Bug 349749

Summary:	kdialog uses wrong audio device for audio notifications (with pulseaudio)
Product:	[Frameworks and Libraries] Phonon	Reporter:	Maciej Mrozowski <reavertm>
Component:	general	Assignee:	Harald Sitter <sitter>
Status:	RESOLVED WORKSFORME
Severity:	normal	CC:	myriam, romain.perier
Priority:	NOR
Version:	4.8.3
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Fedora RPMs
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Maciej Mrozowski 2015-06-30 12:37:47 UTC

kdialog uses wrong (non-default) audio device for audio notifications with pulseaudio.

Packages used:
kdialog-15.04.2-1.fc22.x86_64
pulseaudio-6.0-4.fc22.x86_64
phonon-4.8.3-3.fc22.x86_64
phonon-backend-gstreamer-4.8.2-3.fc22.x86_64
phonon-qt5-backend-gstreamer-4.8.2-3.fc22.x86_64
phonon-qt5-4.8.3-3.fc22.x86_64

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Plug in external (USB) headset and set it as default output device in pulseaudio (pavucontrol)
2. Set up phonon to use pulseaudio (install proper packages in system) and gstreamer as a backend
3. Play some audio or notifications (for instance Plasma-produced message boxes with audible notification) - will be played using correct audio output (in ex. USB headset)
4. Trigger kdialog-based notification (shift-del some file in Dolphin, or invoke 'kdialog --warningyesno Test') - audio will be played using non-default output device (for instance built-in speakers in laptop)

Comment 1 Brad Hards 2015-07-01 11:09:30 UTC

There is no special handling of audio in kdialog.

Comment 2 Maciej Mrozowski 2015-07-13 11:56:56 UTC

And yet it happens.
I digged a bit more and confirmed by suspictions kdialog has not been 'ported to Qt5/KDE5' yet, so uses different phonon than the one used by already ported applications.
It results with different output being used by Phonon test in SystemSettings and anything that uses kdialog (like dolphin).

I consider this Fedora fault for rushing not-yet ready software out of the door in Fedora 22, nothing that upstream can really do about (unless someone finds a way to align configuration of phonon and phonon-qt5...)

Comment 3 Maciej Mrozowski 2015-07-13 12:05:32 UTC

Or you suspect the bug should be moved to phonon group for inconsistently enumerating/using pulseaudio backend in their Qt4 an Qt5 plugins?

Comment 4 Maciej Mrozowski 2015-08-05 13:22:54 UTC

Ping? Do you think I should move that to phonon group?

Comment 5 Harald Sitter 2015-09-24 07:15:20 UTC

> It results with different output being used by Phonon test in SystemSettings and anything that uses kdialog (like dolphin).

The KCM is a frontend for pulseaudio so the device order there applies to aaaaaaaaalll versions of phonon as well as any other software that implements support for pulseaudio's devicemanager plugin.

Some debug output would be helpful. [1] (of both plasmashell when playing a notification and kdialog)

https://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Debugging/Phonon#Environment_Variables

Comment 6 Maciej Mrozowski 2015-11-04 12:19:01 UTC

I dongraded my distribution to KDE4-only setup and ... I reproduced the problem so it's definitely not what I expected with Qt4/Qt5 phonon plugins.

And I found the problem - it's between chair and computer.
It seems I had different playback device priorities for Notifications. This is why kdialog was using different output device than plasma for instance.

Sometimes too much flexibility is a problem :)
Hopefully phonon will keep my device priority settings after hot-plug events.