Camera is on by default 💀

[snoweuph]

When you join any call, your camera gets always turned on by default.
This is a behavior Sable shares with Element and I think its crazy

Even when the UI clearly shows you that the cam is off,

and you then join, it still gets turned on.

you are directly calling somebody?
The Camera gets automatically turned on.

This shouldn't be the default behaviour

[7w1]

It’s not the default behavior and i can’t reproduce it. Need more people to test and figure out the cause :(

[snoweuph]

bug.mp4

(ive blacked out my cam for this example)

@7w1 It only seems to happens most times

[nixRidge]

Can't reproduce this in either Sable electron client or in Firefox 148 on Arch Linux 🤔

[henk717]

Considering I have this with near 100% reliability like I mentioned before in the matrix channel I don't mind trying to find the cause.
But to do so it would help knowing where the relevant code is as that would speed up to the time it takes to test this.

[7w1]

@henk717 It’s likely in this folder https://github.com/SableClient/Sable/tree/dev/src/app/plugins/call
or this folder:
https://github.com/SableClient/Sable/tree/dev/src/app/features/call

[henk717]

I find this odd: https://github.com/element-hq/element-call/blob/6d14f1d06ff007ce8a98f8e4e467fbb650da3796/src/state/MuteStates.ts#L202-L206

Looking at element-call they first sync their state with the host and then the host with them? Am I reading that right?
Because this would imply the widget initializes with video on and syncs it back. You may need to block that briefly ensuring your state gets synced and then only after successful initialization allow this.

[henk717]

I think I found it.

Sable/src/app/plugins/call/CallEmbed.ts

Lines 72 to 87 in 621f402

	const params = new URLSearchParams({
	widgetId,
	parentUrl: clientOrigin,
	baseUrl: mx.baseUrl,
	roomId: room.roomId,
	userId,
	deviceId,
	intent,
	skipLobby: 'true',
	confineToRoom: 'true',
	appPrompt: 'false',
	perParticipantE2EE: room.hasEncryptionStateEvent().toString(),
	lang: 'en-EN',
	theme: themeKind,
	});

defines the initial state of the call widget with the url params, it defines the lobby is skipped.

What is not defined is the callIntent which they internally define as video some of the time.

Due to the above that may be synced back to sable which then toggles it on on the sable side, but it depends on what kind of join event there is see : https://github.com/element-hq/element-call/blob/6d14f1d06ff007ce8a98f8e4e467fbb650da3796/src/UrlParams.ts#L407-L434

Then in case nothing gets defined the initial mute state is to turn the camera on if audio is not defined : https://github.com/element-hq/element-call/blob/6d14f1d06ff007ce8a98f8e4e467fbb650da3796/src/state/initialMuteState.ts#L35-L42

So I think this is what is happening, Sable does not pass trough the audio intent which results in the camera being enabled by the element call widget, this syncs back to the host client which is Sable https://github.com/element-hq/element-call/blob/6d14f1d06ff007ce8a98f8e4e467fbb650da3796/src/state/MuteStates.ts#L202-L206 . Sable respects this and turns the button on in the UI as if its Sable originating this.

[henk717]

My theory may not be correct, I later found

Sable/src/app/plugins/call/CallEmbed.ts

Lines 53 to 59 in 621f402

	static getIntent(dm: boolean, ongoing: boolean): ElementCallIntent {
	if (ongoing) {
	return dm ? ElementCallIntent.JoinExistingDM : ElementCallIntent.JoinExisting;
	}
	return dm ? ElementCallIntent.StartCallDM : ElementCallIntent.StartCall;
	}

Which should correspond to the defaults found in https://github.com/element-hq/element-call/blob/6d14f1d06ff007ce8a98f8e4e467fbb650da3796/src/UrlParams.ts#L407-L434

I changed it to the Voice versions to see what would happen and it did not fix the bug for me.