nm-applet shows as unresponsive black box

[Max Bowsher]

On one of my Karmic computers, the network manager applet usually fails to display on log in, instead a black square filling the entire height of the panel appears in the notification area, and it does not respond to mouse clicks.

Within a session, killing and restarting the nm-applet process results in it then appearing properly.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Date: Tue Oct 6 08:41:56 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
IpRoute:
 192.168.42.0/24 dev wlan0 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.42.2 metric 2
 default via 192.168.42.1 dev wlan0 proto static
Package: network-manager-gnome 0.8~a~git.20091002t194214.8515a07-0ubuntu1
ProcEnviron:
 LC_COLLATE=C
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-11.38-generic
SourcePackage: network-manager-applet
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-11-generic x86_64
WpaSupplicantLog:

XsessionErrors:
 (gnome-settings-daemon:2642): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
 (gnome-settings-daemon:2642): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
 (polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:2738): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `initialization_value != 0' failed
 (nautilus:2729): Eel-CRITICAL **: eel_preferences_get_boolean: assertion `preferences_is_initialized ()' failed
 (gnome-panel:2727): Gtk-WARNING **: gtk_widget_size_allocate(): attempt to allocate widget with width -5 and height 24

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

please run:

 killall nm-applet

then

 strace -eopen -f nm-applet 2>&1 | tee /tmp/strace.log.txt

and after this happens, attach the strace.log.txt you got.

[Max Bowsher (maxb)]

@asac:

OK, I will do this when I am back with the computer displaying the symptoms, this evening. However, as the problem only manifests when I log in, and not when I restart nm-applet within a running X session, will the above help?

[Max Bowsher (maxb)]

I am attaching straces for four scenarios:

1. as requested in comment #2 (as I mention in comment #3, this does not reproduce the bug)
2. starting the session-started nm-applet under strace by reconfiguring its command line in gnome-session-properties
3. and 4. as above but omitting the -eopen

[Sean Welton (spwelton)]

I also have this bug, screenshot is attached. It doesn't happen on every log in on my machine, but frequently enough that it causes a problem for me.

Sean

[Sean Welton (spwelton)]

Oh, I should probably also mention that if I remove the notification area from the panel, and re-add it, the problem goes away.

Sean

[Michael Martin-Smucker (mmartinsmucker)]

I've also been having this issue on an up-to-date Karmic.

[Jeff (jdorenbush)]

I have had this same problem since I installed Karmic. I would say a majority of the time when I login the NetworkManager applet is replaced with the black box. I just remove the "Notification" panel and re-add and that fixes it.

[Sean Welton (spwelton)]

Could this be a duplicate of this bug? -> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/banshee/+bug/403135

[Jeff (jdorenbush)]

@SeanWelton Not sure. He says it has a "black background". I'm not sure if he is saying that the Banshee icon is still there, but it has black behind it, or black is actually covering the whole spot where the icon should be. The problem I am having and I believe the other people who reported this bug is the latter -- black covering the whole spot where the icon should be.

It sounds like everyone in this report is only experiencing it with the NetworkManager Applet. At least I know I am. I haven't had the problem with any other applications.

Hopefully this is fixed soon.

[Jeff (jdorenbush)]

Update: Just looked at their screenshots. They have backgrounds behind the icons. My problem is that the whole icon is covered, as if it isn't even there.

[Glennz nl (glenn-de-groot)]

Same problem.
A: killall gnome-panel ; works for me.
Its very annoying and happends almost every boot.

[Sebastian Bator (eremit7)]

Please set the status of the bug to confirmed if you can confirm the bug.

Thanks

[Michael Martin-Smucker (mmartinsmucker)]

Are there any known workarounds that don't require manually restarting nm-applet, the notification area, or the entire gnome-panel? Can the applet be set to start up after a delay? Would that help?

Is there anything else that users experiencing this issue can do to provide useful information?

[Glennz nl (glenn-de-groot)]

Fixed for me.
I installed xorg and gdm updates the update manager showed me and i have no problems anymore.

[Michael Martin-Smucker (mmartinsmucker)]

@Glennz: What updates did you get? I get both "proposed" and "backport" updates, and my system is up to date, but my computer still started up with a black box instead of the icon this morning. I haven't restarted since getting the latest kernel update, but that's about it. If I got any Xorg or GDM updates, it should have been yesterday, and I should have seen the changes by now.

[Glennz nl (glenn-de-groot)]

I have:

karmic-security
karmic-updates

and thats it.

And it starts to appear again, since today after some lib updates its back.

[Shahar Or (mightyiam)]

Does anyone know which upstream this is?

[Shahar Or (mightyiam)]

Architecture: i386
CRDA:
 country AM:
  (2402 - 2482 @ 40), (N/A, 20)
  (5170 - 5250 @ 20), (N/A, 18)
  (5250 - 5330 @ 20), (N/A, 18), DFS
CheckboxSubmission: 86dcece8395aae51e38cfed557ef1e48
CheckboxSystem: 5606fb5d476dcfd021a0181d012c8ef5
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
IpRoute:
 192.168.55.0/24 dev eth0 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.55.1
 169.254.0.0/16 dev eth0 scope link metric 1000
 10.0.0.0/8 dev wlan0 proto kernel scope link src 10.0.0.2
 default via 10.0.0.138 dev wlan0
Package: network-manager-applet (not installed)
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=he_IL.UTF-8
 LANGUAGE=he_IL.UTF-8
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-17.54-generic
RfKill:
 0: phy0: Wireless LAN
  Soft blocked: no
  Hard blocked: no
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-17-generic i686
UserGroups: adm admin audio cdrom dialout lpadmin plugdev sambashare sudo vboxusers
WpaSupplicantLog:

[Jeff (jdorenbush)]

This stopped being a problem for me at some point, but just recently my networking icon is a solid black box again when I boot up my system. I fix it by removing notification tray from panel and then re-adding it.

Any word on when this is going to be finally resolved?

[Max Bowsher (maxb)]

This remains an issue in today's lucid.

[Ernst (ernst-blaauw)]

I have this issue too on my to systems, both running Lucid (one 64-bit with radeon OS driver, and one 32-bit with nvidia binary).
I do not have this problem constantly, only about one third of the time (i.e. a restart counts as one time). I can click just next to the black box to get the nm-applets's menu.

[Paul van Genderen (paulvg)]

Strange, this didn't occur before in Ubuntu 9.10

[Marius B. Kotsbak (mariusko)]

Karmic is end of life and Lucid can be upgraded to Precise. Is there anyone experiencing this in more recent Ubuntu versions?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for network-manager-applet (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]