Pulseaudio update issue...

[Nathanael D. Noblet]

On 01/14/2010 01:49 PM, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> On Thu, 07.01.10 10:42, Nathanael D. Noblet (nathanael at gnat.ca) wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>>    First off, not trying to bash or otherwise start a war about pulseaudio.
>>
>>    Just checking if anyone else is experiencing issues with the
>> latest F12 update (0.9.21-2) of pulseaudio?
>>
>>    For me changing between tracks in rhythmbox include a sound 'pop'
>> at the same time as the volume goes up/down. Also when doing tab
>> completion in gnome-terminal the music playing nearly pauses for the
>> tab 'ding' sound. I have reverted to the original version (0.9.19-2)
>> and it seems to work, however the volume control applet can't start
>> as it is looking for newer pulseaudio libs, even though I reverted
>> it...
>
> Most likely the dB information exposed by your driver is simply
> incorrect. When PA plays two streams with different volumes it will
> configure the hw volume to the louder stream and then digitally
> attenuate the other one. That way we should make the best of the
> capabilities of your hw.
>
> However, if the sound card's mixer elements carry incorrect dB
> information PA will attenuate the other stream by the wrong level, and
> that's probably why your music changes the volume when that ding
> stream is played.
>
> PA is the first real user of the dB information provided by the
> driver. Naturally that means that due to lack of testing for some
> drivers the dB information is hence not reliable. Yours seems to be
> one of those cases.
>
> You can fix this issue by disabling flat-volumes by setting
> flat-volumes=no in daemon.conf. Ideally however those drivers should
> get fixed.

The issue is that this *only* started to happen with the latest release 
of pulseaudio for F12. The packages that came with F12 on the DVD don't 
have this issue. It also isn't necessarily when playing two streams.

When I advance to the next song in rhythmbox I get odd sound behaviour, 
*after* I've received mail, *if* thunderbird is configured to play an 
audio alert. It has been configured this way since F11, and has had no 
issues until like I said the latest update. Because it only happens 
after TB playing an audio notification, but thereafter until I logout 
and back in. I feel like something has changed, but no idea where the 
issue is.