[Conexant CX20561 (Hermosa)] No indicator that input is muted

Bug #683689 reported by Jonathan Lange
6
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
The Sound Menu
Fix Released
Medium
Conor Curran
indicator-sound (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Wishlist
Unassigned
pulseaudio (Ubuntu)
Opinion
Wishlist
Unassigned

Bug Description

When my computer boots, the audio input is completely muted. When I want to make a Skype or Mumble call, I have to open up the Sound preferences and uncheck the "Mute" checkbox on the input tab. I would argue that this is a bug in itself.

However, the real bug I want to report is that there is no visible indicator that I have to do this. Most commonly, I find out by beginning a conversation, talking and then the other parties in the conversation asking me whether I'm there and whether I'm muted.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: alsa-base 1.0.23+dfsg-1ubuntu4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-23.41-generic 2.6.35.7
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-23-generic x86_64
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.23.
Architecture: amd64
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: CONEXANT Analog [CONEXANT Analog]
   Subdevices: 0/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: jml 2156 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0c: jml 2156 F...m pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p: jml 2156 F...m pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xf2620000 irq 46'
   Mixer name : 'Conexant CX20561 (Hermosa)'
   Components : 'HDA:14f15051,17aa20ff,00100000'
   Controls : 14
   Simple ctrls : 7
Card29.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:29 'ThinkPadEC'/'ThinkPad Console Audio Control at EC reg 0x30, fw 7XHT21WW-1.03'
   Mixer name : 'ThinkPad EC 7XHT21WW-1.03'
   Components : ''
   Controls : 1
   Simple ctrls : 1
Card29.Amixer.values:
 Simple mixer control 'Console',0
   Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined penum
   Playback channels: Mono
   Mono: Playback [on]
Date: Wed Dec 1 14:51:15 2010
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_AU.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SelectedCard: 0 Intel HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
SourcePackage: alsa-driver
Symptom: audio
Title: [Conexant CX20561 (Hermosa)] Recording problem
UserAsoundrc:
 # ALSA library configuration file

 # Include settings that are under the control of asoundconf(1).
 # (To disable these settings, comment out this line.)
 </home/jml/.asoundrc.asoundconf>
dmi.bios.date: 07/30/2008
dmi.bios.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.bios.version: 6DET28WW (1.05 )
dmi.board.name: 7454A12
dmi.board.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.board.version: Not Available
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Information
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.chassis.version: Not Available
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnLENOVO:bvr6DET28WW(1.05):bd07/30/2008:svnLENOVO:pn7454A12:pvrThinkPadX200:rvnLENOVO:rn7454A12:rvrNotAvailable:cvnLENOVO:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
dmi.product.name: 7454A12
dmi.product.version: ThinkPad X200
dmi.sys.vendor: LENOVO

Related branches

Revision history for this message
Jonathan Lange (jml) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Daniel T Chen (crimsun) wrote :

So the problem here is that, on a nontrivial portion of hardware, having the input unmuted alongside the output results in pretty disastrous feedback, which is arguably a nastier user experience than an unintuitive capture-enabled-by-default mechanism. This bit of hardware nastiness is not limited to any subset of codecs (or revisions of codecs, even) or controllers either, unfortunately. The question, therefore, becomes, "Should Ubuntu choose brokenness A by default over brokenness B?"

Now, I empathize with your frustration, but at a distro choice level, it's very difficult to judge whether brokenness A is worthwhile over brokenness B.

I think in this case that we should evaluate unmuting the microphone once a pulse client connects a source-output. Any opinions?

affects: alsa-driver (Ubuntu) → pulseaudio (Ubuntu)
Changed in pulseaudio (Ubuntu):
status: New → Opinion
Revision history for this message
Jonathan Lange (jml) wrote :

That sounds like a good plan. Having a visual indication of whether input is muted could be a good start that wouldn't involve choosing one brokenness over another.

Daniel T Chen (crimsun)
Changed in pulseaudio (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
Changed in indicator-sound (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
Conor Curran (cjcurran)
Changed in indicator-sound (Ubuntu):
status: New → Opinion
Changed in indicator-sound:
status: New → Opinion
assignee: nobody → Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)
tags: added: design
Revision history for this message
Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) wrote :

Ubuntu bug reports should not be set to "Opinion", I don't know why this bug is assigned to me, and I don't know why it's anything to do with the sound menu.

I am bitten by this bug every week when I try to start a Mumble call: Ubuntu repeatedly sets the microphone as muted. For the first few weeks, I thought that Ubuntu was failing to recognize my microphone at all.

Changed in indicator-sound:
assignee: Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) → nobody
status: Opinion → Invalid
Conor Curran (cjcurran)
Changed in indicator-sound:
status: Invalid → Confirmed
assignee: nobody → Conor Curran (cjcurran)
status: Confirmed → In Progress
importance: Undecided → High
importance: High → Medium
Revision history for this message
Conor Curran (cjcurran) wrote :

Firstly apologies MPT, in my frenzied bug triaging two weeks ago I must have accidentally assigned this bug to you.

The part of this bug that is concerned with indicator-sound is that the initial muted state of the device is not correctly reflected in the menu.

Jonathon can you confirm that this still happens with version 0.5.9 (released last week) ?

Conor

Revision history for this message
Jonathan Lange (jml) wrote :

Version 0.5.9 of indicator-sound or pulseaudio? Either way, is it in natty or will I have to install separately?

Revision history for this message
Conor Curran (cjcurran) wrote :

Sorry 0.5.9 of indicator-sound and yes it is in Natty.

Revision history for this message
Conor Curran (cjcurran) wrote :

Okay in reading this again, sorry I thought it was the sink output you were referring to as I have noticed the speaker port to be muted at startup after a very recent update. Only through Alsamixer can you unmute the speaker port.

MPT I assigned you to this bug because Jonathan is requesting a feature to be included in the design of the menu which I thought you may be interested in ...

Revision history for this message
Conor Curran (cjcurran) wrote :

I intend to implement this microphone feature of the spec for this weeks release
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoundMenu#microphone-item
Hopefully this should help.

Changed in indicator-sound:
milestone: none → 0.6.0
Revision history for this message
Conor Curran (cjcurran) wrote :

This feature will land today. Please note that mumble needs to be patched inorder for this be effective for mumble. Works fine for skype.
Will patch mumble someday next week.

Conor Curran (cjcurran)
Changed in indicator-sound:
status: In Progress → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package indicator-sound - 0.6.0-0ubuntu1

---------------
indicator-sound (0.6.0-0ubuntu1) natty; urgency=low

  * New upstream release.
    - New voip slider will be displayed in the sound menu while in a call
    - [Conexant CX20561(Hermosa)] No indicator that input is muted (LP: #683689)
    - Ctrl+arrow jumps sound to max volume in indicator (LP: #669167)
    - Fixed build with latest dbusmenu (LP: #717340)
    - Ported to libnotify >= 0.7.0
  * debian/control
    - Changed build depends for libnotify-dev to libnotify4-dev
 -- Ken VanDine <email address hidden> Fri, 18 Feb 2011 13:20:44 -0500

Changed in indicator-sound (Ubuntu):
status: Opinion → Fix Released
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