Network manager icon does not appear in notification panel at startup

Hi. Please refer to this post which may provide solution to your problem.

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/possible-solutions-to-fix-the-missing-network-manager-icon-in-ubuntu-9-10.html

If it does fix the problem, can you confirm this is the case and I will escalate for a more permanent fix.

Related or duplicate?
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/+bug/492937

alexmoldovan, can you please try out the fix listed in comment #2 and report back if it fixes the problem? Thanks!

I installed Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha i386 (20100305) on 2 different machines, and still there's no network applet or OSD. I'll try the solutions from comment #2 and post back.

I tried the solutions from comment #2 on 2 different machines :

Solution 1. It doesn't work. (see the attached screen shot)

Solution 2. The Indicator applet is missing from "Startup Applications", therefore i can't modify the entry

Solution 3. It doesn't work.

More: I ran :
ubuntu@200912-4906:~$ nm-applet
An instance of nm-applet is already running.

** (nm-applet:3156): WARNING **: <WARN> constructor(): Couldn't initialize the D-Bus manager.

Chris, can you please have a look at this?

@Chris: This was reproduced several times by the QA team during install testing, so they can give you more data.

I've noticed this several times too, and I think it's a bug in the notification area (it sometimes draws the same icon more than once, and the icons that are drawn don't always work). It's probably related to bug 439448

In Lucid, sometimes my notification area starts with weird visual artefacts and half drawn icons which go away when the panel is restarted, and I suspect that those issues are probably the same

Chris, do you still need more information about this bug? (Is it still really incomplete?) If so, please let me know and we will gather whatever you need in the lab.

Thanks.

Would you mind please editing /etc/xdg/autostart/nm-applet.desktop and /usr/share/applications/gnome-panel.desktop, and change the Exec lines to:

Exec=sh -c 'GTK_DEBUG=plugsocket && nm-applet --sm-disable'

and

Exec=sh -c 'GTK_DEBUG=plugsocket && gnome-panel'

Could you then attach ~/.xsession-errors here after it happens again.

Thanks

I've found something that could clear this issue. The network applet functions properly if I do a manual install. The problem persists in the environment with a PXE installation.

The file /etc/network/interfaces on a manual install looks like this:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

For some reason, the PXE install adds another 2 lines:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

If the last 2 lines are erased, the network applet works as it should. I've tested this with the same image (10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha i386 - 20100310) on 4 different machines.

I'm seeing this problem quite often at the moment, and not just with nm-applet. Marking as a duplicate of bug 439448

Given comment #13, this looks very much like a network-manager problem, not a gnome-panel problem; unduping...

I've seen this occasionally too.

I can confirm that nm-applet is running when it happens, just no icon. In both cases when I've seen it occur, there are no errors logged in ~/.xsession-errors ( which is what Dan Williams suggested to check recently ).

I just saw Chris' comment about modifying the applet .desktop file. I'll make that change on my system and see if I can catch anything.

Same error here using karmic.
Sometimes panel shows sound applet twice instead of nm-applet.
Best regards
ZB

I suspect that most people here are experiencing bug 439448, especially as the original reporter says the problem goes away after restarting gnome-panel. Alex most likely has a separate issue unrelated to this one

Removing pcert tag -- this does not affect the certification labs as described by Alex, it's an unrelated issue caused by eth0 being manually configured in /etc/network/interfaces, thus ignored by NM

I believe I've had the same problem, but have done things differently and may have a work-around and possibly a clue:
* somehow nm-applet icon disappeared from the panel; both NetworkManager and nm-applet processes are running, but disappearance of the nm-applet icon disables human user control of networking in the GUI.
$ ps aux | grep NetworkM showed network manager daemon running
# kill -15 <NetworkManager_PID>
* immediate result was another instance of the NetworkManager daemon and appearance of the nm-applet icon in the panel
# shutdown -r now
* after system came up, nm-applet icon appears in the panel, per expectations; i.e. the system seems to have retained the state from the last shutdown.

