lxpanel Volume Control applet fails to raise volume slider when clicked

[Eliah Kagan]

Binary package hint: lxpanel

On a Maverick amd64 system, LXPanel (package version 0.5.6-0ubuntu2)'s Volume Control panel applet sometimes stops responding to single-clicks. The expected and usual behavior of a single left-click on the Volume Control icon in the LXPanel is to bring up the volume slider, allowing the audio volume to be adjusted. This bug occurs in a Lubuntu Dekstop session; on this system LXDE is provided by lubuntu-desktop 0.18.

There appear to be multiple triggers for this bug. I have only identified one -- double-clicking on the Volume Control icon. However, I believe the bug has occured a number of times when I have not performed this action. I think it occurs more often when I am running VMWare Workstation (version 7.1.3 build-324285) than when I am not, but I am not sure.

I have found two workarounds that are always successful, but which are cumbersome and undesirable:

(A) Logging out and back in.

(B) Terminating lxpanel ("killall lxpanel") and restarting it manually.

I have also found two workarounds that are quick and easy, but only sometimes effective:

(1) Double-clicking the icon again usually creates an entry in the Task Bar (Window List) called [lxpanel]. Clicking that entry usually brings up the volume slider, and dismissing the slider (by clicking the Task Bar entry again) often causes the Volume Control icon to become responsive to single-clicks again. When I intentionally trigger this bug as described above, this workaround has always been effective. When this bug has occured following an unknown trigger, this technique has not always been effective.

(2) Adding a new Volume Control panel applet to the LXPanel and removing the old one is sometimes effective, but sometimes has no effect, and has twice produced the crash described in Bug 690932 when attempting to adjust the volume slider. That bug report contains a less complete description of this bug. Since this bug report includes relevant details that I discovered since making that report, that report should not be taken as a complete account of this bug.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: lxpanel 0.5.6-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-24.42-generic 2.6.35.8
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-24-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
Config_Home_Lubuntu:
 [Command]
 FileManager=pcmanfm %s
 Terminal=lxterminal -e
 Logout=lubuntu-logout
Date: Mon Dec 20 07:29:29 2010
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/lxpanel
InstallationMedia: Xubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Beta amd64 (20100406)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US.utf8
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 LC_MESSAGES=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: lxpanel

[Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure)]

I am still experiencing this with Natty (a fresh install, but the same amd64 machine) running lxpanel 0.5.6-1ubuntu4. A modification to workaround 1 appears to be highly effective at handling the problem when it occurs: Double-click on the volume icon, click the [lxpanel] entry in the window list to bring up the volume control, then rather than dismissing the volume control, switch workspaces. After switching back to the original workspace, the [lxpanel] entry and volume slider have been dismissed, but the problem is solved--a single-click on the volume control icon raises the volume slider (and it remains functional indefinitely, until the problem occurs again).

Something else interesting: In both instances when the problem occurred spontaneously on this Natty amd64 system, I found that the calendar was raised in the second workspace (the one I switched to). I'm not sure if that's related, but I don't remember intentionally having raised it either time, and whether or not the calendar is raised is not a function of which workspace one is in (so perhaps this is due to another, more minor bug). When I have deliberately produced this problem by double-clicking on the volume icon, and then fixed it by switching to the second workspace, the calendar was not raised.

[Kristoffer Engdahl (dkbe1983)]

I also experience this exact bug. I am running Lubuntu 11.10 32bit and the version of lxpanel i'm running is 0.5.8.

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu.

Ubuntu 10.10 (maverick) reached end-of-life on April 10, 2012.

See this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

We appreciate that this bug may be old and you might not be interested in discussing it any more. But if you are then please upgrade to the latest Ubuntu version and re-test. If you then find the bug is still present in the newer Ubuntu version, please add a comment here telling us which new version it is in.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for lxpanel (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]