Ferdi: Tray icon disappears on resume (Linux)

[huang-jy]

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Bug description:
Tray icon disappears on resume

Steps to reproduce:

1. Start Ferdi
2. Let everything load
3. Suspend/close lid
4. Resume/open lid
5. Tray icon has disappeared and does not reappear even when reopening Ferdi.

Expected behavior

Screenshots

Environment:

• Operating System: Ubuntu 19
• Ferdi Version: 5.5.0

• Server: Ferdi

• Debug information:
  

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[devaqto]

Same happens on Windows for a long time already (not always persistently), also happens on Franz.

[kris7t]

We had many issues like this in the past (like https://github.com/getferdi/ferdi/issues/949, https://github.com/getferdi/ferdi/issues/437, https://github.com/getferdi/ferdi/issues/338). The fundamental problem is that Ferdi, being written using Electron, reuses Chrome(ium)'s system tray handling code, which is flaky. I suspect Chromium doesn't really exercise that code often (few websites need tray icons), and it's a system integration functionality that is very hard to test. This is compounded by the idiosyncratic system tray support (see e.g. https://github.com/getferdi/ferdi/issues/437#issuecomment-630758456) in many Linux desktop environment.

A way forward would be to create our own system tray support code, or delegate to NPM packages hooking into native APIs (e.g., Shell_NotifyIcon for Windows, NSStatusItem for MacOS, and D-Bus StatusNotifierItem on Linux). I believe this is what Wavebox did with their desktop integration, but unfortunately they recently went proprietary closed-source.

Even better would be a notification status API (see https://github.com/getferdi/ferdi/issues/967), e.g. over D-Bus for Linux, or even more generically for other platforms, so that users could opt for a custom desktop integration mechanisms (Xfce panel applet, GNOME Shell Extension, i3status script, etc.)

However, these solutions need a lot of work, and even more integration and user testing. In the meantime, we could try to make the current tray icon support a bit more robust (but it'll probably never be bulletproof).

[huang-jy]

This might also account for the crashes of Ferdi when I switch tray icon from on to off then back on again.

Nonetheless, it's something that isn't a showstopper for me, as it is a known issue.

Keep up the good work!