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Dropbox says my environment doesn't support tray icon on a Linux device, by it does.

In the following image you can see the dropbox system tray icon top right, with the error message below it. I am using the `i3wm` on Ubuntu with `i3status` to show the icons. To me this is a bug in the dropbox software failing to detect the presence of app indicator support correctlty, on argueabley the most common custom window manager.

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Jay

Hi @run_the_race, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Could you try reinstalling the Dropbox desktop application, without uninstalling it first, by using this link?
This will help me to assist further!

Extaff

I'm using EndeavourOS with AwesomeWM and have the same problem. Can you explain what's to be done with the download in that link? I set it to run (it said something to the effect that it was an 'executable text file' and asked if I wanted to run it) and there was no indication of anything happening and when I rebooted the pop-up still came up.

Extaff

I'm having the same problem on EndeavourOS with AwesomeWM. Can you explain what to do with the download that link gives us. I'm getting 'install.html' and when I run it (when I set it to run it says something to the effect of being an 'executable text file' and asks if I want to run it) there is no indication of anything happening and the pop-up appears again after a reboot.

run_the_race

That link just gives one a link to download `install.html` which does nothing when I open it.

Neal

Hi @run_the_race,

I've investigated this issue personally with our Linux team and they've advised that the problem is that i3 does not support appindicator tray icons: https://github.com/i3/i3/issues/2088.

Unless you're willing to switch from i3 to sway+waybar (not swaybar), which does support appindicator (screenshot attached), you'll be out of luck. Note sway is a more modern "drop-in replacement for the i3 window manager".

Extaff

I'm getting annoyed here. Questions:

1: Why is it such a struggle to see all the posts on this thread? The only way I can do it is to follow the link from my 'Subscription Update' emails. If I come straight from the browser I only see two posts.

2: Why have I had to start Dropbox syncing manually since this pop-up has been popping-up if the change isn't coming until May 27th? This allied to the missing icon is going to be a real headache—I'd have to be constantly checking if my files are being synced or not.

3: Why would you bring in a change so discourteous to a proportion of your customers?

Dell_Dropbox

Hey @Extaff

To clarify what's happening: Dropbox relies on AppIndicator support to display the system tray icon on Linux. This is the modern standard for tray icon integration across most desktop environments. If AppIndicator support is not available or not properly detected, Dropbox will show the “environment doesn’t support tray icon” message — even if the icon seems to appear in some form.

That said, many lightweight or custom window managers like iI3wm or AwesomeWM don't include native AppIndicator support out of the box.

They may display icons via alternative means (likeI3status or stalonetray), but this doesn't guarantee full compatibility, especially with how Dropbox checks for and uses tray features.

If you find the tray warning popup distracting, you can choose to suppress it after clicking the “Learn more” link within the message.

Lduvall

My first visit to this issue and I see 8 posting, which appears to the the total number. I am running Xfce.

georgoz

This is frustrating—forcing us to switch to a different environment or window manager and warning us that “you’ll be out of luck” otherwise.

Relying on a UI tray icon instead of system services is poor design.

I’ve been a long-time paying customer, and this effectively forces me to move to a different cloud solution, since I absolutely won’t change my environment setup.

A decision like this will damage your reputation.

Txneo

Maybe time to go NextCloud?

Baeckel

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.

mw75

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

tarzan8912

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.

movefastandbreakthings

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.

pierjam

agreed

georgoz

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

Andsmi

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?

Neal

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.

Andsmi

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.

Andsmi

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!

Neal

Hi @Andsmi,

Thanks for letting me know! I'm checking with our team internally to see if they can offer any insight into the results you received.

I'll let you know if I have an update!

Neal

Hi @Andsmi,

We've taken a look and we think it may be a bug too. We'll file a bug report internally so it can be properly investigated.

Let me know if you need anything else in the meantime.

Extaff

My icon has been happily working away in the system tray (EndeavourOS with AwesomeWM) ever since I last posted. Until a couple of hours ago, when it first disappeared from my main machine and then from my laptop. I tried snixembed (thanks, @Baeckel ) and got the icon working on my laptop but not on my main machine, so I've given up. Time to explore alternative online storages ...

jnvandermeer

Well you can install the AppIndicator support thingy on XFCE4 (which is what I use in Debian). Then you need to add the appindocator panel which also has a clock, sound, power, etc. And remove the ones you already had (which is a bit sad). Then the dropbox icon is now a new one. Where is the old one? Why was it removed? as georgoz wrote it IS poor design, especially if you have something that works - and then you throw it away. Like there was a need to fix a working system? Did your good developers all leave or something, and you are left with the not-so-good ones?

Lucius_Chen

I installed libappindicator-gtk3 on my arch and it worked, but Dropbox with ~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd has to be started before waybar is started.

grenade

i'm running stock fedora workstation 42 with default gnome. i installed libappindicator from the standard, default fedora repositories. other apps like keybase and wire happily make use of tray icons without falling down, clutching their bruised egos like a footballer when the wind from a football 6 metres away grazes their moisturised shin.
dropbox warns me on every boot that it's stuck in a paper bag and is struggling to find its way out.
it's no big deal. dropbox still works just fine. i just have to listen to its whining all the time.

jnvandermeer

It might be good to go to a European server. What is going on in the USA is deeply troubling, and I doubt that Dropbox, being US based and seeing that most tech have front-row seats in the new regime, is in any position to prevent having to give all of our (your!) data for harvesting of 'unwanted elements'.

Andsmi

Stop taking this off-topic, and raising your political nonsense here.

Andsmi

3 months has passed, and it's still happening. Has any progress been made?

Megan

Hey @Andsmi!

Since you're still facing the same issue, I went ahead and reach out to you via email.

That'll help me investigate further. Reply back to me, and we'll take it from there. Thanks!