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The "Sound Settings" button on the "Sound Menu" indicator of the "Indicator Plugin" on the Xfce4-Panel will not open. This button should open pavucontrol, which I can launch from the terminal or Whisker Menu just fine. I just can't launch it from the Panel, which is a real pain. Is there any way I can see a log pertaining to the Panel or Indicator Plugin so I can discover what the issue is?

Here is the button

Update:

Here's my session environment:

XDG_SESSION_ID=c2

SESSION=xfce

UPSTART_SESSION=unix:abstract=/com/ubuntu/upstart-session/1000/1983

XDG_SESSION_PATH=/org/freedesktop/DisplayManager/Session0

SESSION_MANAGER=local/User-Xubuntu:@/tmp/.ICE-unix/2156,unix/User-Xubuntu:/tmp/.ICE-unix/2156

DESKTOP_SESSION=xfce

XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11

GDMSESSION=xfce

SESSIONTYPE=

XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP=xfce

DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:abstract=/tmp/dbus-dIizG8qAqw

Yes, the indicator plugin log can be found in $HOME/.cache directory.

Log file location

The file location may be slightly changed in newer releases of Xubuntu. In Xubuntu 15.04, the location is $HOME/.cache/xfce4-indicator-plugin.log and the example content as below.

DEBUG      libindicator-plugin       Looking at Module: libapplication.so

DEBUG      libindicator-plugin       Loading Module: libapplication.so

DEBUG      libindicator-plugin       Load indicator: libapplication.so

DEBUG      libindicator-plugin       Looking at Service: com.canonical.indicator.messages

DEBUG      libindicator-plugin       Loading Service: com.canonical.indicator.messages

DEBUG      libindicator-plugin       Load indicator: com.canonical.indicator.messages

DEBUG      libindicator-plugin       Looking at Service: com.canonical.indicator.sound

DEBUG      libindicator-plugin       Loading Service: com.canonical.indicator.sound

DEBUG      libindicator-plugin       Load indicator: com.canonical.indicator.sound

DEBUG      Indicator-Application     Connected to Application Indicator Service.

DEBUG      Indicator-Application     Request current apps

DEBUG      Indicator-Application     Building new application entry: :1.29  with icon: nm-no-connection at position 0

DEBUG      libindicator-plugin       Entry added for io=libapplication.so

DEBUG      libindicator-plugin       Entry added for io=com.canonical.indicator.sound

The older log files are found at $HOME/.cache/upstart and kept separately as Gzip compressed files for each type of indicator. I had confirmed this for 14.04, but not sure whether this is still true for 15.04 and newer releases, because I only ran above output from Live USB.

In other words, the older log files are only found in Xubuntu that has been installed to a local machine. The Gzip compressed files are likely not to exist on a Live system.

Sound Settings do nothing

Based on the output from env | grep SESSION, the session is xfce for the current user. That is the reason why the "Sound Settings" does nothing.

This is also a known issue affecting 14.04 release, which was filed as Bug #1359249 on Launchpad in late 2014. Typical users wouldn't notice this, unless the user selected "Xfce Session" instead of "Xubuntu Session" before logging in to the Desktop.

The workaround

Select "Xubuntu Session" before logging in to the Desktop. Then, on Xfce panel, click the Indicator Sound icon > Sound Settings... to open the Volume Control window as usual.