Sorbier's questions

I keep installing this program and when I try to use it a few days later it invariably is no longer present and I have to reinstall it. Similarly, I keep uninstalling Dolphin, because it sets itself to automatically be the default file browser. The only way I could find to use the other file navigator by default was to uninstall Dolphin. However, I periodically find that Dolphin has automatically reinstalled itself and reappointed itself the default file browser.

Anyone know why this happens and how I can put a stop to it?

I've been trying to figure out how to properly record sound with a program and was messing with various settings, but now I have screwed something up royally. I no longer can get sound using media player applications, whether it be VLC or something else. I get it fine on firefox and chrome. (edit: actually, it totally depends on the site. Youtube doesn't work.)

I've already tried everything in this guide:

https://itsfoss.com/fix-sound-ubuntu-1304-quick-tip/

The only effect is seemed to have is that now in the top-right there is no longer any audio icon.

Maybe helpful as a clue: Adjusting the normal Ubuntu volume bar no longer affects the volume of the sound in firefox at all.

Any help would be really nice. I'm in 16.04.

I can click on the time and date settings from the drop-down menu in the top right all I want, but nothing happens. I've tried rebooting. Any ideas on how to fix this?