Double volume icons in Mate 20.1?

[somelurker]

I'm running Mate 20.1 Ulyssa, but I'm pretty sure I saw this problem before I upgraded from a clean installation of Mate 20. I have 2 volume icons, but only the volume icon seems to be affected. It's not a fatal problem, but it's annoying. If I adjust the volume from one of the icons, the other one doesn't reflect the change. Does anyone know a workaround or the cause of the bug?

Volume.jpg (1.34 KiB) Viewed 4859 times

[MrEen]

Hi somelurker,

Check your Startup Applications (I'm sorry, I don't know the location on MATE) to see if there 2 pulseaudio items. List them here first before deleting either if you find more than one.

[somelurker]

Is this what you were asking for?:

Ctrl Alt Backspace
Flatpak
im-launch
mintwelcome
NVIDIA X Server Settings
Power Manager
Print Queue Applet
SSH Key Agent
Support for NVIDIA Prime
System Reports
Update Manager
Warpinator
xapp-sn-watcher

[MrEen]

Possibly. I'm a bit surprised there's nothing there with PulseAudio, but I'm on an old Xfce version here, so it's probably handled differently now.

If you run pulseaudio -k in the terminal, does one of the icons disappear? That will restart the sound daemon, so don't run it if you're currently listening to something.

[somelurker]

I ran pulseaudio -k 3 times, but neither icon disappeared. Also, my sound still works (I tried the "Front left" and "Front right" tests from one of the icons right after running pulseaudio -k).

[Terryphi]

This was an issue in LM 20 Mate. Occasionally there are 2 volume icons and I have also seen 2 network icons. This does not affect performance and the surplus icons disappear on next boot. I decided to live with it.

[hglee]

I have 2 volume icons,

I too see double at times. I get rid of the doppelganger immediately with the following Terminal command...

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killall mate-panel

That just restarts the panel.

[JoeBingo]

Happens from time to time. Usually seems to be associated with some tweak I made or a system update of some sort. Only happens after a system restart. I hardly ever power down, so might happen occasionally on power up ... dunno. Seems to have been happening now and then for a couple of mint distro releases, but again, could be something I'm tweaking after install maybe. I can't rule that out.

Anyway ... when it does happen ... all I do is right click anywhere on an empty spot in the panel (bar at the bottom of the screen) and select "Reset Panel" from the pop-up menu. Gets rid of any double icons in the system tray, including volume. Then I just carry on normally. Doesn't happen often enough for me to be truly concerned about it ... yet. Just a matter of a quick click-click and done.

[hglee]

Anyway ... when it does happen ... all I do is right click anywhere on an empty spot in the panel (bar at the bottom of the screen) and select "Reset Panel" from the pop-up menu. Gets rid of any double icons in the system tray, including volume.

For MATE 1.24.0 at least, that Reset Panel completely blows-away any panel customizations you've done -- which I do, a lot: The panel I put at the top, jumps down to the bottom. Workspace switcher -- gone. Weather applet, Trashcan, Network Monitor, Drawer full of app launchers -- gone, gone, gone, and gone.

No thanks!

[JoeBingo]

OOPS ... Mint default panel just works and is fine for me. Click-Click and done.
The OP, somelurker, may have a default panel too ya know. Maybe you're a special case.
... but your experience is well worth mentioning and I wasn't aware my easy solution might negatively affect some.

[hglee]

... but your experience is well worth mentioning and I wasn't aware my easy solution might negatively affect some.

Well, it's not like I had anything better to do for the last 10 minutes except restore my lobotomized panel.

[JoeBingo]

... sorry ... shoot

EDIT: DO NOT use my click-click solution unless you have or want a default panel !!!

[somelurker]

I've moved around a few things and pinned some additional icons to my panel, so while it wouldn't be a disaster to lose the customizations, it would take a few minutes to restore everything, assuming I remember all the icons I pinned. It looks like the cause is a bug, since I haven't installed any PPAs that could have affected the panel.

