Profile Icon Missing with Multiple Profiles (Linux)

[ordzai]

Description

The Brave Profile Icon is missing even when there is more than one profile. Ctrl+Shift+M will reveal the profile icon and selection dropdown, but it will disappear again after selection.

• Arch Linux (CachyOS) - KDE Plasma
• Brave 1.80.113 (Official Build) 64-bit
• Chromium 138.7204.49

Missing icon:

Icon reappearing:

Steps to reproduce

1. Install brave on arch with pacman

Actual result

Profiles icon missing except temporarily when keyboard shortcut is used to open profiles selector.

Expected result

Profiles icon should be visible when more than one profile is being synced on Brave.

Reproduces how often

Easily reproduced

Brave version (brave://version info)

Brave: 1.80.113 Chromium: 138.0.7204.49 (Official Build) (64-bit)
Revision: 253bb9512609910f855ef4f6075ceb87c79b1822
OS: Linux

Channel information

• release (stable)
• beta
• nightly

Reproducibility

• with Brave Shields disabled
• with Brave Rewards disabled
• in the latest version of Chrome

Miscellaneous information

No response

[YtachY]

Same here

Env

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS
Release:        24.04
Codename:       noble

[Brave 1.80.115 (Official Build) (64-bit)](https://brave.com/latest/)
Chromium: 138.0.7204.97

POC video

2025-07-03_09-28-50.mp4

[Zonmonbon]

Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS
Brave 1.80.120 (Official Build) (64-bit)
Chromium: 138.0.7204.101

I also have this issue with the additional problem that the Ctrl+Shift+M shortcut crashes the browser. The only way to switch profiles is on browser startup.

[siliconforks]

I'm running Kubuntu 24.04 and I had the same issue with the profile icon missing.

I think I figured out what's triggering this issue:

1. Run the KDE System Settings tool
2. Click "Appearance"
3. Click "Fonts"
4. Click the "Adjust All Fonts..." button
5. Check the "Size" checkbox and set the size to 11
6. Click the "OK" button
7. Click the "Apply" button
8. Now start/restart Brave - the profile icon will be gone!

Now repeat all the steps above except change the font size to 10. Start/restart Brave - the profile icon will be there now!

[Brave-Matt]

+1 https://community.brave.app/t/profile-icon-not-shown-even-with-2-profiles-created/643464/5

[nazavrr]

• Arch Linux + i3wm (no desktop environment)
• Brave: 1.83.120
• Chromium: 141.0.7390.122 (Official Build) (64-bit)

I am also experiencing this issue.
To reproduce, specify the following in the $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gtk-3.0/settings.ini:

[Settings]
gtk-font-name = Sans 11

After restarting the browser, the profile icon disappears.

If you set gtk-font-name = Sans 10 and refresh the browser, the profile icon is present again

[Python-37]

I'm using openSUSE + labwc, this problem is still here.

[soraxas]

I'm running Kubuntu 24.04 and I had the same issue with the profile icon missing.

I think I figured out what's triggering this issue:

1. Run the KDE System Settings tool
2. Click "Appearance"
3. Click "Fonts"
4. Click the "Adjust All Fonts..." button
5. Check the "Size" checkbox and set the size to 11
6. Click the "OK" button
7. Click the "Apply" button
8. Now start/restart Brave - the profile icon will be gone!

Now repeat all the steps above except change the font size to 10. Start/restart Brave - the profile icon will be there now!

Any pointer as to how to work around this issue on Ubuntu? (I'm on Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS)

After restarting the browser, the profile icon disappears.

If you set gtk-font-name = Sans 10 and refresh the browser, the profile icon is present again

Setting this at ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini and restarting brave browser doesn't seems to have any effect...

[YtachY]

Confirmed this is a workaround.

It works for me.

I'm running Kubuntu 24.04 and I had the same issue with the profile icon missing.

I think I figured out what's triggering this issue:

1. Run the KDE System Settings tool
2. Click "Appearance"
3. Click "Fonts"
4. Click the "Adjust All Fonts..." button
5. Check the "Size" checkbox and set the size to 11
6. Click the "OK" button
7. Click the "Apply" button
8. Now start/restart Brave - the profile icon will be gone!

Now repeat all the steps above except change the font size to 10. Start/restart Brave - the profile icon will be there now!

---

My environment

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS
Release:        24.04
Codename:       noble

[Brave 1.80.115 (Official Build) (64-bit)](https://brave.com/latest/)
Chromium: 138.0.7204.97

[pannal]

Might help: https://gist.github.com/pannal/d398ee9801a8c6d0e44b1027af193610

[asunekants]

Same issue here.

Environment:

KDE Plasma Version: 6.6.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.26.0
Qt Version: 6.11.1
Kernel Version: 7.0.9-arch2-1 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland

[Brave 1.90.124 (Official Build) (64-bit)](https://brave.com/latest/)
Chromium: 148.0.7778.179

[Raghavan2005]

Solution

Workaround that fixed it for me on Linux (Ubuntu, Wayland)

The profile icon disappears when the GNOME system font is set to 11pt. Setting
it to 10pt brings it back.

Check your current font setting:
gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface font-name

If it returns something like 'Ubuntu Sans Medium 11', run:
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface font-name 'Ubuntu Sans Medium 10'

Then fully close and reopen Brave — the profile icon should reappear.

Note: editing ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini alone is not enough if you're on
GNOME, because gsettings overrides it. You need to change it via gsettings
directly.

Brave version: 1.90.124 / Chromium 148

[marcopat]

Confirming fix works on X11 (not only Wayland), and clarifying the real cause

Here I confirm this bug and I would like to add that the gsettings workaround also apply on X11, not only Wayland.

My setup: Ubuntu 24.04, X11, Brave 1.90.124 / Chromium 148 (same Brave version as Raghavan2005).

Note: Additionally, after applying the fix I tested setting the font back to 11pt:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface font-name 'Ubuntu Sans Medium 11'

and the icon remained visible not only after restarting Brave but also after a full system reboot.
So you can choose whatever font, this fixing should be definitive and font-independent.

This suggests the font size itself is not the real fix: what matters is simply writing to gsettings, which apparently resolves some inconsistent state between gsettings and other configuration sources (such as ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini), maybe someone can figure out what happened.
The font size change in the original workaround was likely a red herring.

Raghavan2005's fixing fully restores profile management in Brave on Linux: the profile icon is now permanently visible, making it easy to identify the active profile and switch between profiles — features that are essential for multi-profile workflows.

[Gui2Barbieri]

I'm afraid that this problem is still around in LXQt CachyOS. I copied my Brave folder with sessions into another computer and this happened, the profiles work, but I can't see the menu icon.