Skip to content

Aetherial channel strip BYPASS tooltip is misleading — Final Output Stage remains active #2891

Description

@TnxQSO-Admin

Report preparation

  • I used the AI-assisted bug report tool (Help → Support → File an Issue)
  • I have attached a support bundle or log file

What happened?

What happened

The BYPASS button in the Aetherial Audio Channel Strip has the tooltip:

"Disable every stage in the active chain. Click again to restore the
stages that were on before."

In practice, BYPASS only disables the seven DSP chain stages (GATE, EQ,
DESS, COMP, TUBE, EVO, VERB). The Final Output Stage (Trim, LIM, DC)
continues to process the signal. Trim in particular is applied
unconditionally on every sample regardless of BYPASS state.

Why this is worth flagging

While investigating low TX output power (separate issue), I noticed that
toggling BYPASS while Trim was set to a non-zero value still changed the
output level. This was unexpected based on the tooltip text. The
underlying architecture (chain = bypassable, Final Output Stage =
always on) is a reasonable design choice, but the user-facing label
does not reflect it.

Environment

  • AetherSDR: current main
  • OS: Linux (Arch / KDE)
  • Tooltip location: AetherialAudioStrip.cpp:306-308 (per code search)

Suggested labels: GUI, enhancement

What did you expect?

What I expected

Either the tooltip should accurately describe what BYPASS does, or
BYPASS should also disable the Final Output Stage.

Steps to reproduce

Suggested fix

Update the tooltip text:

"Bypass every stage in the active chain except the Final Output Stage. Click again to toggle."

AetherSDR version

v26.5.2.1

Radio model & firmware

AU-520

Operating system

Linux

OS version and hardware

CashyOS

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    GUIUser interfacebugSomething isn't workingenhancementImprovement to existing featuregood first issueGood for newcomersmaintainer-reviewRequires maintainer review before any action is taken

    Type

    No type

    Fields

    No fields configured for issues without a type.

    Projects

    No projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions