Hello,
I have an annoying issue with a blank space in system tray just before the notification icon. The space is blank not an application with empty icon.
https://baskinsy.mine.nu/owncloud/index.php/s/xtp1qpUA0iSVfyZ/download](https://baskinsy.mine.nu/owncloud/index.php/s/xtp1qpUA0iSVfyZ)
Any hints on how to debug this?
Thank you.
What is the app missing the icon?
The easiest fix, is just to right cliick on the taskbar and select ‘edit panel’
Then right-click for properities where the icon should show and either find & add the correct icon or find a different icon to use
As I mentioned above, it is just a blank space, no app occupying that “space” so nothing can be removed or use an icon from properties. There is no app missing an icon, it is just an empty space with no app otherwise I would have fix it easy enough as you describe.
Is it also present if you create a new (default) panel?
Does it disappear maybe if you kill xembedsniproxy?
Nope, removed the panel and recreated one default, same behavior. Also killing xembedsniproxy didn’t made any difference.
Ok.
Is there any strange/suspicious entry in the system tray settings list? (right-click on the arrow on the right size and choose “System Tray Settings” or similar)
Maybe try to disable the entries one-by-one (in both the entries tab and General->Extra Items) to see if one of them shows the blank space and which one.
Ok managed to fix it by removing the panel, rebooting and recreating a default panel. It didn’t worked with a logout but after rebooting with no panel and creating a new one notifications icon is now ok and next to the last displayed application icon.
Thanks for the help!
Unfortunately the problem re-appeared after some time. The only “suspicious” thing I can find is a blank “app” on the System Tray Settings. Maybe this is the problem. Also “Redshift Control” has no icon and I have completely remove Redshift from my system but don’t know how to remove the line from the system tray setting.
https://baskinsy.mine.nu/owncloud/index.php/s/skDkfIp131SeG7I/download
I find that likely, yes.
And apparently you cannot disable it?
Maybe have a look in ksysguard (Ctrl+ESC) what processes are running.
Also “Redshift Control” has no icon and I have completely remove Redshift from my system but don’t know how to remove the line from the system tray setting.
You don’t have to remove it.
If the application doesn’t run (which it can’t if it is not installed), it won’t show an icon either.
The system tray (or its settings module) cannot know what is installed or not, or what system tray icons may be displayed again in the future.
I don’t know at the moment if you can tell to “forget” it… (other than editing the Plasma config file manually, i.e. ~/.config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc)
Yes it cannot be removed. Looking on the running processes since the beginning of this issue and I cannot spot something strange. The “blank space” itself it is not associated with an application or process, it stays blank if you hover the mouse over it when the other icons display the applications names. Don’t have any clue at least for what “offending” processes should I look.
Well, as already indicated, the system tray should not show entries by itself.
Only if an application creates a system tray icon (in this case apparently a “broken” one).
Maybe try to kill processes/applications one-by-one, if you get the right one the empty icon should vanish.
Maybe try to start with an empty session (in systemsettings5->Startup and Shutdown->Desktop Session) and see if the icon is gone then.
Managed to pinpoint it. Now I need to find a solution.
The culprit is ibus-ui-gtk3. I have 2 processes running. Killing one of them removes either the blank space or the legitimate (with icon) ibus entry on the system tray. So if it don’t hit the “correct” one (the one with the blank space) with the first try I have to kill both of them to make the “blank space” disappear, loosing the correct entry also (I have it as always hidden so no problem and it doesn’t seem to create a malfunction somewhere).
The question now is why ibus-ui-gtk3 is launched twice on reboot or login and where to look to fix this.
I don’t know, I don’t use ibus-ui-gtk3 (nor ibus at all).
Maybe one instance is started by Plasma’s session management?
If that’s the problem, you should be able to exclude it in systemsettings5 (Startup and Shutdown->Desktop Session, as mentioned earlier).
But Plasma does have ibus support built-in AFAIK, you don’t really need to have ibus-ui-gtk3 installed/running.
Will look more on why ibus was installed and if it can be removed… I think zoom had it as a dependency, but I’m not sure.
For now I have removed
/etc/xdg/autostart/ibus-autostart.desktop
and at least with the last 2 reboots I don’t get the second ibus-ui-gtk3 instance. Will report any change.
You could copy the file to ~/.config/autostart/ and add a line “Hidden=true” to disable it.
But as I wrote, I think it’s likely that it’s also launched by Plasma’s session management (because it was running on logout). Adding it to the exclude list in the settings (systemsettings5->Startup and Shutdown->Desktop Session) may “fix” the problem as well.