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.massullo at 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
>