unmute doesn't work anymore

[Simon Steinbeiß]

In Xubuntu Oneiric xfce4-volumed works fine apart from unmute. For some reason "mute" still works as expected – and in fact "unmute" also sends the correct/expected notification, yet nothing happens.
The only way to unmute is to do so by opening a mixer (pavucontrol) or using the Sound-Indicator.

I would guess (beware: wild guess!) that it might be related to changes in Ubuntu to adapt the volume of headphones when plugged in and saving their volume settings. I can't provide any further insight to that other than that it happened during the oneiric-cycle.

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

Thank you for reporting this issue. I can confirm that "mute" does work, but "unmute" does not respond. The workaround is to use the mixer controls to unmute.

[Steve Dodier-Lazaro (sidi)]

Do you have any bug with xfce4-volumed when gnome-settings-daemon and pulseaudio are NOT installed and NOT running? These applications are not compatible with each other, and I'm not willing to make xfce4-volume work with anything else than GStreamer at the moment (if you want such a feature, please start a discussion on the xfce4 development mailing list: http://www.xfce.org/community). Thanks in advance.

[aka (vangop)]

All ubuntu sound is too much confusing for me, I think Im using gstreamer as a backend, and pulse is just a plugin gstreamer uses. But anyway, after removing pulseaudio (I don't have gnome-settings-daemon) mute/unmute is working properly.
Also it has fixed all sound issues I had.

[Jeremy Cantrell (jmcantrell)]

I'm seeing this issue as well.

[nakki (titibanjekistan)]

Quote: "The only way to unmute is to do so by opening a mixer (pavucontrol) or using the Sound-Indicator."

The other way to unmute on my hp dv5 notebook is pressing the unmute button and raise up the volume to 100% (still with the quick buttons).

This bug affects both oneiric and precise.

[Babaei (babaei)]

I'm using a Dell Vostro 1400 laptop and Xubuntu 64-bit 11.10 and can confirm this problem. When I hit mute and then unmute, the pop-up display shows the sound unmuted, but the volume control is still muted (and has to be unmuted manually).

This thread has pictures, which mirrors my experience:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1871357

@Steve Dodier-Lazaro: Thanks for the reply to this thread (and the linked thread). I am using pulseaudio (the default in the Xubuntu installation). I don't really want to disable it, at risk of breaking other stuff (this, I think, is something the Xubuntu team needs to sort out). Other than this issue, everything else with the sound works really well with pulseaudio.

[Maksim Lin (maks-j)]

Using Xubuntu 64-bit 11.10 on a Dell lattiude e6420, same problem, both with laptop and usb keyboard.

Removed pulseaudio package as suggested, had no effect on the problem.

[Maksim Lin (maks-j)]

Actually turns out that it *did* solve the issue for me, jsut needed a reboot.

[Buz Finork (m321v123m)]

I Highly dowt that this is accuale bug in 'xfce4-volumed' as it can be fixed by changeing what card it is amed at if it is told to control the pulse card it then works perfectly, I think that this I problem with the configuration of the mixer system in xubuntu to prove my point just read my last post in the thread for this problem

"
OK I figured this problem out and how to salve it with out any scripts or installing/removing anything.
the solution is to change to default sound card for xfce4 from the physical one to the pulse audio card
to do that

go to xfce-menu->Settings->'Settings Editor' near the bottom

then find the 'xfce4-mixer' item on the right of the menu

then select the active-card property and then edit it put this as the new value:

Code:

PlaybackInternalAudioAnalogStereoPulseAudioMixer

save it if it worked the effect should take place emmediatly"

[Kai Husmann (kai-husmann)]

Thanks Buz Finork,

your fix pointed out in #9 worked for me!

[Frans Gifford (fgiff)]

The magic word in #9 'PlaybackInternalAudioAnalogStereoPulseAudioMixer' did not work for me. Instead I did this:
 * Install xfce4-mixer (if it isn't installed already)
 * Check the settings editor for the /sound-cards property, or run `xfconf-query -c xfce4-mixer -l`
 * Set active-card to the name under /sound-cards. In my case "active-card" was set to "PlaybackBuiltinAudioAnalogueStereoPulseAudioMixer"

Fans of copy/paste can use this line to do all of the above:

xfconf-query -c xfce4-mixer -p /active-card -s `xfconf-query -c xfce4-mixer -l | sed 's,/sound-cards/,, ;t; d'`

[aka (vangop)]

This doesn't seem to work right.
The list of cards in settings-editor /xfconf is the same that you enable in mixer.
Here's my mixer http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20461706/screens/xf-mixer-cards.png
I have alot of controls available for the alsa card.
If I select pulse card, I only have one master
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20461706/screens/xf-mixer-pulse.png
And this is the mixer in conf-editor http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20461706/screens/xfsettings-mixer.png
If I unable the pulse card and set it as active in conf-editor, I get no sound, the sound led on the laptop is in "mute", the mixer is shown as "mute" and all that helps is reverting back to alsa. Not mentioning that I have only once master control for the pulse.

[Carl Oxwall (oxwall)]

Oh my gosh, I saw the "Remember, this bug report is a dupe of # 885956" about two seconds too late (after posting); i.e. I posted a sort of confirmation in that thread. Anyways. I've read through this one as well and it seems to be mostly _attempt_ on workarounds. Any real solution available? Best thing would be a binary package that would fix the issue all together. I'm running Xubuntu 11.10.

[Jesusfreak (launchpad-bikelab)]

I can also confirm this bug for the mute button of the external keyboard. When I use the internal mute button of my Thinkpad instead it doesn't work at all, neither mute nor unmute is possible here.