Certain notification area icons are invisible

[LCID Fire]

Binary package hint: gnome-panel

Since more than a week some notification icons are not shown anymore - namely volume, display settings, network, empathy.
Strange thing is - they area reacts normally to mouse actions - but it just doesn't show the icons.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon Oct 12 23:57:26 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Package: gnome-panel 1:2.28.0-0ubuntu4
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-13.44-generic
SourcePackage: gnome-panel
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-13-generic x86_64

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please answer these questions:
1. Is this reproducible?
2. If so, what specific steps should we take to recreate this bug? Be as detailed as possible.
This will help us to find and resolve the problem.

[LCID Fire (lcid-fire)]

1. I don't know because I don't know how to solve the issue.
But it seems to be a gnome panel bug since I switched to awn today and it shows all the notification icons fine.
As a side note - I have the panel background transparency enabled- could this screw things up?

[nikatwork (nikatwork)]

I also have this bug in the release version of Karmic.

This bug occurs on every startup. Certain apps just refuse to show up in the notification area. Most importantly, Thunderbird and Pidgin. This is very annoying as I can't tell when someone has sent me an IM or an email!! Empathy and emesene show up fine.

I am not using compiz. I will attach my xorg.conf.

I have tried the following workarounds:
1. Closing the app then reopening it. No change.
2. Removing the notification panel then re-adding. No change.
3. Swapping to different themes and icon sets. No change.
4. In pidgin, I toggled the notification icon off then on. The icon flashed up in the notification area for an instant, then disappeared.

I upgraded my system from Jaunty, which gave me no notification bugs.

[Vlad Novak (vnovak06)]

I also have a similar bug. After restart, very often the Network Manager Applet doesn't show up on Notification Area, but instead two icons of Screenlets Daemon are displayed:

http://i38.tinypic.com/op4ne1.png (screenshot)

After logging off and back on, everything is as it should be:

http://i37.tinypic.com/2u8w8ir.png (screenshot)

Plus, very often the sound is muted on startup (as it is seen on the screenshots), although it wasn't set that way on shutting down.

[nikatwork (nikatwork)]

OK I have found a workaround. If I move my notification area on to the left screen, all the icons paint fine.

I am running a two-monitor setup (using RnR iirc). Some gnome apps have trouble painting outside a maximum horizontal width (~2600 pixels).

This is obviously some fundamental, underlying, funky gnome bug. However, the notification panel seems to be the only panel affected (all other panel widgets seem unaffected.)

So I'm unsure if this bug can be patched in gnome-panel, or if it should be moved to a lower-level component?

[nikatwork (nikatwork)]

PS I ran the exact same setup under Jaunty with no problems. When I upgraded, I had to change from the proprietary ATI driver to the open source one (xserver-xorg-video-ati). So perhaps this is a conflict between the new driver and gnome when running under dual monitors?

[nikatwork (nikatwork)]

I have also logged a bug against "xserver-xorg-video-ati" in case this is a video driver problem.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-ati/+bug/490177

[LCID Fire (lcid-fire)]

I'd like to second what nikatwork said:
I'm running a 2 monitor setup with an ati graphics card (using fglrx driver), too

[[e-mail] (rasmus-ustav)]

no it cant be video driver related... or anything with 2 monitors... I am using just one monitor and this thing happens almost every time i turn on my comp. Cant really see the pattern but there certainly is one. I'd be really glad if that got fixed cos it really BUGs me.

[Ben (ben-lemire)]

This is happening to me too. It just started about a week ago. I have four icons in my notification area immediately after I log in; wireless, battery/power, bluetooth and volume control. Sometimes of of the icons will have a non-operational double that takes the place of one of the other icons (but I only ever have a total of four icons) and other times, one of the icons will be covered by some other image that looks like a chunk of the right part of the panel. I can fix the issue by removing the notification area from my top panel and adding it back.

[Pierce Gerhart (piercegerhart)]

This bug disappeared for me after disabling visual effects and restarting. After setting visual effects back to "Normal," the problem immediately returned.

