Desktop: Tray icon on Ubuntu is missing

[florianrusch]

I confirm (by marking "x" in the [ ] below: [x]):

• [x] This is not a troubleshooting question. Troubleshooting questions go here: http://www.mattermost.org/troubleshoot/.
• [x] This doesn't reproduce on web browsers (such as in Chrome). If it does, issue reports go to the Mattermost Server repository.
• [x] I have read contributing guidelines.

---

Summary
Tray icon on Ubuntu 17.10 is not shown

Steps to reproduce
I've installed the mattermost client with the .deb package. Configured my server and then try to configure the client itself. But at both options, Light and Dark, the tray icon is not shown.

• Operating System: Ubuntu 17.10 - 64 Bit - Kernel 4.13.0-38-generic
• Mattermost Desktop App version: 4.0.1
• Mattermost Server version: Mattermost Team Edition 4.7.1 (4.7.3) with postgres

Expected behavior
Show the tray icon.

Observed behavior
The fields trayIconTheme and showTrayIcon in the ~/.config/Mattermost/config.json are set correctly.

Config:

{
  "teams": [
    {
      "name": "xxx",
      "url": "https://xxx"
    }
  ],
  "showTrayIcon": true,
  "trayIconTheme": "dark",
  "version": 1,
  "minimizeToTray": true,
  "notifications": {
    "flashWindow": 2,
    "bounceIcon": false,
    "bounceIconType": "informational"
  },
  "showUnreadBadge": true,
  "useSpellChecker": true,
  "spellCheckerLocale": "de-DE"
}

Possible fixes
-/-

[erik-alatest]

Confirmed not working in 18.04.
No tray icon.

[yuya-oc]

Reproduced on Ubuntu 18.04. And v4.1.0 would fix the problem. You can download RC2 from https://github.com/mattermost/desktop/issues/768#issuecomment-386037913.

[Blemicek]

The v4.1.0 RC2 doesn't fix the issue for all scenarios, e.g. communitheme (XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=ubuntu-communitheme:ubuntu:GNOME). The problem is in electron (see electron/lib/browser/init.js#L166).

The simplest workaround is to modify mattermost-desktop.desktop file to use correct value in XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP enviroment variable. E.g.:

Exec=env XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=Unity /opt/Mattermost/mattermost-desktop

[ankurloriya]

Reproduced on Ubuntu 18.04, MatterMost app 4.1.2, And MatterMost Server 4.8.0 (mysql)
It seems like Electron issue facing in the Slack app as well.

Production step
Setting up > "Show Icon in the notification area" and close setting page.
Minimize the app.
Lock the system
Unlock the system

[hozblok]

That’s because Ubuntu 18.04 main repository removes ‘libgtk2-appindicator-perl’, a perl bindings for libappindicator that maybe Mattermost requires it for showing software icon in system tray.

workaround:
sudo apt-get install libappindicator-dev

That works for me.

[amyblais]

Jira ticket for tracking: https://mattermost.atlassian.net/browse/MM-14162.

[toreanderson]

Same issue on Fedora 32 with GNOME desktop environment.

Mattermost Destkop was installed using the GNOME software utility, which installs the following Flatpak under the hood:

[:~] $ flatpak info com.mattermost.Desktop

Mattermost - Opensource team chat

          ID: com.mattermost.Desktop
         Ref: app/com.mattermost.Desktop/x86_64/stable
        Arch: x86_64
      Branch: stable
     Version: 4.5.0
     License: Apache-2.0
      Origin: flathub
  Collection: org.flathub.Stable
Installation: system
   Installed: 309,3 MB
     Runtime: org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/19.08
         Sdk: org.freedesktop.Sdk/x86_64/19.08

      Commit: 90aab043460424c475f810436c6e43c6c5d9d4527d2f1530c9d46effe13e2a54
      Parent: 2b060ee5b0171907e052754670d475658909abae04ce43da6b8781d76c9310e7
     Subject: Release 4.5.0 (e4508ed1)
        Date: 2020-06-17 06:15:48 +0000

gnome-shell-extension-appindicator is installed and appears to work fine, at least other apps such as Signal and Slack (both installed using Flatpak) do have their icons shown there.

There are a couple of Gtk error messages appearing when starting the application, I do not know if those are relevant in any way:

[:~] $ flatpak run com.mattermost.Desktop 
Gtk-Message: 14:22:16.211: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
Gtk-Message: 14:22:16.211: Failed to load module "pk-gtk-module"
Gtk-Message: 14:22:16.211: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
Gtk-Message: 14:22:16.211: Failed to load module "pk-gtk-module"
14:22:16.392 › Current working directory is /home/tore, changing into /app/main
config.autostart has been configured: true

Let me know if I can provide any other debug information.

[mhoffmeyerDC]

Same issue on Fedora 32 with GNOME desktop environment.

Might be related to this issue in Electron.

I was able to get my icons for this and others working with the KStatusNotifierItem/AppIndicator Support extension.

[toreanderson]

Same issue on Fedora 32 with GNOME desktop environment.

Mattermost Destkop was installed using the GNOME software utility, which installs the following Flatpak under the hood:

I have found that this issue is specific to the Flatpak distribution, and that it can be worked around by simply reloading the AppIndicator GNOME Shell extension while Mattermost Desktop is running. Issue filed at flathub/com.mattermost.Desktop#15.

[andrsharov]

On Xubuntu 20.04 I have same problem.
Mattermost-desktop was installed as snap package.

root@Unnamed:~# cat /etc/*release*
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=20.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=focal
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS"
NAME="Ubuntu"
VERSION="20.04.1 LTS (Focal Fossa)"
ID=ubuntu
ID_LIKE=debian
PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS"
VERSION_ID="20.04"
HOME_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://help.ubuntu.com/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/"
PRIVACY_POLICY_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/privacy-policy"
VERSION_CODENAME=focal
UBUNTU_CODENAME=focal

root@Unnamed:~# uname -a
Linux Unnamed 5.4.0-47-generic #51-Ubuntu SMP Fri Sep 4 19:50:52 UTC 2020 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux



md5-f8467743be6bf16d57a198793ba90da4



sudo apt-get install libappindicator-dev

@hozblok , Thanks

[vintprox]

I have this issue on Ubuntu 20.04 as well. It either appears or not, some random side effect.

sudo apt-get install libappindicator-dev

Another 256 MB of disk space for tray icon? Fascinating.

[shiftgeist]

sudo apt-get install libappindicator-dev

If I am not mistaken this package is not available on Debian 10.

[xurei]

I noticed that sudo apt-get install libappindicator3-1 also fixes it (Debian Stable, GNOME 3.30)