Does anyone know which packages this bug involves? I'd like to file a bug report, but I need to know the right package to file it on.

[MrEen]

Previous posters have said restarting the computer or killing the panel (I assume it automatically restarts) usually "fixes" this. Have any of these ever worked for you? I ask because developers can't fix something they can't reproduce, and this has been an ongoing occasional issue.

That said, the fact killing the panel has fixed this (for some at least) would indicate the issue is in mate-panel. According to the troubleshooting guide, the proper place for MATE bugs is the MATE Github site. This page would be the proper location.

I did find a similar bug reported here, but in that case it was caused by having 2 sound things running in the panel. I don't know MATE enough to know how to check for something similar. But in a similar vein, I can say that my 19.3 Xfce install is telling me via System Reports to remove the conflicting indicator-application, although it isn't causing me any grief. Maybe something similar is happening there?

[somelurker]

Previous posters have said restarting the computer or killing the panel (I assume it automatically restarts) usually "fixes" this. Have any of these ever worked for you? I ask because developers can't fix something they can't reproduce, and this has been an ongoing occasional issue.

That said, the fact killing the panel has fixed this (for some at least) would indicate the issue is in mate-panel. According to the troubleshooting guide, the proper place for MATE bugs is the MATE Github site. This page would be the proper location.

I did find a similar bug reported here, but in that case it was caused by having 2 sound things running in the panel. I don't know MATE enough to know how to check for something similar. But in a similar vein, I can say that my 19.3 Xfce install is telling me via System Reports to remove the conflicting indicator-application, although it isn't causing me any grief. Maybe something similar is happening there?

The question happened intermittently, so I couldn't reproduce it frequently enough until today. I can finally answer part of your question. I don't know if a reboot fixes the problem, but what I do know is that the problem can happen on boot. Today, as my system was booting up, I noticed that it started with two volume icons. So whatever causes the problem can happen on startup even before I open a single program. If I reboot again and the icons disappear, would I consider that a "fix"? Probably not, because if the problem can happen on startup, then merely restarting would seem to be another roll of the dice rather than a fix.

[MrEen]

Did you ever try hglee's suggestion:

Code: Select all

killall mate-panel

That should just kill the panel which should then automatically restart with your panel settings intact. I'm suspecting that will work for you, and while it's not a true "fix" at all, I don't know how to fix something in MATE myself.

[hglee]

Did you ever try hglee's suggestion:

Code: Select all

killall mate-panel

That should just kill the panel which should then automatically restart with your panel settings intact. I'm suspecting that will work for you, and while it's not a true "fix" at all, I don't know how to fix something in MATE myself.

If doppelganger or anomalous panel icons are a recurring problem: Using Add to Panel > Custom Application Launcher, one could add a launcher to their panel for a script that just does the killall to refresh the panel...

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#!/bin/bash
#
# Script to refresh MATE panel. All panel customizations are preserved.
# Make this script executable with 'chmod +x scriptname'
#
/usr/bin/killall mate-panel
exit
# 

Then just click on your script launcher anytime to refresh the panel quick'n'easy.

[MrEen]

Then just click on your script launcher anytime to refresh the panel quick'n'easy.

I like that idea!

[somelurker]

Did you ever try hglee's suggestion:

Code: Select all

killall mate-panel

That should just kill the panel which should then automatically restart with your panel settings intact. I'm suspecting that will work for you, and while it's not a true "fix" at all, I don't know how to fix something in MATE myself.

I finally got around to testing this suggestion. It takes a while to do tests because I first have to see the problem show up. The answer is yes and no. I went from double volume icons to double network manager icons after running the killall mate-panel the first time. I went a step further and ran killall mate-panel a second time on the double network manager icons, and that second run did remove the double network manager icon.

It's not a true fix, but I suppose I can add a script file to my desktop to run when the problem pops up, if indeed I can reproduce the workaround. Does my test at least help narrow down the cause?

[MrEen]

That I cannot answer I'm afraid. Maybe someone else will have some other ideas.