NetworkManager tray (nm-applet) is gone after upgrade to 14.04 Trusty

Question

I upgraded from 13.10 to 14.04 and now the nm-applet no longer shows in the system tray. I already tried purging and reinstalling the network-manager-gnome package but that didn't help. When I run nm-applet manually in the terminal I get the following output:

** (nm-applet:7419): WARNING **: Couldn't connect to accessibility bus: Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-gBrnqcTAVj: Connection refused

I tried multiple system trays: i3bar (my default), trayer and the xfce4-panel. Other tray apps work in all three of them (like dropbox). The network manager itself works, as it connects to known networks and outputs notifications. Does someone know how to fix this?

Solution 1

You could use the indicator plugin instead, but you may see frequent crashes. The crash is caused by the Applications Menus indicator. Add the indicator plugin and, before it crashes, right click on it, choose 'properties' and tick the 'hidden' checkbox next to the 'Application Menus (Global Menu)' indicator. Then restart the panel with 'xfce4-panel -r'

Instead, I fixed nm-applet by changing the 'Exec' line in /etc/xdg/autostart/nm-applet.desktop to 'dbus-launch nm-applet'

Solution 2

It turns out that to see the nm-applet icon, you have to install package "xfce4-indicator-plugin" and add "Indicator Panel" to the panel.

That adds a whole bunch of icons that you probably don't want, and that ignore your theme choice. But at least you'll have the nm-applet icon again. For a while. The indicator-panel dies every few seconds for me, and when it does stay running long enough for me to try configuring it, the configuration panel doesn't work either.

Your mileage may vary - try the "Indicator Panel" and see if it works for you.

Solution 3

I had the same problem, but i just kill 'indicator-application-service' and icons network, bluetooth and skype appear again. I use xfce on amd64.

Solution 4

I found the solution to this problem here: http://linuxg.net/how-to-fixrestore-the-missing-network-manager-from-the-unity-top-panel-on-ubuntu-13-04-raring-ringtail-and-ubuntu-12-10-quantal-quetzal/

Quoting their site: The fix for this issue is simple, first stop the network-manager service, like this:

$ sudo /etc/init.d/network-manager stop

Delete the /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.state file:

$ sudo rm /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.state

Turn back on the network-manager service:

$ sudo /etc/init.d/network-manager start

View more solutions

Comments

[Chris Moore]

I have the same issue, but the page linked in Guest's answer doesn't help. I use xfce4 in ubuntu 14.04 and did see the network manager applet icon in the notification area after first upgrading to 14.04, but a couple of days later it disappeared. I'm guessing it must be an update I applied after upgrading to 14.04. nm-applet and NetworkManager are both running, and if I edit /usr/share/applications/gnome-network-panel.desktop to say OnlyShowIn=GNOME;XFCE; then run gnome-control-center network I can connect to wireless networks, and the nm-applet bubbles pop

[Eric Carvalho]

Welcome to Ask Ubuntu! Whilst this may theoretically answer the question, it would be preferable to include the essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference.

[Rob Hoare]

I agree, changing nm-applet.desktop as in your second paragraph is what's worked for me, on multiple machines that I've been upgrading from 13.10 to 14.04, with xfce. Needs a reboot after first editing that file, and there's a few seconds delay each time after logging in before the indicator appears on the bar, but it works.

[sivann]

yes! and this also shows skype status again :-)

[tutuca]

The indicator panel is way too buggy. Whenever I switch desktop the indicator crashes...

[Josh Johnson]

Changing nm-applet.desktop worked for me as well. One thing to add, I got tripped up for a while because I unknowingly had a ~/.config/autostart/nm-applet.desktop file which was overriding this. I removed that and everything worked fine.