[Brian Cesar (brian.cesar)]

This is reproducible. Remove the notification area from the top panel then re-add it and the icons are restored to normal. Reboot and the error often comes back.

I do not think it is related to video drivers as I see it on two systems right now, one laptop with Intel video, desktop with nvidia - both do the same despite different chipsets and drivers.

Effect can be eliminated if the notification area is moved to the another panel. On my desktop I moved it to the bottom, on the laptop I use AWN and included it there as a widget, in both it now runs perfectly normal.
On either, if I move the notification area back to the default install location (top panel, right side) the error returns.

There is a thread on the forums with multiple users reporting the same bug on many varied setups.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1316676

[morsch (moritz-schallaboeck)]

I'm affected, too. For me the Bluetooth applet icon gets doubled. I have to remove and re-add the notification panel on every reboot, it's very annoying.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

could somebody having the issue send it upstream at bugzilla.gnome.org ? Thanks.

[Ticatla (foca021)]

Hi! Same problem, I think. No icon appears and there is no menu after clicking in the area. No volume, batery icon or network manager. This seems to specially affect the network manager because my wireless doesn't connect automatically. I have to use nm-applet on the terminal so it reacts and I can connect. It is useless to turn on and off my wifi card. If I connect the ethereth cable the icon do appears.

Restarting doesn't work, neither adding again or moving the notification area.

[yarly (ih8junkmai1)]

I think I'm experiencing the same issue.

Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic
Notification area icons disappear randomly (xchat, vidalia, etc)

[Kristian (krillaction)]

I think I'm having the same issue, regarding the notification area. I tried to do a google on it and this is what came up.

This problem has been ocurring ever since i updated from Jaunty to Karmic. GNOME is v2.28.1

The problem has become more frequent lately though and now it seems to be ocurring every time I reboot. Most usually the network icon will not appear, and will be replaced by a second volume icon.

This is always solved by deleteing the notification area from the panel and then adding it again.

The problem will never occur spontaneously, but only after rebooting.

[brownbrown (brownbrown)]

This is happening to me as well, namely the Network Manager applet icon. Sometimes I can get the
icon to come back when I unplug my ethernet and plug back in, but not always. When I right click
the blank space (where the Network Manager icon should be) and do About it says
Notification Area instead. When I try to remove it my gnome panel flicks on and off, which
makes the mouse focus on and off, basically making the desktop unusable. Had to go to
safe mode and add the applet back to the panel. I am running a non-default icon theme and
compiz, will test more as a default desktop and post back.

[Stefan Berge (olyckholm)]

About the same for me. First, no problem.
I have used Ubuntu on my private computer since 2006, on my company computers since 2008, and when helping friends to install Linux.
I have always re-arranged items so that all of them are on the lower panel, and then erased the upper panel. This has never caused any problem, until now (using Karmic).

For a friend of greek origin, I added the keyboard indicator to the panel with Swedish (we live in Sweden) and Greek keyboard support, while already having the Notification area, Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice Writer and Calc, Gedit, Filezilla, Gimp, System monitor, Forced application shutdown, Wastebasket and clock on the same panel.
Everything seemed to work OK. But when I added the keyboard indicator, the problem started.
Sometimes everything worked. After other reboots, one or two items disappeared, sometimes there was only a blank panel (no icons at all), and sometimes the notification area had two volume controls instead of volume control plus network manager...

It seemes that too many objects on one panel is what initiated the problem for me, so I tested this:
I kept the Indicator-Applet-Session (log out/shut down/lock screen et.c.), Program-Places-System, Keyboard indicator and clock on this panel, and moved everything else to a new panel, which I placed at the top of the screen. Then I unchecked the fold-out option and checked the hide automatically option. So, only the "always necessary" items are on the ever-visible panel at the bottom, the other items on the invisible panel on top.
After this, I have rebooted about 15-20 times, and the problem never seemes to appear anymore.
But THIS IS NO SOLUTION. A hole in the road doesn´t disappear just because you can drive around it.
I would really like to have all-in-one-panel again, as before. It is especially important when you try to convince someone to leave Windows for Ubuntu, that they feel at home.
And on modern wide-screen monitors most of us can fit what we need on only one panel and still have free space left.
So, having all on one panel simply must work. This bug is serious.

