Xfce multiple volume notifications

Question

My problem is similar to the one in this question (not exactly the same), I did try the answers there but they didn't solve the issue. Basically when I change volume via keyboard shortcut I get multiple notifications, like this:

I do NOT have xfce4-volumed installed, the notifications come exclusively from the pulseaudio plugin in the panel. If I remove the plugin and install xfce4-volumed the same happens but with a different notification style (the speaker is smaller). The only workaround that I've found is disabling notifications from the puldeaudio plugin properties but that isn't exactly ideal. Any help is appreciated. I'm running Ubuntu 18.04 with xfce installed (not xubuntu).

Answer 1

The solution isn't obvious. I'll give 2 versions.

Method 1: notify-osd

Easy workaround, but has some limitations (notifications don't go away after being clicked on for example). Run these commands in a terminal and you're good:

sudo apt-get autoremove xfce4-notifyd
sudo apt-get install notify-osd

and then set notify-osd to run on startup. Finished.

Method 2: Dunst

A bit trickier but worth it. Run these commands:

sudo apt-get install libdbus-1-dev libx11-dev libxinerama-dev libxrandr-dev libxss-dev libglib2.0-dev libpango1.0-dev libgtk-3-dev libxdg-basedir-dev
git clone https://github.com/dunst-project/dunst.git
cd dunst
make
sudo make install

It should already work, but it's ugly. Now create a file in ~/.config/dunst called dunstrc and paste the following:

    [global]
    font = Arial 11 #Monospace 10

    # allow a small subset of html markup:
    # <b>bold</b>
    # <i>italic</i>
    # <s>strikethrough<s/>
    # <u>underline</u>
    #
    # for a complete reference see http://developer.gnome.org/pango/stable/PangoMarkupFormat.html
    # If markup is not allowed, those tags will be stripped out of the message.
    allow_markup = yes

    #show_indicators=true
    icon_position=left
    icon_folders = "/usr/share/icons/gnome/48x48/status/:/usr/share/icons/gnome/48x48/devices/"
    max_icon_size=40
    shrink=yes

    # The format of the message. Possible variables are:
    #   %a  appname
    #   %s  summary
    #   %b  body
    #   %i  iconname (including its path)
    #   %I  iconname (without its path)
    #   %p  progress value if set ([  0%] to [100%]) or nothing
    # Markup is allowed
    format = "<b>%s</b>\n%b"
#"<b>%a:</b> %s\n%b"

    # Sort messages by urgency
    sort = yes

    # Show how many messages are currently hidden (because of geometry)
    indicate_hidden = yes

    # alignment of message text.
    # Possible values are "left", "center" and "right"
    alignment = left

    # The frequency with wich text that is longer than the notification
    # window allows bounces back and forth.
    # This option conflicts with 'word_wrap'.
    # Set to 0 to disable
    bounce_freq = 0

    # show age of message if message is older than show_age_threshold seconds.
    # set to -1 to disable
    show_age_threshold = 120

    # split notifications into multiple lines if they don't fit into geometry
    word_wrap = yes

    # ignore newlines '\n' in notifications
    ignore_newline = no


    # the geometry of the window
    # geometry [{width}]x{height}][+/-{x}+/-{y}]
    # The geometry of the message window.
    # The height is measured in number of notifications everything else in pixels. If the width
    # is omitted but the height is given ("-geometry x2"), the message window
    # expands over the whole screen (dmenu-like). If width is 0,
    # the window expands to the longest message displayed.
    # A positive x is measured from the left, a negative from the
    # right side of the screen.  Y is measured from the top and down respectevly.
    # The width can be negative. In this case the actual width is the
    # screen width minus the width defined in within the geometry option.
    geometry = "450x5-30+20"

    # The transparency of the window. range: [0; 100]
    # This option will only work if a compositing windowmanager is present (e.g. xcompmgr, compiz, etc..)
    transparency = 20

    # Don't remove messages, if the user is idle (no mouse or keyboard input)
    # for longer than idle_threshold seconds.
    # Set to 0 to disable.
    idle_threshold = 60

    # Which monitor should the notifications be displayed on.
    monitor = 0

    # Display notification on focused monitor. Possible modes are:
    # mouse: follow mouse pointer
    # keyboard: follow window with keyboard focus
    # none: don't follow anything
    #
    # "keyboard" needs a windowmanager that exports the _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW property.
    # This should be the case for almost all modern windowmanagers.
    #
    # If this option is set to mouse or keyboard, the monitor option will be
    # ignored.
    follow = mouse

