Volume level changes when turning bluetooth off and on

[ghost2484]

I'm using an HP Envy x360 Laptop with Linux Mint. I'm not sure if this issue is better categorized as a bluetooth issue or an audio issue, since I cannot check whether the issue happens through a non-bluetooth speaker (the laptop's built-in speakers don't support Linux and I don't have a corded speaker handy), but it's more directly related to volume than to bluetooth connection so I'm posting it here.

I've noticed that my laptop's volume and the volume percentage it claims to be at both jump around a lot. If I manually disable and re-enable bluetooth, or put it to sleep and wake it back up a couple of times, one of the following scenarios generally happens:

1. The volume is different (usually significantly louder or quieter) but the volume percentage is the same
2. The volume percentage has changed, but the actual output is the same
3. Both the volume and the percentage have changed

Certain numbers tend to come up more often (it jumps a lot between 6 and 76, for example, and I think that's usually when I was previously at 100), but I can't judge the volume accurately enough to narrow down the pattern for certain.

I'm reasonably sure that my bluetooth device is not at fault here (I've used it with very few problems on a wide variety of other devices, including ones with this same operating system). I've had volume-related problems with it before due to absolute volume, which would definitely cause issues if it were implemented—I don't know if that's something that would be implemented at the computer level, though. Could be a driver issue, so here's the inxi output:

Machine:
  Type: Convertible System: HP product: HP ENVY x360 2-in-1 Laptop 15-ew1xxx
    v: Type1ProductConfigId serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: HP model: 8BE3 v: 71.22 serial: <superuser required> UEFI: Insyde
    v: F.10 date: 07/06/2023
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel driver: sof-audio-pci-intel-tgl
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k6.1.0-1024-oem running: yes
  Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 15.99.1 running: yes
  Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.48 running: yes
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel type: USB driver: btusb
  Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 state: up address: E0:2E:0B:2B:4F:D4