Often, when Amarok switches to the next track, playback volume is reset to 100%. Reproducible: Sometimes Steps to Reproduce: 1. Play some songs with Amarok 2. Wait till a song ends Actual Results: The next song is played with volume at 100% (and my ears fall off). Expected Results: Volume should not change when switching tracks. Unfortunately, I did not yet find a way to reproduce this. It happens on around half the track changes here, but I found no pattern yet. So far, it never happened when I switched to the next track using the corresponding button, I had to wait for the track switch to happen automatically. I am also not at all sure whether this bug is in Amarok, or in Phonon. I am using Phonon 4.7.1 in Debian testing with the VLC backend in version 0.7.1. I am also using PulseAudio (in version 4.0).
I strongly suspect this to be related to the phonon backend, indeed. Could you try with the phonon-backend-gstreamer and see if this still happens? It supports ReplayGain and you shouldn't run into this problem with the other backend.
The bug is so totally non-reproducible that I can hardly tell whether gstreamer is affected or not. So far, the bug did not happen with the gstreamer backend, but I will have to just listen for music in random mode to be sure about this. I just tried to find some pattern with the VLC backend, but even if jumping from a specific song to the next one triggered the problem once, it won't do so again if I play the same songs again. The 100%-jump happened both with and without ReplayGain information for both songs (I tested jumping from a song with ReplayGain to one with it, and from a ReplayGain-less song to another). Note that very few of my songs (around 30 of 1700 files) have ReplayGain data (according to soundKonverter). I'd appreciate if I could get some hint how or where to look for patterns, as I am really at loss here.
Thank you for the feedback. Unfortunately we are as much in the dark as you are, because it is not reproducible. That makes it extremely hard to solve.
The problem is related to a notification event that calls Phonon, and a duplicate. I was just not able to find it as it is strangely reported as a knotify bug, not a Phonon one... *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 324975 ***
@Myriam, according to Ralf's comments here, and on 'original' report - this is not the same issue. Bug 324975 concerns *master* volume getting bumped after, and only with, KNotify sounds. With regards to described behavior here, i had actually the opposite (iirc also with VLC backend), that after some song started, *amarok* volume would go to some 3%. And i did have the situation that volume would go to full 100% after a song start. Both problems *cannot* be reproduced *at will*. I am ATM using VLC backend, will try to figure out some pattern if possible.
Might be related: when Amarok is started, the first song is played with maximum volume, despite the volume is set to another value. Adjusting volume control brings it to set value. Always reproductible on vlc-backend, Debian Testing, Amarok 2.8.0. This issue ocurred sometimes with gstreamer-backend, not too often. I'm not sure if my problem is duplicate of this one, so I report it here instead of filing a new bug, please, tell me if I have to. Thank you.
This should be given a higher importance, since it may damage user's hearing when playing through headphones (has happened to me many times).
This happens to me too. It seems that the volume gets reset when another application is also outputting sounds, and then exits. It's very vague, but I hope it helps in tracking down this bug, as it is quite annoying!
@Martin Zecher Unfortunately, FOSS audio players developers generally don't care enough about users hearing because "the user should check the volume before putting headphones over his ears". For the record, I had myself a very bad experience with Rockbox... @Amarok devs Don't be like them, put your users's earing safety above everything else. You can change/update a software. You can't change your ears.
(In reply to Evert Vorster from comment #8) > This happens to me too. > > It seems that the volume gets reset when another application is also > outputting sounds, and then exits. > > It's very vague, but I hope it helps in tracking down this bug, as it is > quite annoying! I think I've found a workaround. After reading your comment I found out that Amarok's volume is reset to 100% after an audio notification. For example, push shift+delete on a file. You'll get an audio notification. The following track in Amarok will be at 100% volume. The workaround is: 1) in Kickoff search for "phonon". You'll find something called "audio and video settings". 2) Go to the last tab, called "Backend". 3) Give "GSstreamer" a higher priority than "VLC". 4) Reboot. Also see https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=324975#c91 for reference. I guess it's somehow related to this bug.
Ok, after a few days I can say it works reliably. Just be aware that changing to GStreamer activates two options in Amarok's "Playback" settings. These are "Fadeout on stop" and "Fadeout on pause". You may want to deactivate them, if you don't like them. I did it.
One minor annoiance of GStreamer backend. It looks like with it Amarok can't play short tracks (few seconds) of a playlist. If you play a single short track alone, it works. If you play a playlist, Amarok will skip every short track.