Improper display on Xfce 4.10/Cinnamon running on Ubuntu 12.04/Mint

Same here,
running xubuntu quantal, xfce 4.10 on a lenovo n100 laptop. Worked fine with precise and xfce 4.8. This bug is very annoying.
Here's a screenshot, the indicator multiload is that tiny greenish line in between.
http://i.imgur.com/BaWYP.png

Could you check whether the version at https://launchpad.net/~indicator-multiload/+archive/daily fixes it?

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Checked https://launchpad.net/~indicator-multiload/+archive/daily, did not help. Attaching output from apt-cache show, to make sure I got the correct version.

Starting from the current 0.3 version of the indicator at https://code.launchpad.net/~indicator-multiload/+archive/daily (and also in https://code.launchpad.net/~indicator-multiload/+archive/stable-daily when it has finished building), the indicator is full-width on lubuntu, unity, unity-2d and with stalonetray. It is limited to a square icon in xubuntu and gnome-shell (where it is in the messaging tray instead of the indicator area), but this is a limitation of the systemtray implementation of these environments, and there is nothing the indicator can do.

Therefore, I can only mark this bug as invalid :-(. You are free to open a bug against the mentioned desktop environments.

Well, in my setup the indicator is actually in the indicator area provided by xfce's indicator-plugin (which uses indicator-applet), not in the systemtray provided by the xfce's systray plugin, does your argument for invalidation above intended to include this case?

Hi Pablo,

Thanks, I didn't know that this existed.

I did a test again with a 12.10 xubuntu cd, with the following results:
- with indicator-applet: square icon (too small)
- without indicator-applet -> systray: non-square-icon, as it should be

But the general conclusions still stand :-(. This is a bug/feature in the desktop environments, and there is nothing the indicator can do about it.

Please would you consider making this app use the system tray instead of the indicator applet? Then it could probably occupy the space that it needs.

@gcc that would be great, or maybe having an option in the preferences
which allowed to select whether the indicator register itself as an
indicator or as a systray icon.

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 6:40 AM, gcc <email address hidden> wrote:

> Please would you consider making this app use the system tray instead of
> the indicator applet? Then it could probably occupy the space that it
> needs.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to a
> duplicate bug report (1097239).
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1014494
>
> Title:
> Improper display on Xfce 4.10/Cinnamon/Gnome Shell running on Ubuntu
> 12.04/Mint
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/indicator-multiload/+bug/1014494/+subscriptions
>

Changing the state back to confirmed just so that other people can find the bug.

In GNOME Shell 3.6, you can move the indicator from the messaging tray to the top bar with the topicons extension from https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/495/topicons/.

With Xubuntu 12.04 and prior, indicator-multiload worked well. However with Xubuntu 12.10, it seems that indicator-multiload is loaded into the Xubuntu "indicator Plugin" which only allows an Icon width, causing indicator-multiload to display very small and is essentially useless.

 I however found that executing it as root, causes indicator-multiload to load into the main panel and it works correctly. It might be a security risk, but to do this, edit the Xubuntu startup item and change the command to gksudo indicator-multiload. At least in this way I can use this great app.

"sudo indicator-multiload" works almost as well as on 12.04, but there are a few glitches:

The first and last indicator parts are not as wide as they should be.

There's a gap between the edge of the Notification Area and the first icon inside. This gap grows wider as more parts are added to indicator-multiload.

I've attached an image.

Hey Martin, thanks for your tip, it worked for a couple of weeks.

Unfortunately, after some random updates a couple of days ago it ceased to work as expected, so I'm back in square 0.

Hi Pablo,

you can try the version at ppa:indicator-multiload/daily which has a --trayicon parameter to force the icon to appear in the system tray. But when I tried it with a Xubuntu 12.10 live CD, it seemed as if it was scaled to 50% of the height, although the width was correct.

