How to fix missing sound indicator in Xubuntu 13.10

After my recent upgrade to Xubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander, I noticed that the sound indicator menu was missing. The volume indicator seemed to think that the volume was muted, and presented no drop-down menu when clicked. The sound was working fine and so were the multimedia keys on my keyboard. After some searching on the internet, I found that this was a more common problem. This bug has been reported on launchpad as well.

The workaround mentioned is to edit the service file in the following fashion. First bring up the terminal window and type the following command (replace mousepad with the editor of your choice)

user@pc: ~$ gksudo mousepad /usr/share/dbus-1/services/indicator-sound.service

The service file will now open and its contents will look like this:

[D-BUS Service] Name=com.canonical.indicator.sound
Exec=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/indicator-sound/indicator-sound-service

Now, all you need to do is to comment out the last line and enter a new one instead

[D-BUS Service] Name=com.canonical.indicator.sound
#Exec=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/indicator-sound/indicator-sound-service
Exec=/usr/lib/indicator-sound-gtk2/indicator-sound-service

Save and close this file and reboot your computer.

Please note that use this method only if you are using XFCE as your sole desktop environment. If you also use other DEs, for e.g. Unity, along with XFCE, then this method will break the sound indicator in your other DEs. In this case, you should follow the steps outlined in this article.

While we are at it, I might as well list some of the known issues in Xubuntu 13.10

• indicator-sound no longer functions with xfce4-indicator-plugin (1208204)
• Gmusicbrowser's albuminfo-plugin is deactivated by default and causes the app to hang if enabled (1223808)
• Restart button fails to work in Update Manager (1232363)
• User Administration - a new User is added correctly, but Administration app crashes on close (1185396)
• Lock screen slow to appear on resume from suspend (1229486)

XFCE Panel: Left Alignment Workaround

After my recent upgrade to Xubuntu 13.04, I noticed that my lower panel was left aligned. Although it is completely functional, I want my panel to extend to cover the entire width of the screen. It just makes it easier for me to locate the indicators for volume, notes and gmusicbrowser. Also, the panel keeps resizing as I open more applications which I find a little annoying. Here is what I did.

1. First of all, we need to fix the length of the bottom panel. To achieve this, right click on the bottom panel and navigate to Panel > Panel preferences. In this window make sure that the Length (%) is all the way up to 100% and the "Automatically increase the length" option is unchecked. Make the required changes and click on close - the changes are applied immediately without any confirmation.

 2. What we have now is a panel of fixed length. However, the indicators still keep moving dynamically. To make this nuisance disappear, we need to add a separator of expanding length to the right of the indicators. To achieve this, right click on the bottom panel once again and navigate to Panels > Add New Items. Scroll and select "Separator" and click on add.

3. Now that you have added the Separator, move it so that it now comes between the indicators/notification area and the window buttons. Also, click on the properties box on the right and choose the style as "Transparent" and check the option for "Expand". Now click close.

That should do it. If you followed the above steps, you should finally get your bottom panel to look like this

If you have messed up the configuration in the above steps or if you just wish to restore the default panels, you can do so easily by renaming (or deleting) the ~/.config/xfce4/panel/ directory and then restarting xfce4-panel.

user@pc: ~$ mv  ~/.config/xfce4/panel ~/.config/xfce4/panel-backup
user@pc: ~$ killall xfce4-panel

If the panel doesn't restart automatically, then press Alt+F2 and run:

xfce4-panel