[pulseaudio-discuss] Pulseaudio keeps messing up my ALSA mixer settings at random times

[Patrick May]

Actually I was wrong -- it's not necessary to log in, just switching to 
a virtual terminal with Ctrl + Alt + Fx is enough to trigger this stupid 
behavior.

How do you tell pulseaudio to stop doing this?

On 20/04/2020 00:23, Patrick May wrote:
> I've now worked out exactly when it's happening.
> When I log in at a virtual terminal (and I'm already logged in with 
> another session with pulseaudio daemon running), that's when pulseaudio 
> decides it's the right time to set my ALSA mixer volume to absolute 100%.
> 
> It seems to be a bit random though - it either sets it to 100% or 0%. 
> But it always does it one way or the other.
> 
> It also seems to happen when I log out at a virtual terminal.
> 
> Does anyone know why this is happening?
> 
> On 19/04/2020 17:52, Patrick May wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> Pulseaudio seems to like to set my ALSA mixer settings to ABSOLUTE 
>> COMPLETELY MAXED OUT VOLUME seemingly at random, it seems like it 
>> happens usually when I reboot the computer but I'm not sure.
>>
>> I guess it's happening when the pulseaudio daemon gets started.
>>
>> This is resulting in REALLY LOUD sound getting blasted at me through 
>> my headphones without warning and I'm sick of it.
>>
>> Is there a way to tell the pulseaudio daemon or whatever to leave the 
>> ALSA mixer settings as they are when it starts up?
>>
>> By the way I already had to add "load-module module-alsa-sink 
>> control=Master" to my default.pa file because for some reason, it 
>> would either set the volume to ABSOLUTELY MAXED OUT LOUD or completely 
>> muted (PCM set to 0) presumably because my soundcard (sound blaster 
>> live emu10k1) is not well supported by pulseaudio.
>>
>> thanks.
>> PM