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Иван Бишевац
Asked: 2011-11-01 14:31:13 +0800 CST

How to access Skype in Unity?

  • 772

I don't know how to access Skype in Ubuntu 11.10 because it gives me some error when I press the Skype icon on Unity launcher.

Here is a screenshot. Skype error message.

It's obvious that another instance of Skype is running but I don't know how to access it.

What could be the problem?

11.10

7 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I found solution. After first signing in, I opened options, and checked option "Start Skype minimized in the system tray". Here is screenshot: enter image description here

    EDIT: After there steps I had to do one more step. After typing next command into terminal:

    gsettings get com.canonical.Unity.Panel systray-whitelist

    I've got this:

    ['JavaEmbeddedFrame', 'scp-dbus-service', 'Wine']

    I've just added Skype into this list issuing this command:

    gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Panel systray-whitelist "['JavaEmbeddedFrame', 'Skype', 'scp-dbus-service', 'Wine']"

    You don't need to check Start Skype minimized... for this to work - as soon you as you update gsettings the skype icon will appear.

    Hope this helps :)

    • 12

  2. Try to reinstall official Skype version for Oneiric. Open a terminal and type:

    sudo apt-get remove skype
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install skype

    Then restart your system.

    • 5

  3. I had a similar issue where another instance of Skype wasn't running. From this answer on my question, can you try deleting the ~./Skype hidden folder after backing it up, then rebooting and restarting Skype?

    • 4

  4. The real problem here is that under Unity, the Skype icon doesn't appear in the tray when it is running. When you close the Skype window, the Skype process is still running as you expect, only there is no tray icon to show that it is. After you change com.canonical.Unity.Panel systray-whitelist as described in #2, the icon appears (on next log in, for me), and it is now obvious when Skype is running, and when it is not.

    What I can't tell you is why this white listing was added...

    • 4

  5. Make sure these two packages are installed.

    sudo apt-get install sni-qt sni-qt:i386
    • 3

  6. It happened to me that Skype did not started minimized to tray, and I had marked the option "start skype minimized"...

    I found out this was because I was launching skype from a shell script, with the "--pipelogin" argument - which seems to make skype ignore the "start minimized" setting

    Hope it helps someone

    • 1

  7. You can activate Keyboard hotkeys in options. "Focus Skype" is Ctrl+Shift+# by default. keyboard shortcut to focus skype

    • 0