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Accepted
Paddy Landau
Asked: 2015-04-24 08:27:04 +0800 CST

How to re-enable the systray (indicator panel) after latest updates

  • 772

After Suttleworth's bizarre decision to hard-code the whitelist for the systray, a developer created a patch to allow people to continue to use applications that use the systray with Ubuntu.

Unfortunately, the patch's creator is now too busy to maintain it. This means that since the latest updates earlier this month, the whitelist no longer works (again).

Canonical's "solution" was to instruct us to raise a bug report for each application that doesn't work, but of course those bug reports have been ignored.

So…

How can I re-enable the systray? Its absence is creating difficulties for me.

I am using Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit.

Answering the question by @GGleb

Command

gsettings list-recursively net.launchpad.indicator.systemtray

Results

net.launchpad.indicator.systemtray disable-indicator false
net.launchpad.indicator.systemtray started-the-first-time false
net.launchpad.indicator.systemtray static-x 0
net.launchpad.indicator.systemtray static-y 0
net.launchpad.indicator.systemtray tray-is-static false

I notice that tray-is-static toggles when I middle-click the icon.

unity

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Try using the Indicator Systemtray Unity (for Ubuntu 14.04 - 15.04):

    enter image description here

    Indicator, when clicked, shows the tray.

    enter image description here

    Also there is a display mode "separately from the indicator" - on top of the panel like a dock. In this mode, the position can be changed by scrolling the mouse over the indicator. To change the mode position: press the middle mouse button on the indicator.

    Installation in the terminal:

    sudo apt-add-repository ppa:fixnix/indicator-systemtray-unity
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install indicator-systemtray-unity

    You must then log out and again log in using your user.

    https://github.com/GGleb/indicator-systemtray-unity

    To remove this package (with its configuration files!!!):

    sudo apt-get --purge remove indicator-systemtray-unity
    • 12

  2. In 16.04 (xenial) I managed to display a panel item for

    wicd-gtk --tray

    by installing

    apt-get install python-appindicator

    Configuration options are displayed when right-clicking on the icon.

    • 1

  3. I suspect this would not be recommended (for the reasons given below) but here's my way around things (assuming that you're already using gurqn's systray-trusty ppa):

    sudo apt-get -s purge unity unity-services libunity-core-6.0-9

sudo apt-get install unity=7.2.4+14.04.20141217-0ubuntu1-systray-ppa1 libunity-core-6.0-9=7.2.4+14.04.20141217-0ubuntu1-systray-ppa1 unity-services=7.2.4+14.04.20141217-0ubuntu1-systray-ppa1

sudo apt-mark hold unity unity-services libunity-core-6.0-9

    The last command should ensure that these packages are not updated without your explicit consent in the future (you'll still have the option to mark the packages for install manually in the update-manager).

    Be warned: doing this may break things in the future, and you may miss out on important security updates. Personally, though, to get a functional systemtray back, it's a risk I'm willing to take.

    Note that if you've installed @GGleb's indicator app previously, you'll also need to remove that package, and then manually delete a file:

    sudo rm -rf /etc/profile.d/UNITY_PANEL_TRAY_DISABLE.sh

    (this file should be automatically removed when uninstalling that package, but for some reason is not ...)

    • -2