Indicator icons do not appear after upgrade to Ubuntu 17.10

[Roberto Leinardi]

After upgrading from 17.04 to 17.10 all the indicator icons (Steam, InSync, Google Chrome, Hangouts, Slack, etc) are missing.

A temporary workaround is to kill indicator-application-service, but this only works until the next reboot.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 17.10
Package: indicator-application 12.10.1+17.04.20161201-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.13.0-16.19-generic 4.13.4
Uname: Linux 4.13.0-16-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm nvidia_modeset nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.20.7-0ubuntu3.1
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Sun Oct 29 20:45:06 2017
InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-03-28 (946 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 15.04 "Vivid Vervet" - Beta amd64 (20150326)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=it_IT.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: indicator-application
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to artful on 2017-10-07 (22 days ago)

[Roberto Leinardi (leinardi)]

I just want to add that several people seem to be affected by this bug: https://askubuntu.com/questions/966987/indicator-icons-do-not-appear-after-upgrade-to-ubuntu-17-10

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Mike Neac (neac)]

Try removing all obsolete indicators if any still present
indicator-application
indicator-appmenu
indicator-bluetooth
indicator-common
indicator-datetime
indicator-keyboard
indicator-messages
indicator-network
indicator-power
indicator-printers
indicator-session
indicator-sound
indicator-transfer
indicator-transfer-download-manager

sudo apt purge indicator-application indicator-appmenu indicator-bluetooth indicator-common indicator-datetime indicator-keyboard indicator-messages indicator-network indicator-power indicator-printers indicator-session indicator-sound indicator-transfer indicator-transfer-download-manager

[Roberto Leinardi (leinardi)]

It worked, using the command that you suggested I removed the following packages:
  indicator-application* indicator-appmenu* indicator-bluetooth*
  indicator-common* indicator-datetime* indicator-keyboard*
  indicator-messages* indicator-network* indicator-power* indicator-printers*
  indicator-session* indicator-sound* indicator-transfer* libunity-core-6.0-9*
  unity* unity-control-center* unity-control-center-signon* unity-services*
  unity-session* unity-tweak-tool* webaccounts-extension-common*
  xul-ext-webaccounts*

After doing this the icons are now back without the need of killing indicator-application-service.

By any change do you have a solution also for #1728451 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/indicator-application/+bug/1728451)?

[QkiZ (qkiz)]

Probably this bug is a duplicate of https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-shell-extension-appindicator/+bug/1714504.

[Tim Passingham (tim-8aw3u04umo)]

I had a similar problem on 17.10, logging on as Ubuntu xorg (not unity). I tried running with just "ubuntu appindicators", but several indicators were missing (particularly classicmenu and gnome encfs).

Eventually I got all the icons I need back by installing both "topicons plus" and "Kstatusnotifieritem/appindictor support" extensions and disabling "ubuntu appindicators". On rebooting the latter then shows as having an error (in gnome tweaks).

That's OK so far, since at least it now does what I need.

However, occasionally on starting up "ubuntu appindicators" becomes enabled, and "Kstatusnotifieritem/appindictor support" disabled. I then lose my indicators, have to reset the extension statuses, reboot, and cross my fingers.

[Tim Passingham (tim-8aw3u04umo)]

To update my comment above, I then tried deleting the packages as in #4 and #5, disabling "topicons plus" and "Kstatusnotifieritem/appindictor support" extensions, rebooting, enabling "Ubuntu appindicators", and all is now well and stable (so far...).

[Marco Trevisan (Treviño) (3v1n0)]

Question is, why indicator-application-service is running in your GNOME session?

Are you using some special systemd configuration?
As this should not be running in GNOME but only in the Unity session.

As for the other issues mentioned here, I think that it's not really an ubuntu bug, but it looks like a misconfiguration on the client part.

Having two extensions trying to handle indicators isn't feasible (as they both want the same dbus name), so we can't do much. At least in future it won't be possible to install KSTatusNotificationIcon extension and the ubuntu indicators one together, so the issue will be less visible.

[Tim Passingham (tim-8aw3u04umo)]

Marco - If you are referring to my comments, I freely admit my linux knowledge is very limited.

As a client upgrading from 17.04 I do not, and seemingly have no way of knowing, what a valid configuration is in this respect. I'm not using Unity any more, and am using Ubuntu (Xorg) rather than the explicit GNOME login.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for indicator-application (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]