Laptop FN Sound Keys don't update mixer volume

Forgot to mention, the sound volume slider works as expected.

After playing with it for a bit, the sound fn keys work properly now - must be intermittent.

Marking as invalid as after adjusting the mixer volume with the slider, the FN keys now work.

Reopened - the problem happened again. It seems to randomly occur.

When the problem does occur, restarting the PC using brings the sound fn keys back to operation again.

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

I also have this problem on my Thinkpad Edge 15 after a fresh install of Xubuntu 12.04. The sound works. The settings in Volume Control work. The media/function keys for update the OSD notification, but do not update the settings in Volume Control, nor do they actually affect the volume of sound coming from the speakers.

Same here on Thinkpad L420. OnScreenDisplay is shown and the slider/mute in it reacts nicely, but it does obviously not change any actual channel volume. I checked all available channels in xfce4-mixer, alsamixer and pavucontrol.

Commands like 'amixer set Master 5%-' I tried to bind to the vol+/- and mute keys with xfce4-keyboard-settings get not called. Are the keys exclusively taken by the program that controls the OSD?

This is also Xubuntu 12.04 with pulseaudio (fresh install).

I have the same problem and just checked my Volume Control under Xubuntu 12.04 LTS on my Thinkpad Edge. There are two ports under "Output Devices", namely:
- HDMI / Display Port
- Analogue Output
Using the Fn keys only changed the HDMI output, but not the Analogue Output. Now after a playing around for a while the keys don't work any more at all. Still, might the problem be related to the different output channels?

I just noticed bug #959561 and was curious, so I installed xfce4-mixer and followed the steps to configure the mixer to use the active sound card.

For me, this has solved the volume up and volume down media/function keys. However, the mute key only partially works. It works to mute the volume, but pressing the key again to unmute doesn't work. i.e.: It doesn't toggle between mute and unmute. I have to then resort to unmuting from Volume Control or from the drop down menu of the panel applet.

The OSD always reflects the change in state made by all the function keys.

The following is the output from configuring the mixer
$ xfconf-query -c xfce4-mixer -p /active-card
PlaybackRV710730HDMIAudioRadeonHD4000seriesDigitalStereoHDMIPulseAudioMixer
$ xfconf-query -c xfce4-mixer -p /sound-card
HDAIntelAlsamixer
$ xfconf-query -c xfce4-mixer -p /active-card -s `xfconf-query -c xfce4-mixer -p /sound-card`
$ xfconf-query -c xfce4-mixer -p /active-card
HDAIntelAlsamixer

I am also having this problem on my Axses E15.

I don't think this is a hardware-specific issue, but a problem with the hotkeys daemon occasionally failing to update the mixer problem properly.

This bug was fixed in the package xfce4-volumed - 0.2.0-0ubuntu1

---------------
xfce4-volumed (0.2.0-0ubuntu1) raring; urgency=low

  * New upstream release (FFe lp: #1153378) with pulseaudio support.
    lp: #883485, #970009, #990562
  * debian/patches/xubuntu_preselect-pulseaudio.patch: dropped, unneeded.
  * debian/rules:
    - disable silent rules
    - keep the program named xfce4-volumed so the change is invisible to the
      users.
  * Add a manpage. lp: #428023
  * debian/control:
    - build-depends on libpulse-dev instead of libgstreamer0.10-dev and
      libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-dev.
    - recommends pulseaudio instead of gstreamer.
 -- Lionel Le Folgoc <email address hidden> Thu, 14 Mar 2013 22:39:32 +0100