Could not detect systray on Ubuntu

[zemmyang]

Describe the bug

On startup, I get this message: "I couldn't detect any system tray on this system. Either get one or run the ActivityWatch modules from the console." However, everything works fine, tho. I can open the WebUI from the Chrome extension and all of my activity gets tracked but I don't get the AW icon in the panel.

To Reproduce

Appears on startup.

Documentation

I found this labeled "error" in the aw-watcher-window logfiles but I don't know if they're relevant

2018-12-17 01:55:15 [ERROR]: Exception thrown while trying to get active window: <class 'Xlib.error.BadWindow'>: code = 3, resource_id = <class 'Xlib.xobject.resource.Resource'>(0x02400015), sequence_number = 257, major_opcode = 20, minor_opcode = 0 (aw_watcher_window.main:68)

When I try to run aw-qt from the command line, I get this:
2019-01-01 15:33:39 [INFO ]: Using storage method: peewee (aw_server.main:26)
2019-01-01 15:33:39 [INFO ]: Starting up... (aw_server.main:31)
2019-01-01 15:33:39 [INFO ]: Using database file: /home/zemmy/.local/share/activitywatch/aw-server/peewee-sqlite.v2.db (aw_datastore.storages.peewee:114)
2019-01-01 15:33:39 [ERROR]: [Errno 98] Address already in use (aw_server.server:75)

Environment

• ActivityWatch version: v0.8.0b7
• OS: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Additional context

I recently reformatted, I used to use Ubuntu 18.04 LTS as well, and I was using AW back then, too. I never got this error.

[johan-bjareholt]

Gnome which Ubuntu uses has removed support for a systray since a year back (a standard which has been available for 20+ years and they did not add any type of equivalent option). So yeah, it still runs fine but it will be harder to open the WebUI and make sure that all watchers are running. A solution to the issue would be to download this Gnome extension

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/495/topicons/

[johan-bjareholt]

2019-01-01 15:33:39 [INFO ]: Using storage method: peewee (aw_server.main:26)
2019-01-01 15:33:39 [INFO ]: Starting up... (aw_server.main:31)
2019-01-01 15:33:39 [INFO ]: Using database file: /home/zemmy/.local/share/activitywatch/aw-server/peewee-sqlite.v2.db (aw_datastore.storages.peewee:114)
2019-01-01 15:33:39 [ERROR]: [Errno 98] Address already in use (aw_server.server:75)

Also, this indicates that activitywatch is already running in the backgorund.

2018-12-17 01:55:15 [ERROR]: Exception thrown while trying to get active window: <class 'Xlib.error.BadWindow'>: code = 3, resource_id = <class 'Xlib.xobject.resource.Resource'>(0x02400015), sequence_number = 257, major_opcode = 20, minor_opcode = 0 (aw_watcher_window.main:68)

This error indicates that you have some window open which aw-watcher-window cannot recognize. aw-watcher-window does not crash because of this so it should be fine, but it would still be interesting to know which kind of window it was unable to recognize so we can find out if the window was invalidly created or if there's a rare bug in aw-watcher-window.

[zemmyang]

Gnome which Ubuntu uses has removed support for a systray since a year back (a standard which has been available for 20+ years and they did not add any type of equivalent option). So yeah, it still runs fine but it will be harder to open the WebUI and make sure that all watchers are running. A solution to the issue would be to download this Gnome extension

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/495/topicons/

This fixed it, but I still find it unusual that I had to do this in the first place.

It used to work fine (without the gnome ext) when I installed AW on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (on the same laptop) a few months ago; AW one of the first things I initially install on a fresh reformat.

[johan-bjareholt]

Odd that it had worked before, Ubuntu 18.04 comes with Gnome 3.28 and the systray was removed in 3.26. Ubuntu 16.04 should've worked though since it has a version lower than 3.26.

[ErikBjare]

@zemmyang Yeah, it's not as intended. We plan to migrate to the new thing (AppIndicator) that is replacing the old tray icon system someday, but probably not anytime soon.

Related issue: #238

[johan-bjareholt]

Also @ErikBjare, in #238 I stated that systray icons are deprecated (which they are) but I later realized that appindicators are deprecated as well! Gnome has completely removed the support for all types of tray icons because they don't find it to be a good user experience, so I have no idea at all what to actually do now.

https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/StatusIconMigration

Here you can see examples of what other apps have done.

An option would be to use https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/libcloudproviders, but as far as I can see there's no way to add a shortcut to the webui anywhere there... Not sure what the best design choice would be.

Application can be used without the status icon. However, the status icon is the only way to quit and access settings. The aim is to use libcloudprovider for GNOME 3.28.

Doesn't seem like dropbox knows either what to do for the same reason, they need a shortcut to their UI from the trayicon aswell.

[ErikBjare]

@johan-bjareholt Well, frankly f%ck the Gnome devs then. I really don't think we should put any effort into going along with their whims.

Closing due to hopelessness.

[johan-bjareholt]

@ErikBjare Yeah, I kind of agree.
We had a proper solution which worked and they deprecated it without a good alternative solution and I'm not interested in trying to push them to do the right thing.

But if they improve their APIs in the future so they actually fit our use-case we could re-open this, but until then let this be a waiting game. We are not the only ones with this issue (steam, dropbox etc) so it'll likely be fixed sometime.

[vesatoivonen]

I had a similar problem with arch and xfce.
Running aw-qt from terminal worked fine but putting it on autostart gave the same error.

Fixed it by postponing the autostart a bit with a small script:

#!/bin/bash
sleep 5 && /bin/aw-qt

[sojusnik]

Another way to delay the autostart is to add

X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true
X-GNOME-Autostart-Delay=5

in ~/.config/autostart/activitywatch.desktop

so that it looks like

[Desktop Entry]
Name=ActivityWatch
Exec=yourpath/ActivityWatch/aw-qt
Icon=yourpath/ActivityWatch/aw-server/aw_server/static/static/logo.png
Type=Application
StartupNotify=true
Hidden=false
NoDisplay=false
Terminal=false
X-GNOME-UsesNotifications=true
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true
X-GNOME-Autostart-Delay=5