GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 596923
notification area shows wrong icons. erratic behaviour
Last modified: 2012-03-06 17:49:22 UTC
The original bug is filed here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-panel/+bug/439448 It's very hard to describe the bug, so a screen shot is attached. http://launchpadlibrarian.net/32751110/notification%20area%20bug.png As seen on the screen shot, after start up the notification area gets scrambled, it shows, in case of this screen shot, two volume control icons, one of them is the actual volume control icon, and the other one is just a copy of the original, it just sits there, clicking on it doesn't do anything, and right clicking on it will bring the standard notification area sub-menu. Also missing here is a network manager icon. However: The phantom icon can be a clone of any other icon in the notification area. I've seen already phantoms of bluez icons, network manager icons and so on. And the missing icon,can also be any of the other icons, there is no rule or consistency :) Also, killing the application with a missing icon will remove the phantom icon, starting the application afterwards will show a correct functioning icon. In the case of this screen shot, the missing icon was of a nm-applet, so after I killed the nm-applet, one of the volume icons (the phantom one) disappeared, I then started the nm-applet again, and the correct icon for it appeared and worked as intended. I haven't seen any related messages in the logs for this. If you need more information and/or some additional testing,I will be glad to do it. Thanks :) ProblemType: Bug Architecture: amd64 Date: Wed Sep 30 17:31:38 2009 DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10 ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/gnome-panel NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia Package: gnome-panel 1:2.28.0-0ubuntu3 ProcEnviron: LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SHELL=/bin/bash ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-11.36-generic SourcePackage: gnome-panel Uname: Linux 2.6.31-11-generic x86_64
This bug isn't happening for me anymore for the last 4-5 days. So I presume it was fixed along with some other update. And since no one else commented on this bug I will mark it as resolved/invalid.
In my machine (the same specification, but video is Intel 945GM ) this bug appears every day. After restart gnome-panel all works fine.
Adam, I don't experience this bug anymore for some time now. So there is a possibility that you have some other bug, maybe with similar symptoms. Any way, you should either change the status of this bug, from resolved to unconfirmed or file a new bug with your description of the problem, otherwise the gnome guys won't do anything, since for them the bug status is resolved. :) cheers;
Please, change status. This bug is still present on some fresh Karmic installs. Makalsky, the bug might not be present anymore in your machine due to other changes, but I'm pretty sure that it still exists.
You are right, I got it twice in the last two month. Too irregular to be of any meaning for debugging, but still there. Also there is very live discussion in the launchpad about it. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-panel/+bug/439448
This is definately still happening occasionally with the latest gnome-panel. Ubuntu users are noticing it less because there's only 1 icon in the notification area by default now (network manager)
Created attachment 162089 [details] bug notification area
Created attachment 162090 [details] bug notification area
The bug persists here. See these 2 attachments. Architecture: amd64 Date: Thu May 27 2010 DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04 Uname: Linux 2.6.32-22-generic x86_64 Video card: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4500 Series Video driver: xserver-xorg-video-ati - 1:6.13.0-1ubuntu5
Is anybody seeing this on a non-Ubuntu machine?
From the Launchpad report (comment #124): "Just had a cloned sound icon and no wireless icon --------------even if I clicked the fake icon no wireless info came up . This was on Mint running of a usb drive ." Mint is also affected, but this is heavily based on Ubuntu so don't know if that's helpful at all? Note: Does not appear to be hardware specific at all - LP bug report shows a range of display drivers and other hardware. Affects 32 and 64 bit.
If Mint is based on Ubuntu, then this is still a bug that only seems to happen on Ubuntu so far, unfortunately.
Looking through the (going on for 150!) comments, it does appear to be a bug in the Indicator Applet. Don't know if this makes any difference Gnome guys? Hope it helps. Thank you :)
No, the bug is not in the indicator applet. The bug has been seen in pretty much every applet on the panel (including the notification area, clock, show-desktop button and even the separators)
Look here: http://people.canonical.com/~chrisccoulson/Selection_002.png and here: http://people.canonical.com/~chrisccoulson/Selection_001.png ..for examples of it not affecting the indicator-applet (and there isn't even an indicator-applet on the panel in the first image)
Comment #73 in the LP bug states that Debian is also affected, so it is not Ubuntu specific, or so it appears.
I'd like to add that this affected me with GNOME 2.26 and I've heard reports of the same in 2.24. I'm not saying this isn't Ubuntu-specific, I'm merely pointing out that it's been hiding for a bit :)
FYI, this bug stills occurs as of Ubuntu 10.10 beta, that is to say Gnome 2.31.x. I'm kind of concerned by this, because hundreds of persons reported it on Launchpad since sept. 2009 (i.e. all my friends using Ubuntu with Compiz have experienced it one day or another) and we've not managed to make out how to reproduce it. It seems specific to Ubuntu, when Compiz is used along with the Canonical notifications applets, but there may be exceptions... Which makes me wonder if something can be made upstream. We would need someone who has some insight in both the Canonical applets & Gnome... (Note : I worked around it by removing the Canonical indicators)
(In reply to comment #16) > Comment #73 in the LP bug states that Debian is also affected, so it is not > Ubuntu specific, or so it appears. And is that debian user using the indicators? (since they're packaged in debian) I'm sorry, but so far, I've only seen reports from people using indicators, so I'd blame this applet.