[WmTop (wtopper)]

Occurred after several hours idle, too. Not suspended, merely with screen saver active. Both notification and indicator applets affected on separate panels.

Version is Ubuntu 9.10 (up to date) from a fresh install - no upgrade here.

[Mark Gensler (mark-gensler)]

This also affected me, both in Hardy and now in Karmic - wireless and power notification icons disappearing or replacing each other in duplicate. It would be great if this could be diagnosed, as it strikes me as a worthy candidate for one of the 100 papercuts.

[Ben (ben-lemire)]

For some reason, this stopped happening for me in the last few weeks. I'm not sure if there was an update that fixed this, or if it is just a coincidence, but I used to have this problem on nearly every boot.

[Juhamatti Niemelä (iiska)]

I have this too with fresh install of up to date Karmic. NetworkManager applet icon vanishes when restoring from hibernate.

Workaround: Resize gnome-panel to force notification area to be redrawn, and then resize it back.

[Timo Reimerdes (timorei)]

http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/1243/notificationareabug.png

I am lately getting this bug. The space increases until it is about that size seen on the picture.
Removing/Readding it wont solve the problem for long, since it will grow everytime a notification is shown and hidden again.
Deleting the gconf configuration by --recursive-unset /apps/panel didnt change its behaviour.
Switching to another theme, didnt change its behaviour.

Hopefully this gets resolved soonTM. Just wanted to let you all know that the bug is back in lucid.

[Stefan Berge (olyckholm)]

Strange... I had problems with Gnome panel on two machines. Tried to re-install Ubuntu but still, suddenly the panel went completely or partially blank after reboot.
However, somewhere in mid of february the problem was gone.
I have also tried two Ubuntu derivates: Mint. I didn´t like it, KDE seems unstable in some situations and programs are several clicks further away than in Gnome.
Super OS: A standard Ubuntu 9.10 (Both KDE and Gnome, Gnome is default) with a few extra archives already in place, multimedia codecs installed along with VLC, RealPlayer, Thunderbird, Skype, aMSN, Google Earth, Moonlight, Wine... and some other software I normally install after an Ubuntu install anyways. A real time-saver for me.
And, which is why I write about it: No problem with Gnome Panel whatsoever.

[haydemon (haydemon-gmail)]

It's happening to me after upgrading to Lucid Lynx. Network Manager icon disappears, and not only that, but I have a lot of trouble connecting automatically to a wireless network. It takes FOREVER to connect, and usually after going into Network Connections and resetting some of the settings that should have already been saved. Sometimes, not even then. Finally, when I'm about to give up, the connection is established, but after at least 10 minutes or so.

[nikatwork (nikatwork)]

There are two separate bugs here.

The multi-monitor bug originally reported by LCID Fire, is present all the time when in effect. The icons do not paint but are usable. Moving the gnome panel to the left of the "magic line" will make the icons start painting again.

The reports of intermittently disappearing icons on single-monitor setups are a different bug.

I have have reverted to a single monitor setup out of frustration. This has resolved all gnome panel issues. If I get the time I will try changing to a dual monitor setup and testing under Lucid.

[Zhao Zheng (zhaozhengcn)]

I also have problem that the notification area intermittently disappearing on single-monitor setup. One day I happened to add one 'notification area' in a 'drawer' applet on the panel, then it always stays there in the drawer. I am now living fine with this temporary solution. Hope this may help some one.

[michelf41 (michel-franckart)]

I use Ubuntu 10.4 64 and I suspect Skype of creating the following intermittent problems, at least when launched on startup :
- blank screen (no icons)
- no panels
- image freeze when viewing a video on Internet or even from hard drive with mplayer
I hope this can be of use to keep Ubuntu at high level.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Gary Sawyer (sawyergl)]

I see this intermittently (about every other boot) since updating Ubuntu GNOME to Xenial, but only on the Autokey notification icon. I work-around by re-booting as often as necessary.