Michael

I checked a couple of desktops whether they resize/clip the system tray (with --trayicon) or appindicators:
+Ubuntu 12.04: indicator - OK
+Ubuntu 2D 12.04: indicator - OK
+Ubuntu 12.10: indicator - OK
+Ubuntu 13.04: indicator - OK
-Lubuntu 12.04: tray - normal size, but clipped square
-Lubuntu 12.04: indicator - resized to fit square
-Lubuntu 12.04: tray - normal size, but clipped square
+Lubuntu 12.10: indicator - OK
-Xubuntu 12.10: tray - resized to 50% of the menu bar height??
-Xubuntu 12.10: indicator - resized to fit square

Hi Michael, I'm very happy to confirm that the version currently available on the daily ppa is working great with the new "--trayicon" argument on 2 different boxes I run on Xubuntu 12.10, no 50% height resize or any other problem at all! Excellent!

I've also tested "--trayicon" from ppa on Xubuntu 12.10, but it shares the width and gap glitches with "sudo indicator-multiload" that I reported earlier.

Umm... well... Fredrick's message made me think again and remember that I actually have xfce 4.12 (from ppa:xubuntu-dev/xfce-4.12) over xubuntu 12.10 on both boxes where I have the new version with --trayicon working.

I added ppa:xubuntu-dev/xfce-4.12 and did "aptitude update && aptitude upgrade", followed by a reboot. Width and gap glichets persists. :(

Fixed in an experimental branch:
https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9040

The same width problem happens for me with Ubuntu 13.10 "saucy" on LXPanel 0.6.1 -- The graphs are unreadable and with fixed width no matter how I change "System monitor width" within indicator-multiload preferences. Changing the width there seems to only change the "virtual size" of the applet, but the actually displayed size is fixed, like a mask.

Seeing the same bug in Mint 17 Cinnamon.

Mint Cinamon 16, multiload-indicator v0.3:
Start OK from the command line, and occupies al lthe space necessary.
When auto-starting during login, or after some other applets are added/removed, it is shrunk to a standard icon size. Quitting and restarting it manually with Alt-F2 fixes the problem temporarily.

It looks like interworking problem between system tray and the indicator. Initial startup takes the space as required, but automatic resizing/moving screws screws up the size of the applet. Perhaps the applet need to intercept and process some "resize" event? (only guessing here, as I am not famliar with the panel API).

Same with Ubuntu 14.04, indicator-multiload 0.3 from ppa, and Xfce 4.10.1
Indicator is randomly showing properly for half a second.

Hi all,

I still don't think that the indicator can do much about this. The indicator has been working on Ubuntu (Unity) for the last couple of years without any changes. As the indicator API was created by Ubuntu/Canonical for this desktop environment (DE), I tend to blame any differences in behavior elsewhere on the DE in question. The same goes for the system tray support: if it works with stalonetray, it is most likely a problem with the system tray support of the DE.

I'm sorry that I cannot do more about this. Really your best hope is to file a bug in the bug tracker of the DE, and try to work with the developers there to fix their appindicator support. If it does not work with Unity/stalonetray or if you can at least provide some idea/code how I can help with the situation, I'm all ears :-)

Michael

Since this bug is obviously not going to be fixed any time soon, there is an alternative for Cinnamon users:

Multi-Core System Monitor 1.5
http://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/applets/view/79

You can install it from Linux Mint's Panel Applets list

The issue is reproduced on Cinnamon 3.0 under Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

I would not recommend using the applet, mentioned above, cause it really seems abandoned. This bug also worrying: https://github.com/ccadeptic23/Multi-Core-System-Monitor/issues/12

Confirm that the issue is reproduced under Cinnamon 3.0, but under Mint 18 (based on Ubuntu 16.04).

I still can confirm this with Ubuntu 16.10 amd64, with Cinnamon 3.2.8.

It works nicely with the --trayicon switch.
I created a script to replace the original file with a script which will use the switch:

sudo mv /usr/bin/indicator-multiload /usr/bin/indicator-multiload.origi; echo 'indicator-multiload.origi --trayicon' | sudo tee /usr/bin/indicator-multiload; sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/indicator-multiload