[pulseaudio-discuss] Digital output volume reset, if changing output. + Problems after Verbose log

[Tanu Kaskinen]

On Sat, 2013-03-30 at 17:49 +0100, Espen Lund wrote:
> Hey! I have a problem with my s/pdif output, the volume setting is reset
> when i switch output.
> This happens only to digital out, analog volume is saved. Here is a video
> showcasing the bug:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCMXxtzw6JU&feature=youtu.be
> This is happening on several soundcards: Realtek ALC889, Asus Xonar Essence
> STX and X-Fi Titanium. So this must be something related to Pulseaudio/ALSA
> i thought, hence posting it here. Please help me out :)

The video shows two different use cases, both of which seem to be
broken: switching the card profile between analog and digital output of
the X-Fi card, and moving a stream between the Barts HDMI output and the
X-Fi digital output. Let's concentrate on the second case first, because
it's simpler.

A verbose PulseAudio log would be useful. I assume that you have already
disabled autospawning as described in
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PulseAudio/Log . Could you do the following
steps:

1. killall pulseaudio
2. pulseaudio -vvv
3. Start pavucontrol.
4. If the X-Fi S/PDIF output and the Barts HDMI output aren't visible in
the Output Devices tab, change the card profiles in the Configuration
tab so that those two outputs become visible.
5. Play something like you played in the video.
6. Move the stream in the Playback tab to the X-Fi S/PDIF device.
7. Set the stream volume to 100% (I guess it should already be at 100%,
because your problem is that it always gets reset to 100%).
8. Go to the terminal in which pulseaudio is running, press enter a few
times, write "ABOUT TO CHANGE VOLUME" and press enter again a few times.
This creates a nice marker in the log for future reference.
9. Go back to pavucontrol and set the stream volume to something else
than 100%.
10. Go to the terminal and write "ABOUT TO MOVE STREAM" (with some extra
enters as earlier).
11. Go to pavucontrol and move the stream to the Barts HDMI device like
you did in the video.
12. Go to the terminal and write "ABOUT TO MOVE STREAM AGAIN".
13. Go to pavucontrol and move the stream back to the X-Fi S/PDIF
device. (Now the volume is hopefully back to 100%.)
14. Go to terminal and write "DONE".
15. Copy the log from the terminal to a text file and send it as an
attachment to this mailing list.

> ALSO! After following the toturial for creating a verbose log, all my
> output devices disappear.
> Tried killing pulseaudio and restarting, it doesn't help.

Restarting what? Computer? Pulseaudio?

> The only thing
> helping is typing "pulseaudio -vvvv" in terminal. There must be a better
> fix for this? I hate doing this manually each startup in terminal.

Do you mean that when you turn your computer on, pulseaudio isn't
running unless you run it manually?

-- 
Tanu