Comment 7 for bug 1478506

I think there are two possibilities here.

One is that this is merely a duplicate of bug 1418210: volume level is reset "anytime a new QAudioOutput is created",

The other is that we have our output roles muddled. I was told that the default role for sound output -- not alarms, not phone calls, and not media playback, but anything else -- was called "alert". So I specified that the volume controls should default to controlling the "alert" volume, switching to another role temporarily only when that other role is being used. <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Sound?action=diff&rev2=137&rev1=136> Alarms, phone calls, and media playback almost always last for more than a couple of a seconds, so you have time to change their volume.

But if apps are -- or whatever audio API apps use is -- by default using some output role that is *not* "alert", then we'd see pretty much what's described here: the volume controls switch to showing that other role, but it's usually too brief for you to change the volume before the control reverts to showing the alert volume. So it *looks* like apps are changing the volume themselves, when really they're just using an output role that you usually don't see the volume of and don't have time to change the volume of.

As well as being annoying in itself, the existence of this bug is causing confusion in other bug reports about sound volume UI, particularly bug 1389761, bug 1396986, and bug 1478075.