --safe-mode start playing a new video (eg. YT) resets sys-volume to 100%.

2. Then I tab-mute it and set sys-volume to 30%. Now start/stopping doesn't change sys-volume (still tab-muted).

3. Then tab-unmute it sys-volume resets to 100%.

4. Then setting sys-volume back to 30% and start/stopping the video, while tab-unmuted, it also resets to 100% on unmute.

5. If I set the media player's volume slider to 50% it only affects the application's volume channel in Plasma (Pulse). This is correct, as it doesn't affect the sys-volume at all. Nice, but the odd thing here is the app-volume channel is not 50% it is around 75%. Maybe that is still ok, just saying.

Tab-unmute has a higher priority over media player un/mute settings. If a Tab is muted anything doing with the media player's volume settings (stop/play/mute/unmute) has no effect anymore. Only if the Tab is unmuted. the media player's 'start/stop/mute/unmute' changes sys-volume again.

Playing around with Firefox's volume settings

media.default_volume:

Eg. If I set sys-volume to 30% this setting sets sys-volume always to 100% on unmute actions

media.default_volume = 0.5: 30% --> 100%
media.default_volume = 1.0: 30% --> 100%

media.volume_scale:

Eg: If set sys-volume to 30% this setting sets sys-volume to the odd value of 79% on unmute actions

media.volume_scale = 0.5: 30% --> 79%
media.volume_scale = 1.0: 30% --> 100%

Is media.default_volume broken, too? As it seems to have no effect here?!

Actual results:

If I set the media player's volume slider to 50% it only affects the application's volume channel in Plasma (Pulse). This is correct, as it doesn't affect the sys-volume at all. Nice, but the odd thing here is the app-volume channel is not 50% it is around 75%. Maybe that is still ok, just saying.

Tab-unmute has a higher priority over media player un/mute settings. If a Tab is muted anything doing with the media player's volume settings (stop/play/mute/unmute) has no effect anymore. Only if the Tab is unmuted the media player's 'start/stop/mute/unmute' changes sys-volume again.

Btw. it is the same with YouTube, Twitch and Vimeo media players and possibly all other ones, too.

Expected results:

Looks like something in Firefox's unmute volumes procedure triggers sys-volume(!) here. Still, Firefox must not change sys-volume at all. Using any unmute tab/mplayer-volume action affects sys-volume. It should only affect application audio channels.

Comment 1

[t-ask]

PulseAudio

Changing flat-volumes either way has no effect. Also I couldn't find any other setting in PulseAudio affecting this so far. Even completely changing the default.conf and daemon.conf to another user's one who hadn't this issue didn't fix it.

Current setting

flat-volumes = no

System

Operating System: Arch Linux
KDE Plasma Version: 5.14.5
Qt Version: 5.12.0
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.54.0
Kernel Version: 4.20.6-arch1-1-ARCH
OS Type: 64-bit
Processors: 16 × AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Eight-Core Processor
Memory: 15,7 GiB of RAM
PulseAudio 12.2
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h (Models 00h-0fh) HD Audio Controller

Comment 2

[t-ask]

In KDE Plasma's audio control widget I have AudioIPC Server channel for Firefox.

Chromium doesn't seem to affect any KDE Plasma volume settings (Devices/Applications). Firefox does ...

Comment 3

[Dan Minor [:dminor]]

Thank you for your very detailed report. This seems to be the same problem as Bug 1515549.