Mute Multiple Microphones

[grahamwhiteuk]

This extension is perfect for me except that I have two microphones attached to my laptop. There's the default microphone on the laptop and there's an additional microphone connected via USB (as attached to a web cam). The mute button only appears to mute the default microphone, which may not be the one I'm using. I wonder if it's possible to update the extension in order to mute all microphones? A further enhancement might allow the user to configure which of their microphones would get muted by the extension but for me the simple case of mute and unmute all microphone devices would work wonderfully. Thanks for your work on this.

[wbolster]

yep i agree that it would be best to keep it simple and always mute/unmute all microphones.

[iPablo]

Hi @wbolster, thank you for the work you are doing here. I would like to know if you intend to add this functionality to the roadmap.

[wbolster]

🤣 there is no roadmap but if there was any this would be on it. i wrote above that i think this would be sensible behaviour.

(i have not actively worked on this project in a long time)

[grahamwhiteuk]

What's the best way forward? Are you starting up again or are we talking fork or pull request? I see the one open PR is now outdated so would be good to see some commentary on the prospects for this work. Thanks again for your work here, love the idea.

[wbolster]

always taking reasonable pull requests that don't appear as 'yolo i suspect this code maybe has a chance of working sometimes on the developer's machine, perhaps' 🤪

[wbolster]

practically speaking, changing this extension to mute/unmute all mics, with a reasonable investigation in how it would work in case things are not in sync, and the tradeoffs made etc, would be a welcome enhancement

[brianjmurrell]

So how does the extension currently decide which mic to mute when there are multiple? Is it just totally random choice among them? Or is it deterministic in some way?

I came here from #46, so just knowing if mic choice is deterministic and what determines it would be sufficient.

[urmilparikh]

So how does the extension currently decide which mic to mute when there are multiple? Is it just totally random choice among them? Or is it deterministic in some way?

I came here from #46, so just knowing if mic choice is deterministic and what determines it would be sufficient.

It uses default mic:

this.mixer_control = new Gvc.MixerControl({ name: "Nothing to say" });
this.stream = this.mixer_control.get_default_source();

May be, there could be an option to mute / unmute all mics but monitor only default mic?

[brianjmurrell]

It uses default mic:

Does it? My current PA fallback configuration:

so WH-CH710N is the fallback, yet when I toggle: to
:

It toggles the (non-fallback) USB Audio Headset input to un-muted.

Am I misunderstanding something?

[brianjmurrell]

Any further information I can provide here?

Unfortunately the unpredictability (and control -- even by just setting the desired input as the fallback) of which input this will actually toggle makes it quite unusable. I don't actually use it any more. I use the input mute control on PA volume control tool instead, as cumbersome as it is.

[grahamwhiteuk]

This paper adds some weight to the argument of muting microphones at the OS level instead of in apps: Are You Really Muted?: A Privacy Analysis of Mute Buttons in Video Conferencing Apps

[brianjmurrell]

@grahamwhiteuk I think we are all here because we agree that trusting apps to mute is like trusting the fox to look after the hen-house.

The problem is that this app isn't working in scenarios of multiple inputs (who doesn't have multiple inputs these days?). It's not even predictably working with the designated default input. Which input it mutes seems to be pretty random or at least non-deterministic.