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digitalone

Member

Registered: 2011-08-19

Posts: 346

Firefox AudioIPC Server and Pulseaudio inconsistent volume levels

Hello. When I play something inside Firefox, application volume control related to the browser in KMix is named AudioIPC Server. What's this server?
For Chromium is "Chromium Playback". Should not be "Firefox Playback" for Firefox?

Same happens in pavucontrol. Is AudioIPC Server for you also?

Another issue: Firefox is the only application which cannot store volume level between sessions. Whenever I set it to 100%, next time I launch the app, volume is reset to 83%. Don't know where this 83% come from, media.default_volume in about:config is set as default 1.0, but won't work.

Last edited by digitalone (2019-02-21 22:07:27)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,672

Re: Firefox AudioIPC Server and Pulseaudio inconsistent volume levels

Yes that's normal, this is the name the firefox audio stream registers itself with in pulseaudio. Go ask Mozilla why that is the case if you'd rather see a different name.

For the volume, unlike Chromium for example, firefox synchronizes it's pulse stream with the volume level of whatever source you have opened (and if that source stores it's volume levels, it will be applied accordingly) e.g. if you open up youtube or most other streaming pages, the volume in that specific player will be remembered across sessions in your account, and that's what firefox replicates over to the pulse stream.

To properly assess whether that's the case here you might want to point out on which specific pages you are seeing this "default volume". I'm not sure whether it's possible to prevent Firefox from this synchronization so that the volumes would be distinct again, but I haven't looked into it much either.

Last edited by V1del (2019-02-21 17:52:23)

digitalone

Member

Registered: 2011-08-19

Posts: 346

Re: Firefox AudioIPC Server and Pulseaudio inconsistent volume levels

For the volume, unlike Chromium for example, firefox synchronizes it's pulse stream with the volume level of whatever source you have opened (and if that source stores it's volume levels, it will be applied accordingly) e.g. if you open up youtube or most other streaming pages, the volume in that specific player will be remembered across sessions in your account, and that's what firefox replicates over to the pulse stream.

To properly assess whether that's the case here you might want to point out on which specific pages you are seeing this "default volume". I'm not sure whether it's possible to prevent Firefox from this synchronization so that the volumes would be distinct again, but I haven't looked into it much either.

No, I've looked into it. It's a known bug.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1454185
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1343681
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1422637
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1407288
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1515549

It's unbelievable one can't set a volume level for a specified application, unless you adjust it over and over because it can't remember the level you set. And the application here is Firefox. Quite annoying.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,672

Re: Firefox AudioIPC Server and Pulseaudio inconsistent volume levels

None of these reports contradict what I said. Technically it's a feature, practically it can be annoying, if you aren't used to the behaviour. If you do consistently change the volume from the source (e.g. the volume knob in a youtube video) that's generating the stream as opposed to externally from a pulsemixer, the behaviour will be as you'd expect. They are currently looking into a way to make the sync two way instead of one way. But that synchronisation from media volume -> pulse volume is happening, and deliberately so.

You could workaround it now by forcing a specific volume using pulse's module-match to enforce a specific volume for the firefox stream, e.g.

load-module module-match

Where ~/.pulse/match.table contains

^AudioIPC 65536

to force it to a guaranteed 100%  but that would of course force that specific volume for every stream, instead of remembering individually.

Last edited by V1del (2019-02-21 19:27:01)

digitalone

Member

Registered: 2011-08-19

Posts: 346

Re: Firefox AudioIPC Server and Pulseaudio inconsistent volume levels

Now I understand. I didn't figure out that Firefox synchronizes stream volume level onto pulseaudio sink "AudioIPC". Don't know why, but if I change volume (inside the browser) when the stream is playing, AudioIPC does not match the exact level. Anyway, if I do it when the stream is paused, the level is correct. 0 in the player is 0 on AudioIPC, 100 in the player is 100 on AudioIPC. Maybe it's because PulseEffect (which I use) is interfering during the playback.

As you said, reverse sync is missing. Changes in KMix (or whichever pulseaudio volume control) is not made inside the browser and that change is not stored across sessions.

I prefer Chromium behavior. Thank you anyway.

Last edited by digitalone (2019-02-22 13:12:29)

digitalone

Member

Registered: 2011-08-19

Posts: 346

Re: Firefox AudioIPC Server and Pulseaudio inconsistent volume levels

I have to rectify. Even if the stream is paused, browser volume level does not correspond exactly with AudioIPC pulseaudio sink level. 0 to 100 inside the browser is mapped to 0 to 84 now. This changes from time to time, I think that's something related to PulseEffects Volume Normalization. But PulseEffects should only act on its own sink (PulseEffects(apps)), it's very weird.

Last edited by digitalone (2019-02-21 22:09:54)

retalak

Member

Registered: 2018-05-19

Posts: 9

Re: Firefox AudioIPC Server and Pulseaudio inconsistent volume levels

Any news on this being officially fixed? I still have this problem. Changing volume in the media to 100%, such as a YouTube video, only translates to 83% in pulse. Works as expected in Chromium, with 100% in YouTube being 100% in pulse.

Last edited by retalak (2019-10-16 20:04:26)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,672

Re: Firefox AudioIPC Server and Pulseaudio inconsistent volume levels

I'd assume that the percentage disjoint is due to the actual value/volume steppings being different (because percentages are an arbitrary value and will not have a mapping guarantee between different software) chromium doesn't factor in here as it doesn't implement this in the first place.

Either way follow the posted bug reports, unless those are marked as fixed we can discuss this here endlessly.

Closing.