all app indicators disappear

[Jonathan Kamens]

Occasionally all of my app indicators just disappear. Right now, for example the only icons in my top bar are the wifi icon, the volume icon, and the battery charge icon. Everything else is gone. The applications associated with the missing indicators, e.g., Dropbox, Cloud Station Drive, Pritunl, Shutter, are still running, but their app indicators are no longer there.

The only way I've found to get them back is to log out and log back in.

I have no idea what provokes this behavior.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: gnome-shell 3.28.3-0ubuntu0.18.04.2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-38.41-generic 4.15.18
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-38-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.4
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Mon Nov 5 11:37:47 2018
DisplayManager: gdm3
InstallationDate: Installed on 2018-09-27 (39 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Release amd64 (20180725)
SourcePackage: gnome-shell
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Can you please take a screenshot or photo of before and after?

[Jonathan Kamens (jik)]

Before, it looks like the attached (though there is also a Shutter indicator, which disappears while I'm taking the screen capture).

Afterwards everything to the left of the wifi indicator (i.e., the Yubioath Desktop indicator and everything to the left of it) is gone.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thanks.

It sounds like the problem is confined to the 'gnome-shell-extension-appindicator' package.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Jonathan Kamens (jik)]

Also happening in 18.10.

[Iľja Pelech (ilja-pelech)]

Maybe, I've found a solution:

1) Another useful info: https://askubuntu.com/questions/969138/tray-icons-disappears-sometimes-in-ubuntu-17-10

2.1) I moved the mentioned '/etc/xdg/autostart/indicator-application.desktop'
2.2) Killed this process: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/indicator-application/indicator-application-service and indicators re-appeared immediately.
3) Locked the screen
4) Unlocked back in... indicators are still visible. They even survived gnome-shell restart thereafter.

I'll check back in by the end of the day, if it really worked.

[Iľja Pelech (ilja-pelech)]

It works well... There are several bugs filed for this beavior. Maybe indicator-application package should be marked as conflicting for something newer or so, so that it gets removed upon dist upgrade.

[Jonathan Kamens (jik)]

1) I don't have /etc/xdg/autostart/indicator-application.desktop.

2) Killing indicator-application-service does not cause my app indicators to re-appear.

[Jonathan Kamens (jik)]

Just discovered the typing Alt-F2 r RET brings the app indicators back.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

looks similar to bug #1714504

[Jonathan Kamens (jik)]

Not the same issue.

It doesn't happen at login for me, whereas the people in that issue say it does.

That issue was filed against Artful, whereas the problem I'm having started in Cosmic.

[Frank Quinn (fquinner)]

I have been living with this issue for some time now, finally annoyed me enough to Google and found this bug (thanks for reporting :)). Alt-f2 r also fixes for me which is a new workaround that I'm very grateful for. In my case it seems to be related to extensions which manipulate the top bar (e.g. todo.txt / system monitor). If I disable all extensions, and reboot the box, its fine. If I enable one of the extensions after rebooting and logging, it looks fine but after reboot, no application icons will be there. Previously I had just assumed they were broken extensions but seems to happen with quite a few of them and i have seen with many different combinations of extensions.

[Pavel (gotterbild)]

I have the same issue. Alt-f2 r helps.

If the issue is connected to some app that adds its indicator, but makes it disappear in certain conditions, then it could be yd-tools. Recently I've switched to Yandex Disk cloud and yd-tools add an indicator for their daemon.

So, yd-tools can be connected.

Here's their Launchpad page: https://launchpad.net/~slytomcat/+archive/ubuntu/ppa

[Jonathan Kamens (jik)]

N.B. This is now happening to me in ** 19.04 ** (Disco).

[Jonathan Kamens (jik)]

I believe it went away when I upgraded to 18.10 and came back when I upgraded from there to Disco.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

@jik, can you attach your journalctl log after getting the issue? is that transient or always?

[Jonathan Kamens (jik)]

As described above, the indicators disappear intermittently and come back when I type Alt-F2 r RET. It seems to happen when the screen locks automatically and then I come back later and unlock it, though I don't know if it happens _every_ time the screen locks. I've attached my journalctl output for today with unrelated, private information removed. I've returned to my computer at least twice today and found the indicators missing, the most recent time being for the session I'm sitting in front of right now, i.e., if you can see in the journalctl when my screen locks and unlocks, then this problem manifested in the most recent iteration of that.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

The log has some warnings, including
[AppIndicatorSupport-WARN] while calling AboutToShow: Gio.IOErrorEnum: Method “com.canonical.dbusmenu.AboutToShow” returned type “()”, but expected “(b)”

[Xavier Guillot (valeryan-24)]

I don't know if it is the same bug, but I have a similar problem since approx. 1 week in Dingo : Dropbox, Radio-tray NG, gEncFS Manager indicators are no more visible in the top bar, programs are still running.

Those from Gnome Shell extensions are still there.

[Jonathan Kamens (jik)]

@valeryan-24 that sounds like the same problem as the one I reported.

[Xavier Guillot (valeryan-24)]

With the last update today: Dropbox, Radiotray-NG and gEncFS Manager indicators came back working in the top panel.

[aleandro (aleandrodasilva)]

Same here in Ubuntu 18.04.
Monitor manager and other gnome extensions are disappearing from the top panel. Alt-F2 r, like other said, helps to get them back. Extensions are still running though when the bug appears.

I noticed this behavior some time ago, maybe 3-4 months ago, after an upgrade but yet it is regular. When I lock/unlock the screen the bug happens but maybe in other situations too.

[Jonathan Kamens (jik)]

Not certain, but I don't think I've seen this since upgrading to 19.04. I imagine it's unlikely to get fixed in 18.04 if it's fixed in 19.04 and people can upgrade, but I guess maybe it should be since 18.04 is supposedly supported until 2023?

[Kiruahxh (kiruahxh)]

Hello,

I work with Ubuntu 19.04 and gnome 3.32.1 with Dash to Panel extension and the same bug just happened to me. I can't restart gnome since Wayland is enabled.

Usually, the system is stable, I wonder if this is related to a background ubuntu update or just something else.

[Marco Trevisan (Treviño) (3v1n0)]

This should have been fixed by appindicator 32-1, let me know if this is not the case

[Jonathan Kamens (jik)]

If I restart gnome shell, most of the app indicators remain, but the Google Chrome and Hangouts appindicators disappear.

[Steve Cohen (stevecoh1)]

I face this issue in Ubuntu 20.04. Just found the Alt-F2-r combination and it does work.