volume not fully mutable

[benedictstrube]

First of all, great utility! ❤️

One thing I noticed is, that it does not seem to be possible, to fully mute the volume when Volume Control is running. When pressing the mute button or lowering the volume to the minimum, the volume is marginally higher than 0%. Only muting via the vanilla volume slider from the menu bar works.

Maybe this is something you can look into at some point. Not that important tbh.

[alberti42]

Thank you for the feedback. Is it possible to send a screenshot? I have never seen this bug before. You can monitor what is happening while you press the volume buttons if you make the app menu visible like in the screenshot.. then you can see whether you effectively reach 0%.

[marckrenn]

Can confirm, no matter the volume step, the lowest it will ever go for me is {volume 0 + volume step} very low but still audible.

[alberti42]

It is a bit hard for me to debug because I cannot reproduce the bug. See the uploaded video.

Oct-24-2024.00-20-54_.mp4

[marckrenn]

Hey Andrea,

I can confirm that the GUI shows 0% system volume, but if you have media playing, you can still clearly hear it. So the GUI apparently doesn't match the actual volume. This is btw also the case when hitting the hardware mute-key.

I'm on a MBP w/ M1 Pro, if that helps.

Let me know if I can help you debug it somehow. Thanks.

[marckrenn]

Just took a brief look at the code and I think one of these conditionals needs to be <=

Volume-Control/Sources/Controllers/ISSoundAdditions.m

Line 141 in b8ea9f3

if ( (muteValue = (newValue < THRESHOLD)) )

Volume-Control/Sources/Controllers/ISSoundAdditions.m

Line 132 in b8ea9f3

newValue = theVolume > 1.0 ? 1.0 : (theVolume < 0.0 ? 0.0 : theVolume);

[alberti42]

Thanks a lot! I will fix and release a new updated version in the next couple of weeks. Since it is hopefully a not supercritical bug, I hope you will have understanding if I do not do it immediately. Thanks again!!

[marckrenn]

I have to thank you for keeping your your great tool alive! 🙂

[alberti42]

I actually found some time from an airport to fix the bug. You can search for new updates and this should allow you to update the app automatically.

Unfortunately I could not test whether the problem is truly fixed because I am not running on a mac right now. If the problem persists, your feedback is welcome.

[marckrenn]

This fixed it, thank you so much @alberti42 🎉

Safe travels and have a nice Sunday! 😊

[marckrenn]

Oh no, @alberti42 , it's still there 🙈 It's now barely audible via the MacBook Pro's speaker (had to place my ear on the speaker grill in order to hear it), but it's still audible using headphones.

[alberti42]

Oh, I am sorry. I was too fast to push out the release then. The problem is that my hears are not good enough to hear anything when I reached minimum volume. I will have to do more debugging. If you have any idea what the problem is, it is much appreciated.

PS: Just to confirm, if you move the volume bar of Apple Music manually and bring it to zero, the sound is gone?

[marckrenn]

No worries 😊 With the latest update, it’s noticeably improved—I even thought it was fixed! So it’s not a major issue anymore, though obviously, it would still be great if it were fully resolved.

If you have any idea what the problem is, it is much appreciated.

I’ll try looking into it, though I don’t have much experience with MacOS internals or Objective-C, so please keep expectations modest.

PS: Just to confirm, if you move the volume bar of Apple Music manually and bring it to zero, the sound is gone?

Yup, if I do that, it's gone for good.

[alberti42]

I have committed a version with debug information about the current and newer volume. You can find the infos in the console of Xcode (if you know how to compile the app) or in the Apple Console app, which you probably can find using spotlight. In the zip file, you find the app already compiled. I am afraid you would have to sign it again.

Volume Control.zip

For some strange reason, Apple forced me to abandon the previous identifier org.Alberti42.VolumeControlApp. So I had to compile the app with

PRODUCT_BUNDLE_IDENTIFIER = com.Alberti42.VolumeControlApp

I say this because you may wonder why the settings are no longer preserved. When I started this project, it was so simple to compile and deploy apps, because there were not all these security barriers. I am not saying that it is bad thing, but it makes everything so more complicated.

Have a look in the video. You should be able to see that you can reach 0% of the volume in the console:

Nov-03-2024.14-44-01_.mp4

[mafredri]

I think this is a Mac quirk that's being exposed due to a slight difference in behavior between system and Volume Control. Without Volume Control, the system automatically applies mute at volume 0 (via keyboard) whereas Volume Control does not. Without Volume Control running, when I use the keyboard to reduce volume to 0, then untoggle mute, I still get a slight noise bleed, same as when using Volume Control.