Bluetooth starting up at max volume (145%) with Mint 19.1 Cinnamon

[ssfc72]

Has anyone else had the issue were, when bluetooth is turned on, the the volume defaults to max volume (145%)?
I recently got a pair of bluetooth earbuds headset and my ears were getting blasted by the extremely loud volume when I turned on the bluetooth. I now have to, after turning on bluetooth, go to the volume control on the desktop, and turn the volume down from the 145%, to 60%, before I start to play the movie that I want to watch.  Before I turn on the bluetooth, the desktop volume is set at around 60%, but when the bluetooth is turned on the desktop volume defaults to 145%. :-(

Anyone have this issue on other Linux distros?

[Jason]

Not a Linux issue, per se, but I had a somewhat related problem on my Android phone. It turned out to be I was using a music effect that they warned can sometimes cause problems. But in my case, every time I turned it down a couple of notches, it would shoot up again. You might want to check if you have the normalization option set or some other auto-levelling enabled.

• Is it just specific to a particular program or does it happen whenever you launch any program?
• And is it the same earbuds that you gifted me?

Because I've never noticed this problem for the very few times I used it with my computer using Linux Lite. I don't use it with the PC much because the battery doesn't last enough to make it worthwhile.

[ssfc72]

Thanks for the help, Jason.
1.  I have only used the bluetooth earbud headset, when I watch a video on the computer. The video could be either from YouTube or the Hoopla video streaming service. So both of these are using the Browser (either Opera or Firefox).  So the issue with the bluetooth deafulting to 145% volume, on startup, occurs in this situation.

2. Yes, I am using the $6 "dollar store" bluetooth earbud headset.  I do have some other bluetooth earbuds only, so I will try and test them out today and see if I still have the same issue.

I am also going to see if I can hack the battery in the Bluetooth earbud headset, and fit on a larger lipo battery. :-)  Should be an easy hack.  I have a spare small lipo battery that I bought for my car dashcam.  This battery would probably last for 8 hrs instead of the 2 hrs that the headset battery provides.

[Jason]

That's very odd. I can't think of anything else to try other than using a different web browser or download a video and try it to narrow down the problem. I was thinking maybe a defective pair of earbuds but it doesn't have a volume control on it, I don't believe. The other buttons are for going forward and back a track for music.

Will the battery you're looking at fit inside or will it adhere to the outside?

[ssfc72]

No, the lipo battery I expect to use, will have to be attached to the cord of the wireless earbud headset.
I peeked inside the case and the existing battery is probably about a 1/3 of the physical size, of the battery that I will add ( I am assuming the battery voltage is the same as the lipo battery that I plan to use).  I will cut the leads to the internal battery and add some leads out of the case, to the external battery, that I am going to use.

[gmiller1977]

Bluetooth is tempermental at the best of times in my experience.

Does it only go to that volume with the earbuds?  Do you have another bluetooth audio device you could test with?

[Jason]

Bluetooth is tempermental at the best of times in my experience.

That's my experience, too. I wear my earbuds out and sometimes my hand in my coat's pocket (phone is in my pants pocket) causes the music to stutter, sometimes not. It seems to be a laser in that it's a line of sight a lot of the time; I mean Bluetooth generally, not just these earbuds. I have a $50 pair of Bluetooth headphones and they're more temperamental than this $6 pair of earbuds. Longer battery life though!

[ssfc72]

Ok, I tried a different set of bluetooth earbuds on the Mint 19.1 notebook computer and they default to  a startup volume of 100%.  This is a little easier on the ears than the 145% volume that the Escape ($6) Bluetooth earbud headset, defaults to.  I had to go to the MXLinux menu and search for bluetooth, to find the bluetooth program and boot it up, in order to get bluetooth working. :-(    A bluetooth icon should be standard, on a device bar, like it is with Mint 19.1.

I then tried the Escape (6$) Bluetooth earbud headset on my Dell 13" XPS that is running MXLinux and the Escape bluetooth earbud headset defaults to a startup volume of around 70%.
Under MXLinux, I found bluetooth a lot harder to get working, than with Mint 19.1.  It was complicated to get the bluetooth pairing to complete and then to adjust the audio volume of the bluetooth, required finding the Pulseaudio program and setting the volume from it.