Bug#652306: pulseaudio: volume control doesn't noticeably change volume until almost mute

[Jonathan Nieder]

# not actually unusable :)
severity 652306 important
quit

Hi,

Kenneth Wayne Foy Jr wrote:

> After I install Debian testing with a KDE environment, my volume is too loud.
> When I try to turn it down, the screen tells me that the level is going down,
> but the sound doesn't change until the level is almost to mute. Then, the sound
> gets too quiet, so the sound is either too loud, too quiet or muted with a lot
> of space in between where the volume doesn't change.

Thanks for reporting it.  Just to check: does this happen with pulseaudio 1.1
from unstable, too?

Is this a regression?  That is, have you tried with any earlier version, and if
so, did it work better?  A live CD might be one way to see what happens with an
earlier version if you haven't checked.

Please attach output from the alsa-info.sh[1] script, so we can get to know your
hardware.  Hopefully someone else can give advice for pulseaudio-specific
information that would help to track this down.

Regarding the number of channels: that seems unrelated.  See [2] for background.

Sorry for the trouble and hope that helps,
Jonathan

[1] http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-info.sh
[2] http://pulseaudio.org/wiki/PulseAudioStoleMyVolumes