I wouldn't say it isn't the applet's fault, but look at this screenshot. This is on a separate panel than the indicator applets.
Created attachment 170369 [details] 'show desktop' glitch
Sure, I've seen that. Now, please remove the indicators and see if this occurs again. If yes, then that's not because of the indicators. But this is a pretty visible issue and I haven't seen anybody else reporting it, so that's why I guess this way.
OK so... The bug just occured here (Ubuntu Lucid, Gnome 2.30.2) while *not even a single piece* of Canonical software was added to the panel. I just have a single panel with (from left to right) the gnome Menu, icons, the task-bar, system monitor, virtual desktops, the standard notifications applet and the time applet. In this case, the time applet is corrupt (I see twice the beginning of the date, thus it is truncated). Changing the GTK theme restored it.
(In reply to comment #23) > OK so... The bug just occured here (Ubuntu Lucid, Gnome 2.30.2) while *not even > a single piece* of Canonical software was added to the panel. I just have a > single panel with (from left to right) the gnome Menu, icons, the task-bar, > system monitor, virtual desktops, the standard notifications applet and the > time applet. Good, we can say the indicators are not related to this now! > In this case, the time applet is corrupt (I see twice the beginning of the > date, thus it is truncated). Changing the GTK theme restored it. Changing the GTK+ theme will cause a redraw, so I guess that would explain it. Hrm. Still, could be a theme engine issue, with some corruptions there. I guess the next thing would be to see if it can happen with some themes that are not the ones used by default in Ubuntu (and that don't use the same engine -- I think it's murrine, not sure).
Thank you, Vincent. Yep, the "light-themes" do use "gtk2-engines-murrine". Meanwhile, I'll use Clearlooks.
This looks like a sort of race condition. It looks like this happens if the menu is drawn to early in the start up process.
The following has been posted by Andrew Davie (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-panel/+bug/439448/comments/257). It seems to contain some helpful information so I thought I'd repost it here: What I find quite interesting is that when an icon is corrupt (for example, my wireless network icon is half-obscured by half of the CPU temperature icon shape), and the icon is subsequently modified (e.g., I disable and re-enable wireless network causing the icon to animate), the only part of the icon redrawn is that part NOT obscured by the incorrect half of the CPU temp. icon. In other words, only the currently correct bit of the icon is redrawn and the bad bit is always bad. Even when I totally remove the CPU temperature from the panel, the wireless icon is STILL corrupted with half the temperature icon. This is pretty strange. I find it hard to think of a programming scenario which would allow this. It's almost like the buffer for the icons is the right size, but the animate/draw code somehow thinks the width of the icons is smaller than it actually is. So when the icon buffers are blitted to the panel, they're the correct size, but we always get whatever is in the icon bitmap buffer. And since the icon only ever draws to a smaller width than it actually is, we always have the corrupt bit. That's my guess, anyway. So I'd be looking for some corruption of the icon width, not some sort of incorrect overdraw of the icon. My guess is that what's overdrawn is actually what was previously in the icon buffer before the width got corrupted. Just a guess.
Its not just a drawing issue because the corupt icon isn't clickable.
How this bug can still be marked as 'Unconfirmed' is just ridiculous! I'd like to hear from the Panel Maintainers what is needed to progress this.
I have two manifestations across 3 i386 Maverick machines, two from fresh live cd install, one upgraded from Lucid. Installs from 8th Jan 2011 to 10th Jan 2011, all updated on 12th Jan 2011. Manifestation One. The top panel appears and looks ok but cannot be accessed when left clicking with the mouse, i.e. no menus or flying hints appear. Bug is intermittent. Some start ups are fine then after a day or so the manifestation reappears. Manifestation Two. The top panel icons are incorrectly presented with no Applications, Places, System visible and the Indicator Applet Session duplicated and overlapping such that the Shut Down menu doesn't show. To the inexperienced user there is no way to shut down the machine other than the power button with a fair chance of corrupting the system in the process. This manifestation is equally intermittent. This should be of high importance as data loss is possible upon enforced power button shut down. The workaround, using a terminal:- killall gnome-panel works on all occasions, the regenerated top panel appears as expected.
Uninstalling all Compiz components on my Ubuntu 10.04 installation cured the problem.
Turning off visual effects in Ubuntu 10.04 seems to help. No panel behavior issues for several days now.
(In reply to comment #19) > I'm sorry, but so far, I've only seen reports from people using indicators, so > I'd blame this applet. (In reply to comment #31) > Uninstalling all Compiz components on my Ubuntu 10.04 installation cured the > problem. (In reply to comment #32) > Turning off visual effects in Ubuntu 10.04 seems to help. => CLosing as NOTGNOME. Please report to your distribution as this seems not to be an upstream code issue, so nothing that can be done in GNOME.
*** Bug 623449 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***