Selecting a pinned tab with sound playing mutes the audio

Description

When a pinned tab is playing audio content, if you navigate away from that tab, then back again, selecting the pinned tab mutes the audio. This is likely due to the “speaker” icon being (or at least being detected as) clicked when trying to select the pinned tab with small real estate.

Further, clicking the speaker icon on the pinned tab again to unmute does not work (its unresponsive). Right-clicking on the pinned tab shows the Mute tab option even though the tab is already muted. If Mute tab is selected from the context menu, the tab remains muted. If you right-click again after, the context menu now says Unmute tab — however, selecting this option still does not unmute the tab.

The only way to actually unmute the pinned tab is to unpin the tab, then click the speaker icon (which works without issue).

Steps to Reproduce

1. Pin a tab
2. Play audio in that tab
3. Select another tab
4. Click on the pinned tab to select it

Actual result:

Observe audio from the pinned tab is muted and cannot be easily unmuted, as described above.

Expected result:

Tab should be selected, not muted

Reproduces how often:

Always

Brave version (brave://version info)

1.37.111 Chromium: 100.0.4896.79 (Official Build) (arm64)

Version/Channel Information:

• Can you reproduce this issue with the current release? Yes
• Can you reproduce this issue with the beta channel? Yes
• Can you reproduce this issue with the nightly channel? Yes

Miscellaneous Information:

User report here: https://community.brave.com/t/pinned-tab-mutes-on-click-and-cant-be-unmuted/365423

[georapbox]

As a workaround until it’s fixed, you can disable Tab audio muting UI control from flags under brave://flags/#enable-tab-audio-muting. You can still mute/unmute by right clicking on the tab and selecting Mute/Unmute site from the context menu.

[outluch]

brave://flags