[pulseaudio-discuss] USB headset Steelseries Arctis troubleshooting

[Tanu Kaskinen]

On Tue, 2017-08-15 at 19:42 +0300, Johan Heikkilä wrote:
> I'm trying to get my head around the profile concept in pulse.
> 
> I made an udev row pointing at the following mapping:
> 
> /usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/profile-sets/steelseries-arctis-usb-audio.conf
> 
> [Mapping analog-mono]
> description = Analog Mono Headphone
> device-strings = hw:%f,0,0
> channel-map = mono
> direction = output
> 
> [Mapping analog-stereo]
> description = Analog Stereo Headphone
> device-strings = hw:%f,1,0
> channel-map = left,right
> direction = output
> 
> [Mapping analog-input-headset-mic]
> description = Headset Microphone
> device-strings = hw:%f,0,0
> channel-map = mono
> direction = input
> 
> If I set "auto-profiles = yes" I get a bunch of profiles that are
> listed in Gnome sound settings both in Output and Input. Selecting an
> Output profile in the Input dialog and the other way around makes
> things very messy and the device is turned off and has to be selected
> again in pavucontrol configuration.

What do you mean by "the device is turned off"? That sounds strange.

> When instead disabling auto-profiles and creating the following
> profiles in the file, it looks correct in Output (stereo and mono
> device listed), but in Input also Stereo output and Mono output is
> listed besides the mic input (which makes things messy again if they
> are selected).
> 
> [Profile output:analog-mono]
> description = Analog mono output
> output-mappings = analog-mono
> priority = 60
> skip-probe = yes
> 
> [Profile output:analog-stereo]
> description = Analog stereo output
> output-mappings = analog-stereo
> priority = 65
> skip-probe = yes
> 
> [Profile output:analog-mono+input:analog-input-headset-mic]
> description = Analog mono output + Analog mono input
> output-mappings = analog-mono
> input-mappings = analog-input-headset-mic
> priority = 75
> skip-probe = yes
> 
> [Profile output:analog-stereo+input:analog-input-headset-mic]
> description = Analog stereo output + Analog mono input
> output-mappings = analog-stereo
> input-mappings = analog-input-headset-mic
> priority = 80
> skip-probe = yes
> 
> 
> I have no idea how the priority works, btw.

The priority determines which profile to choose by default, when the
user hasn't explicitly chosen any particular profile.

> And I'm completely missing
> the point of the separate paths files (are they used with
> auto-profiles?).

Path files tell pulseaudio how to use the alsa mixer. If the sound card
provides hardware volume and mute controls in the alsa mixer, then it
would be good to write some path files, or if the mixer elements follow
a "standard" naming scheme, you can just reference the existing path
names from the mapping configuration.

The path files are used with both automatic and manual profiles.

> So the real question is, how can I prevent any other profiles from
> being listed under Input in Gnome sound settings?

I don't know exactly what kind of logic the gnome ui uses when choosing
what profiles to show, but if you define an input path, the ui might
figure out that it doesn't need to show multiple profiles in the input
section, since there's really only one input available.

-- 
Tanu

https://www.patreon.com/tanuk