Tho'ts: init kicks off NetworkManager and gdm stuff; gdm seems the parent of nm-applet. In the /etc/ tree the files for NetworkManager and gnome* show no recent timestamps, so no human and no process has overwritten any conf files. It seems there is some configuration issue at some low, possibly library, level (e.g. argument not properly passed).
<email address hidden>

I can also confirm the issue on a 10.04.2 x86_64 fresh_install

Does the workarounds/solutions in either comment 12 or comment 13 above work for all experiencing this issue? Knowing you have the issue, but not knowing if you even tried either one does not help us. Please try what is suggested and let us know by comment if it works for you.

@Charie, as sayd by Chris Coulson in comment 12 I modified the entry Exec, in /etc/xdg/autostart/nm-applet.desktop, from

Exec=nm-applet --sm-disable

to

Exec=sh -c 'GTK_DEBUG=plugsocket && nm-applet --sm-disable'

I haven't understood if I should add another entry too (that is "Exec=sh -c 'GTK_DEBUG=plugsocket && gnome-panel'").

and after system reboot nothing happened and my .xsession-errors was:

"
/etc/gdm/Xsession: Beginning session setup...
Setting IM through im-switch for locale=it_IT.
Start IM through /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/all_ALL linked to /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/default.
GNOME_KEYRING_CONTROL=/tmp/keyring-mdQfBh
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/keyring-mdQfBh/ssh
GNOME_KEYRING_CONTROL=/tmp/keyring-mdQfBh
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/keyring-mdQfBh/ssh
GNOME_KEYRING_CONTROL=/tmp/keyring-mdQfBh
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/keyring-mdQfBh/ssh

(polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:1720): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: cannot register existing type `_PolkitError'

(polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:1720): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `initialization_value != 0' failed
** (nm-applet:1743): DEBUG: old state indicates that this was not a disconnect 0
** (nm-applet:1743): DEBUG: foo_client_state_changed_cb
"

To clarify comment#12,

Would you mind please editing /etc/xdg/autostart/nm-applet.desktop and change the Exec line to:

Exec=sh -c 'GTK_DEBUG=plugsocket && nm-applet --sm-disable'

and edit /usr/share/applications/gnome-panel.desktop and change the Exec line to:

Exec=sh -c 'GTK_DEBUG=plugsocket && gnome-panel'

@Charlie, thanks for your clarifications. After changing Exec lines as you sayd and rebooting the system (nothing new happened) and .xsession_errors is:

"
Setting IM through im-switch for locale=it_IT.
Start IM through /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/all_ALL linked to /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/default.
GNOME_KEYRING_CONTROL=/tmp/keyring-fGX4Ov
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/keyring-fGX4Ov/ssh
GNOME_KEYRING_CONTROL=/tmp/keyring-fGX4Ov
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/keyring-fGX4Ov/ssh
GNOME_KEYRING_CONTROL=/tmp/keyring-fGX4Ov
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/keyring-fGX4Ov/ssh

(polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:1764): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: cannot register existing type `_PolkitError'

(polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:1764): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `initialization_value != 0' failed

(gnome-power-manager:1777): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.24.1/gobject/gsignal.c:2273: signal `proxy-status' is invalid for instance `0x13c05d0'
** (nm-applet:1789): DEBUG: old state indicates that this was not a disconnect 0
** (nm-applet:1789): DEBUG: foo_client_state_changed_cb
Initializing nautilus-gdu extension
Starting gtk-window-decorator
I/O warning : failed to load external entity "/home/marcop/.compiz/session/103369b680c45b154b13080307702257200000017080027"
Unable to find a synaptics device.
evolution-alarm-notify-Message: Setting timeout for 57999 1308088800 1308030801
evolution-alarm-notify-Message: Wed Jun 15 00:00:00 2011

evolution-alarm-notify-Message: Tue Jun 14 07:53:21 2011

evolution-alarm-notify-Message: Setting timeout for 31898 1308062700 1308030802
evolution-alarm-notify-Message: Tue Jun 14 16:45:00 2011

evolution-alarm-notify-Message: Tue Jun 14 07:53:22 2011
"