    # should a notification popped up from history be sticky or
    # timeout as if it would normally do.
    sticky_history = yes

    # The height of a single line. If the height is smaller than the font height,
    # it will get raised to the font height.
    # This adds empty space above and under the text.
    line_height = 0

    # Draw a line of 'separatpr_height' pixel height between two notifications.
    # Set to 0 to disable
    separator_height = 2

    # padding between text and separator
    padding = 8

    # horizontal padding
    horizontal_padding = 8

    # Define a color for the separator.
    # possible values are:
    #  * auto: dunst tries to find a color fitting to the background
    #  * foreground: use the same color as the foreground
    #  * frame: use the same color as the frame.
    #  * anything else will be interpreted as a X color
    separator_color = frame

    # print a notification on startup
    # This is mainly for error detection, since dbus (re-)starts dunst
    # automatically after a crash.
    startup_notification = false

    # dmenu path
    dmenu = /usr/bin/dmenu -p dunst:

    # browser for opening urls in context menu
    browser = /usr/bin/firefox -new-tab

[frame]
    width = 15
    color = "#071019"#"#000000"

[shortcuts]
    # shortcuts are specified as [modifier+][modifier+]...key
    # available modifiers are 'ctrl', 'mod1' (the alt-key), 'mod2', 'mod3'
    # and 'mod4' (windows-key)
    # xev might be helpful to find names for keys

    # close notification
    close = mod4+m

    # close all notifications
    close_all = mod4+shift+m

    # redisplay last message(s)
    history = mod4+n

    # context menu
    context = mod4+shift+i

[urgency_low]
    # IMPORTANT: colors have to be defined in quotation marks.
    # Otherwise the '#' and following  would be interpreted as a comment.
    background = "#071019"
    foreground = "#FFFFFF"
    timeout = 10

[urgency_normal]
    background = "#071019"
    foreground = "#FFFFFF"
    timeout = 10

[urgency_critical]
    background = "#071019"
    foreground = "#FFFFFF"
    timeout = 0


# Every section that isn't one of the above is interpreted as a rules
# to override settings for certain messages.
# Messages can be matched by 'appname', 'summary', 'body' or 'icon'
# and you can override the 'timeout', 'urgency', 'foreground', 'background'
# and 'format'.
# Shell-like globbing will get expanded.
#
# SCRIPTING
# you can specify a script that gets run when the rule matches by setting
# the 'script' option.
# The script will be called as follows:
# script appname summary body icon urgency
# where urgency can be "LOW", "NORMAL" or "CRITICAL".
#
# NOTE: if you don't want a notification to be displayed, set the format to ""
# NOTE: It might be helpful to run dunst -print in a terminal in order to find
# fitting options for rules.

#[espeak]
#    summary = "*"
#    script = dunst_espeak.sh

#[script-test]
#    summary = "*script*"
#    script = dunst_test.sh

#[ignore]
## This notification will not be displayed
#    summary = "foobar"
#    format = ""

[signed_on]
    appname = Pidgin
    summary = "*signed on*"
    urgency = low

[signed_off]
    appname = Pidgin
    summary = *signed off*
    urgency = low

[says]
    appname = Pidgin
    summary = *says*
    urgency = critical
    format  = "%s "%b""

[music]
    appname = Amarok
    summary = "Now playing"
    urgency = low

#[twitter]
#    appname = Pidgin
#    summary = *twitter.com*
#    urgency = normal
#

Now set dunst to run on startup and you should now have a 100% functioning notification system. You can tweak it even more so that it displays an icon while changing the volume but that would involve either writing a script or removing pulsaudio in favour of alsa to use this.

Answer 2

Try editing /usr/share/dbus-1/session.conf to disallow eavesdropping, and then restart your session.

-    <allow send_destination="*" eavesdrop="true"/>
+    <allow send_destination="*" eavesdrop="false"/>
     <!-- Allow everything to be received -->
-    <allow eavesdrop="true"/>
+    <allow eavesdrop="false"/>

This is how I worked around a similar issue on Debian.

Answer 3

one of the easy and best solution is go to the properties of notification plugin properties and turn off the xfce volume daemon in applications.. to show the volume indication go to the pulse audio plugin properties and turn on show notifitions volume.