[kde-linux] KDE resetting microphone setting upon login

[Duncan]

Mark Knecht posted on Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:05:13 -0700 as excerpted:

>  I hate to be sort of 'Well, duh...' but kmix is what I'm using and
> the problem is evidenced entering in KDE before I run kmix.
> 
> 1) Enter KDE 2) Open kmix. Settings for the mic are all zeroed out. Set
> them and test the mic.
> 3) Close kmix.
> 4) Open a terminal and run alsamixer to check levels. They are all fine.
> 5) Log out of KDE 6) Shell to the Linux console. Run alsamixer. All
> levels for the mic are fine.
> 7) Log back into KDE
> 
> 8) At this point I can run alsamixer or mkix first. Both show all levels
> for the mic set back to zeros again.
> 
> It's KDE that's setting them to zeroes, not kmix best I can tell.

What I'm saying, tho, is that I think kmix is started "as kde 
infrastructure" with kde, when it's installed.  It won't popup, but it 
/might/ be in the tray... if you have the tray set to show it.

(Re tray hiding things: I'm using firefox as my default browser now, and 
don't normally run kwallet any longer.  However, I recently needed an old 
password out of it, and therefore started kwalletmanager... but it 
disappeared!  I normally keep all possible icons visible in the tray, 
and /used/ to have kwallet forced visible too, so it didn't at first 
occur to me that the systray plasmoid might be hiding it.  But somewhere 
along the line while not running it for several weeks/months, the systray 
plasmoid decided ON ITS OWN that I no longer wanted to see kwallet when 
it started, DESPITE MY SETTING EVERYTHING ELSE TO ALWAYS SHOW AND DESPITE 
KWALLET BEING SET TO ALWAYS SHOW THE LAST TIME I USED IT!!  Once I 
figured out that kwalletmanager was still running and I just couldn't see 
it, I eventually figured it out, but I WAS NOT HAPPY that the plasmoid 
had been hiding it on me, when all the settings should have been to show 
it!  It's likely that it'll hide the kmix tray icon on you too, if you 
let it!

Anyway, I believe it's that kmix, starting hidden with kde, that's 
setting things back to zero.  That's what I was suggesting to check.  
However, it's possible that you are correct and that there's a different 
mechanism used now, since I've not tried kmix in awhile.

kmix isn't a big build.  I guess I could install it again, to double-
check the options so I can tell you exactly what they are and where to 
find them, and see if I can duplicate the issue...  But I'm not going to 
do it right this moment.

However, there IS a sure and simple way to verify whether it's kmix or 
not.  Since you already have alsamixer, you won't be without a volume 
control entirely if you unmerge kmix.  Try unmerging it at least 
temporarily, and see if the problem disappears.  If kmix isn't there and 
the problem persists, you know it's not kmix, starting with kde or not!  
If it's gone along with kmix, then you know kmix must at least somehow be 
involved.

> As I said earlier, this never happened with earlier versions of KDE,
> and to the best of my ability to tell so far I don't think it has
> anything to do with kmix. It's a KDE thing overall since alsamixer shows
> them as different right after I log out vs right after I log back in.
> 
>    Like you I don't use pulseaudio and likely won't ever. My KDE audio
> backend is Gentoo default. I've never changed that.
> 
>    To me this sounds like a bug that should be reported somewhere. I
> guess I'll send it to Gentoo devs and let them push it up to KDE if they
> think that's the right thing to do.

That's probably the right thing to do, regardless of whether it's kmix or 
not.  But you can try the unmerge test above, and include the results in 
whatever bug you file.  =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman