SUMMARY *** The notification sound for plasma startup was muted in 5.24. In 5.25.4 it is playing at full volume, regardless of the actual volume settings. It appears that the main volume setting is only applied *after* the startup sound has been played. *** STEPS TO REPRODUCE 1. Start computer and log in 2. 3. OBSERVED RESULT Startup sound is played at what appears to be full volume. EXPECTED RESULT Startup sound being played at volume set at previous session, e.g. 40%. SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS Windows: macOS: Linux/KDE Plasma: Kubuntu 22.04 (available in About System) KDE Plasma Version: 5.25.4 KDE Frameworks Version: 5.95.0 Qt Version: 5.15.3 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION I'm running Wayland.
You can change the volume of notification sounds in System Settings > Audio. Does that work?
Yes, that works as advertised. All sounds are always played at the set volume, EXCEPT the startup sound at startup. If I play the startup sound "manually", e.g. via the notifications settings test button, it plays at the set overall volume. As mentioned above, my suspicion is that the volume defaults to 100% until the settings from the previous session have been read in and applied. It seems the startup sound is played BEFORE that happens. Just a wild guess, though.
Because the startup sound uses the notification volume, I think this is intentional. If you want your notification sounds to be quieter, you should change your notification sound level to match the main volume level.
Seems I didn't describe the problem well enough: My volume settings are 100% for notifications (and mostly all other output streams) and 40% for the master volume. Therefore, I'd expect the notifications to be at 100% x 40% = 40% output volume. This is actually the case for all notification sounds, EXCEPT for the startup sound (but only at startup). In the past it used to be the case for the startup sound at startup too, but then the startup sound disappeared somewhere between KDE being updated towards 5.24 (or even earlier; it might have been missing for a while before I missed it) and me switching from X11 to Wayland. Now the startup sound is back with 5.25, but too loud. It looks as if the 40% master volume setting is not applied before playing the startup sound. However, it definitely was in the past. Once plasma is up and running, all audio outputs do respect the 40% master volume. Yes, I could lower the volume for notifications to 40% to have the startup sound played at that level. But then all subsequent notifications would be too silent at 40% master x 40% notifications = 16% effective level.
Ok, got it.
Somehow the problem has disappeared with Kubuntu 22.10.