On Arch linux, after upgrade to 4.4.3 the mixer plugin doesn't load. It doesn't show in the add plugin dialog either, even though the xfce4-mixer package is installed, /usr/lib/xfce4/xfce4/panel-plugins/xfce4-mixer-plugin does exist, and has file date indicating that it was indeed updated with the 4.4.3 upgrade. The mixer works OK if launched directly, only the plugin has problems. Workaround: add an activator that launches mixer directly. Drawback: one-click volume control is not available.
I think I see why, but I don't know why the why is. ;-) I'm not sure if I should file another bug, or just put the information here, so I'll go with here and hope for the best. Configured with --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc/xfce --enable-sound=alsa here, I see this in the resulting /usr/share/xfce4/panel-plugins/xfce4-mixer.desktop file: X-XFCE-Exec=/usr/local/libexec/xfce4/panel-plugins/xfce4-mixer-plugin This is on Slackware -current (development version), but on a 12.1 system, it's done correctly. I suspect that it might be related to autoconf and/or automake. On 12.1, there is autoconf 2.61 and automake 1.9.6, but in -current, there is autoconf 2.63 and autmake 1.10.1 I can't test this at the moment, but perhaps passing --libdir=/usr/lib --libexecdir=/usr/libexec will work around the problem.
Setting ARCH to all, as I'm on 32bit, while reporter is on 64bit
I just edited the path in xfce4-mixer.desktop. It works now, thanks Robby!
Just some more information -- I diffed the 4.4.2 and 4.4.3 sources, and basically there's no changes of substance. A few things stand out: --- xfce4-mixer-4.4.2/configure 2007-11-17 13:44:49.000000000 -0600 +++ xfce4-mixer-4.4.3/configure 2008-10-26 17:45:21.000000000 -0500 @@ -1,12 +1,12 @@ #! /bin/sh -# From configure.in Id: configure.in.in 25574 2007-04-15 11:53:24Z olivier . +# From configure.in Id: configure.in.in 28443 2008-10-26 21:09:10Z olivier . # Guess values for system-dependent variables and create Makefiles. -# Generated by GNU Autoconf 2.61 for xfce4-mixer 4.4.2. +# Generated by GNU Autoconf 2.63 for xfce4-mixer 4.4.3. ^^^^ That's the version of autoconf on my system. --- xfce4-mixer-4.4.2/Makefile.in 2007-11-17 13:44:48.000000000 -0600 +++ xfce4-mixer-4.4.3/Makefile.in 2008-10-26 17:45:20.000000000 -0500 @@ -1,8 +1,8 @@ -# Makefile.in generated by automake 1.10 from Makefile.am. +# Makefile.in generated by automake 1.10.1 from Makefile.am. ^^^^ That's the version of automake on my system. I'm lost. No idea what's going wrong. Adding --libdir and --libexecdir didn't make any difference, and I didn't expect that it would -- config.log and panel-plugins/Makefile show all the correct information.
Weird... What each external panel plugin does is: -------------- # get full path into .desktop file %.desktop.in: %.desktop.in.in sed -e "s^@EXTERNAL_PLUGIN_PATH@^$(libexecdir)/xfce4/panel-plugins^" \ $< > $@ --------- So there isn't much complexity and I don't see how automake could botcher that up (which is not to say it doesn't). So Robby is right that setting libexecdir should fix the problem. Robby: Did I get it right that you are able to reproduce the problem and even setting libexecdir doesn't help fixing it? If so, there's a file "xfce4-mixer.desktop.in.in", and the generated files "xfce4-mixer.desktop.in", "xfce4-mixer.desktop". What does each contain and what are their mtimes? Maybe there was a left-over "xfce4-mixer.desktop" that was edited manually? Strange...
Hey Danny :) Setting --libexecdir=/usr/libexec indeed does NOT solve it. There is indeed a stale panel-plugins/xfce4-mixer.desktop file present in the source (Lionel Le Folgoc mentioned it on IRC a bit ago), so that's almost surely the problem. Why it didn't affect 4.4.2 in the same way is still unknown :) I'll run a test build after removing the stale .desktop file and report back; probably will be tomorrow...
Okay, just had a user test the build after removing the .desktop file, and the path is correct in the newly generated one. Long story short, for packagers who haven't already stumbled upon this one, remove the "panel-plugins/xfce4-mixer.desktop" file from the source tarball before you start the build process.
Ok, thanks for investigating this :-) Setting as "WORKSFORME" since there's nothing we could do to fix this without butchering the make timestamps... but good to know that that can happen. Sigh, automake...