Xubuntu Dropbox icon fail

Question

Affects: 14.04 / 14.10 / 15.04 / 15.10 / 16.04 / 16.10

I started my dropbox deamon today, with the following result in the panel:

The icon with the warning/failed symbol should be my Dropbox icon. I cannot right-click or left-click it, so no interaction.

I am running Xubuntu 15.10 on 4.2.0-27-generic x64. I also tried to re-install Dropbox, reinstall nautilus-dropbox, recursively delete ./cache/sessions/ as well as set other themes and icon sets.

Apparently nothing helped and similar problems described here and on other boards are similar, not the same and do not work in my case.

Solution 1

A more recent workaround that works for more Linux operating systems than the DBUS_SESSION one:

dropbox stop && dbus-launch dropbox start

EDIT: To make this permanent see answer by @juankvillegas below.

Solution 2

The answer given by @Juan M. Gonzalez is the best one, but you have to run that command every time you restart your PC.

A permanent fix would be:

• Run the proposed command once to make the Dropbox icon appear in your notification area: dropbox stop && dbus-launch dropbox start
• Open Dropbox preferences (click on the Dropbox icon in the notification area).
• Disable "Start Dropbox on system startup" and apply your changes.
• Go to XFCE settings > Session and Startup > Application Autostart.
• Search for an existing Dropbox item and confirm it is disabled.
• Add a new item with this configuration (do not edit the existing Dropbox item because it is recreated in each reboot):
  • Name: Dropbox
  • Command: dbus-launch dropbox start -i
• Be sure that the new application is enabled in the list.

Solution 3

This instruction only work for Xubuntu, UbuntuStudio 16.04 (Not working in 17.04)

In you terminal run

sudo gedit /usr/bin/dropbox

Create a new line after import os and add the following:

os.environ['DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS'] = ""

Save and rebot

Here a Gif I made:

And, if someday Dropbox update and not working more, repeat this tutorial

Reference:

Dropbox icon is not working Xubuntu 14.04 LTS 64

This applies to UbuntuStudio 15.10, 16.04 and Xubuntu (both based on XFCE)

Solution 4

This worked for me (xubuntu 15.10):

DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS="" dropbox start

That is shown here:

Dropbox icon is not working Xubuntu 14.04 LTS 64

Solution 5

Here's what I did in Xubuntu 16.04

I remove the indicator applet.

The Dropbox icon appeared.

I added the indicator applet. Moved it to where it was before.

Done !

To get Dropbox integration in Thunar:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xubuntu-dev/extras

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install thunar-dropbox-plugin

View more solutions

Comments

[user1252280]

I already had the indicators removed (because of the annoying envelope symbol). However, the answer of @Fernando Basso had the final clue!

[user1252280]

Very nice, this finally worked! I added the important part of the line to ~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd so nautilus starts dropbox the right way. Thanks a lot!

[user1252280]

Yes, I can confirm this. And imho, this suggestion is even better: With the old workaround I git a dbus error, when opening a file inside the dropbox tree with gvim (from nautilus). I will accept this answer, since it has less side-effects.

[jbrock]

This was the only workaround of a few I tried that worked for 14.04 Xfce with Crouton. Thanks!

[P Smith]

That's what I did, too! Well, first used dropbox stop && dbus-launch dropbox start which worked but still left the indicator applet.. So I ended up removing the latter anyway, which left my lovely Dropbox icon there working perfectly. Yours is a simpler, useful answer though! -Xubu 16.04

[Ur Ya'ar]

This worked great! Before I saw this I just tried editing the existing startup item, but it reverted back after restart, also just adding a new item and deleting the old one didn't work. Only after doing your "Disable "Start Dropbox on system startup" " step it worked. So it is essential. Thx!

[Skybbles]

This isn't in English. Please translate.

[Wolfgang Noichl]

Doesn't work for me (the permanent one, that is). Xenial / Xubuntu

[juankvillegas]

@WolfgangNoichl, Are you getting an error message in the console when executing dropbox stop && dbus-launch dropbox start?

[jarno]

@WolfgangNoichl I suppose dropbox was started first as part of saved session. To make the Application Autostart work even if you have dropbox as part of saved session, you have to stop dropbox first by dropbox stop.

[Wolfgang Noichl]

@jarno that did the job, thx!

[jarno]

@WolfgangNoichl, Please check out my answer, too.

[jarno]

How do you compare the pulseaudio plugin with the indicator-plugins Sound Menu? Anyway, Dropbox icon can be shown in Notification Area even if Indicator is in use. See my answer.

[jarno]

@Syster maybe due to Dropbox update which overwrote the file. See my answer for an alternative solution.

[jlb]

What is the -i flag for? Edit: looks like it installs dropboxd if its not currently available on the system

[juankvillegas]

@jlb I didn't know what is -i for... but when I checked the official Dropbox launcher, the one that we disabled, it had that flag there... so...

[Sathiya Narayanan]

This seems to be the "official" workaround for Ubuntu 16.04: bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus-dropbox/+bug/1546‌​176

[Tim Richardson]

I have two laptops, both with xubuntu 16.04. On one of them, Dropbox works fine; I have never fixed it with custom start scripts. Most odd ... this answer explained the difference between the two configurations and it is the most elegant solution.

[Kokizzu]

this the only solution works for me xubuntu 17.04 XD

[jarno]

For some reason this does not work correctly anymore in 14.04; the system tries to display the Indicator icon instead, but fails to do it properly.

[dez93_2000]

Plugin available here: launchpad.net/xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin. See also this askubuntu.com/questions/1034047/… ; I needed libpulse-dev, libxfce4util-dev, libxfce4ui-2-dev, libxfce4panel-2.0-dev. Hopefully that saves someone some time!

[dez93_2000]

Note: this duplicates the pulseaudio volume icon popup for me, i.e. when changing volume. Right click on the panel icon, properties, unclick 'show notifications'. Now it only comes up once.

[Terrance]

Still works great in Ubuntu 18.04

[pauljohn32]

This fixed problem for me in Ubuntu 19.04. After updating, none of my old apps could talk to panel anymore. Re-running the notification area app fixed the problem.