Dropbox says my environment doesn't support tray icon, by it does

YMMV, but what worked for me was installing the snixembed proxy, which proxies StatusNotifierItems/XEmbedded.

This worked on Openbox w/ Tint2.

You could also try dropbox-cli to get functionality.

Dealing w/ this was painful enough for me that I created a forum account just to share.

Thanks for the snixembed hint Baeckel​ ! That also worked for i3 with i3status.

Thanks for this Baeckel​ this worked for me in Ratpoison and EXWM with trayer. Had just started looking for Dropbox replacements after using this for the last 15 years or so.

Hi all,

When starting up my computer this morning I was greeted with this dialog box:

Clicking the 'Learn More' button, the page lists a very small number of desktop environments on which App Indicator is supported. I use the 'awesome' window manager, which from what I can tell doesn't support App Indicator. So for people like me, will there be no way for us to have a Dropbox tray icon?

I am aware I can still use Dropbox in 'headless mode' without a tray icon. I don't want to do that. The tray icon is very useful to see current usage and recently synced files quickly without messing around in the terminal, and to see at a glance whether Dropbox is syncing, has finished syncing, or has crashed. 

The current tray icon works perfectly fine as it is. There is no need to replace it with a new version that supports far fewer desktop environments and completely breaks the tray icon on any others.

Is there any way we can keep the current Dropbox tray icon without having to completely uproot our entire desktop config (i.e. 'update your environment')?

Thanks.

agreed

Thank you Baeckel​ for the snixembed tip. Working for i3!

The message popped up for me this morning too, and the Dropbox tray icon no longer shows, even though my environment is compatible:

Distro: Debian 12
Destktop Environment: Gnome 43.9
Windowing System: Windows X11
Window Manager: mutter (the default, when the above options are chosen on install)

$ echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE x11

$ sudo apt install libappindicator3-1
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Note, selecting 'libayatana-appindicator3-1' instead of 'libappindicator3-1'
libayatana-appindicator3-1 is already the newest version (0.5.92-1).
libayatana-appindicator3-1 set to manually installed.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

# dpkg -l | grep libgtk-3
ii  libgtk-3-0:amd64                               3.24.38-2~deb12u3                   amd64        GTK graphical user interface library
ii  libgtk-3-bin                                   3.24.38-2~deb12u3                   amd64        programs for the GTK graphical user interface library
ii  libgtk-3-common                                3.24.38-2~deb12u3                   all          common files for the GTK graphical user interface library
# dpkg -l | grep libgtk-4
ii  libgtk-4-1:amd64                               4.8.3+ds-2+deb12u1                  amd64        GTK graphical user interface library
ii  libgtk-4-bin                                   4.8.3+ds-2+deb12u1                  amd64        programs for the GTK graphical user interface library
ii  libgtk-4-common                                4.8.3+ds-2+deb12u1                  all          common files for the GTK graphical user interface library
# dpkg -l | grep libglib2.0
ii  libglib2.0-0:amd64                             2.74.6-2+deb12u6                    amd64        GLib library of C routines
ii  libglib2.0-0:i386                              2.74.6-2+deb12u6                    i386         GLib library of C routines
ii  libglib2.0-bin                                 2.74.6-2+deb12u6                    amd64        Programs for the GLib library
ii  libglib2.0-data                                2.74.6-2+deb12u6                    all          Common files for GLib library

AppIndicator:

Name: AppIndicator and KStatusNotifierItem Support
Description: Adds AppIndicator, KStatusNotifierItem and legacy Tray icons support to the Shell
Path: /home/myuser/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/appindicatorsupport@[removed].gmail.com
URL: https://github.com/ubuntu/gnome-shell-extension-appindicator
Version: 53
State: ENABLED

I've also raised the issue with AppIndicator on github too (issue #583) to help people who also encounter it.

It seems that AppIndicator support is "not properly detected" in my case, as you said. Can you help?

Hi Andsmi​,

I've checked with the team and they said that Dropbox uses DBus to find the app indicator services, so you'll have to make sure that the org.kde.StatusNotifierWatcher service is running. You can do that by running the following command in your terminal:

dbus-send --session \ --type=method_call \ --print-reply \ --dest=org.freedesktop.DBus \ /org/freedesktop/DBus \ org.freedesktop.DBus.ListNames

You should get a list of service names returned, and you should find org.kde.StatusNotifierWatcher in that list.Assuming you see that, you can then query the status of the service using the same DBus message that the Dropbox app uses with the following command:

dbus-send --session \ --type=method_call \ --print-reply \ --dest=org.kde.StatusNotifierWatcher \ /StatusNotifierWatcher \ org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties.Get \ string:org.kde.StatusNotifierWatcher \ string:IsStatusNotifierHostRegistered

If Gnome is properly using the service you should see something like this:

method return time=1748612867.079169 sender=:1.25 -> destination=:1.239 serial=4372 reply_serial=2 variant boolean true

That boolean true is the important part that tells you the service is running and a host is registered.If the appindicator shell extension is properly registering a host and the DBus service is exposed then you should not see that error message.Gnome is currently on version 48, and the appindicator shell extension is currently at version 60, so updating those items may help resolve the issue.

Thanks for the insight into this. Neal Mc.

This is the output from your commands, that show that the service is indeed running.

~$ dbus-send --session --type=method_call --print-reply --dest=org.freedesktop.DBus /org/freedesktop/DBus org.freedesktop.DBus.ListNames | grep StatusNotifierWatcher
      string "org.kde.StatusNotifierWatcher"
~$ dbus-send --session --type=method_call --print-reply --dest=org.kde.StatusNotifierWatcher /StatusNotifierWatcher org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties.Get string:org.kde.StatusNotifierWatcher string:IsStatusNotifierHostRegistered
method return time=1748671496.836229 sender=:1.43 -> destination=:1.5702 serial=221064 reply_serial=2
   variant       boolean true
~$ 

That said, the Dropbox icon is showing now, so maybe there's a bug in how Dropbox detects it in some instances.

I'll let you know if the message shows again.

Thanks for your help.

NealMc

Sadly, the message has appeared again...

The tray icon still appears and is functional. This is definitely a bug that needs to be fixed.

These are the results of the commands you posted:

`dbus-send --session --type=method_call --print-reply --dest=org.freedesktop.DBus /org/freedesktop/DBus org.freedesktop.DBus.ListNames`

Output:
```bash
      string ":1.74"
      string ":1.76"
      string "org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Keyboard"
      string ":1.77"
      string ":1.78"
      string "org.kde.StatusNotifierWatcher"
      string "com.rastersoft.ding"
      string ":1.79"
      string "org.freedesktop.secrets"
      string ":1.244"
      string ":1.246"
      string "org.freedesktop.IBus.Panel.Extension.Gtk3"
```
(see attached file for full output)

`dbus-send --session --type=method_call --print-reply --dest=org.kde.StatusNotifierWatcher /StatusNotifierWatcher org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties.Get string:org.kde.StatusNotifierWatcher string:IsStatusNotifierHostRegistered`

Output:
```bash
method return time=1749709304.710873 sender=:1.43 -> destination=:1.4230 serial=203406 reply_serial=2
   variant       boolean true
```

I hope you can help!