Xfce4.4 - Sensor-plugin stopped working

[John Coppens]

On Fri, 2 Mar 2007 20:33:31 +0100 (CET)
timystery at arcor.de wrote:

> > I wonder if this has something to do with the new parameter that comes
> > out of sensors, which is the sensor inside the AMD K8 chips. This
> > wasn't present in kernel 2.6.18, but was added in 2.6.19
> > (apparently). Could this confuse the sensor plugin?
> 
> Ahem, the sensors-plugin uses libsensors. Now, sensors is a program
> that reads values from libsensors, just like xfce4-sensors-plugin does.
> It may change its output during versions and development just like the
> sensors-plugin does.
> 
> It is possible, that the changes from libsensors-2.9 to libsensors-2.10
> make the plugin disfunctional. Use libsensors-2.9 or older then.

Pity - I can't, because the K8 sensors are only recognized from 2.10 on.
But I have another indication that may be helpful. I switched back to
kernel 2.6.18 and the sensor-plugin started working again. 'sensors'
works with both 2.6.18 and 2.6.19. Sensor plugin doesn't with 2.6.19.

> > Anyway, only 'hard disks' appears in sensor types, with no items. 
> 
> As long as "hddtemp /dev/<harddiskdevicefile>" prints useful output,
> the plugin shall display the device. So you might want to test that at
> first.

I have no data at all from the harddisks. Only the header 'Hard disks'
appears on the sensor-plugin setup combobox. When running kernel 2.6.18,
also the w83627 sensors appear. (with valid data)

> > Will check later if 'make install' installed correctly.
>  
> Ahem, "make install" writes its install path right when installing the
> files when using the "install"-command. This output should also be
> contained in the log file. The normal installation path when installing
> from source is /usr/local/share/xfce4/panel-plugins. So, as long as you
> have an old sensors-plugin from your distribution still installed to
> some other location, it is possible that this one be found first. Try
> renaming the old version by adding a suffix like ".backup".

I've checked now, and there is no other xfce4-sensors-plugin.desktop on
the entire disk. And its date coincides with the compilation date.

John
PS: The distro is mainly Slackware 11.0, though some parts have been
updated by me (such as the kernel). libsensors.so.3.1.1, and
hddtemp is not installed.