Empty tray menu in Cinnamon using Qt5

[KenjiTakahashi]

This was reported by several users to CopyQ AUR package of which I'm maintainer.
I'm not sure whether it is CopyQ or Cinnamon, so I'm just gonna start here.
Like said in the title, CopyQ built with Qt5, running in Cinnamon. When clicking the tray icon, an empty "menu widget" appears (see screenshot). Also it seems that the tray icon itself is rendered weirdly - it's smaller and a bit to the side(?) (see second screenshot with Qt4 version for comparison).
Compiled with Qt4 works, also tried on MATE and Xfce - works as well. Seems like something's on CopyQ<->Qt5<->Cinnamon.
To add to the plot, the empty widget part "fixes itself" after invoking "copyq menu" from terminal (icon stays weird).

All of this was tested by me using Manjaro 15.12 Cinnamon, CopyQ 2.5.0, Cinnamon 2.8.6.

[hluk]

Some desktop environments replace Qt tray with their version and try to reconstruct the menu when user clicks the tray icon. The menu invoked with copyq menu is the probably the original version.

There are a lot of bug reports for tray in Cinnamon.

Perhaps using different tray applet can solve some issues.

[KenjiTakahashi]

I think you might very well be right.
I'm wondering, though, why it fixes itself after calling copyq menu? Perhaps it triggers some routine that is "known" to the applet and it then decides to continue loading as expected?

[hluk]

If you run the command you use CopyQ directly but if you click the tray icon it calls some wrapper libraries. I think this still involves libraries sni-qt and libdbusmenu.

There is arch package for libdbusmenu-qt5 which handles creating tray menu for Qt 5 apps so the problem is likely somewhere there.

[KenjiTakahashi]

I understand that. What I meant is that after invoking the command, the applet based menu starts working as well. After further investigation, though, it is not really "working", it gets "refreshed".
It goes like this. When I first start CopyQ, tray menu is empty. After calling the command, tray menu starts appearing OK. After I add new item to clipboard (e.g. copy some text), tray menu displays as before (new item does not appear). After calling the command again, tray menu gets updated with new item.

BTW: I've tried using the "collapsible" version you've linked above, but strangely enough, CopyQ icon does not appear there at all...
BTW2: I'm not sure I'll have enough urge to get to the bottom of this as I don't use Cinnamon (in fact, I don't use tray at all). I've linked this issue in the AUR page, perhaps one of the users will be willing to do the digging. Just sayin' :-).

[hluk]

Oh, I think I know what is the problem. The wrapper library libdbusmenu-qt is not emitting Qt signal that should be emitted before showing the menu -- in CopyQ the items in tray menu are created/updated right before the menu pops up. This seems to be bug in the library and as you mention only with Qt 5.

[raqua]

I am affected by this bug as well. I understand, that this is not a bug in CopyQ, but is this issue in libdbusmenu-qt reported somewhere so we can get that fixed? I would be happy to report it, but I do not really understand much about it, so maybe if you could report it ... I would really appreciate it. Thanks for considersing that and thanks for otherwise great SW.

[hluk]

@raqua You can post the bug report here (I don't have an account for bug posting there and I'm quite skeptical about the wrapper libraries for tray).

[genachka]

As referenced in #595 for me, I'm not even seeing an empty icon on 16.04 with Cinnamon 3.2.2 using CopyQ 3.8.x. As noted in that issue, a workaround with CopyQ 3.7.1 of exiting CopyQ after login and starting it up again the icon would display. But with CopyQ 3.8.x that no longer works. The only way I can get to CopyQ is the keyboard shortcut which is a bit frustrating.

[hluk]

Oh sorry, I closed #595 as duplicate of this but this is just empty tray menu and not missing tray icon.

Is libdbusmenu-qt/libdbusmenu-qt5 and sni-qt still needed to be installed? If it is, I should add those as dependencies for Debian/Ubuntu package.

[genachka]

Looks like I already have them installed:
libdbusmenu-qt5 is already the newest version (0.9.3+16.04.20160218-0ubuntu1).
sni-qt is already the newest version (0.2.7+15.10.20150729-0ubuntu1).

[hluk]

OK, seems that sni-qt shouldn't be needed with newer Qt libraries (info here).

@genachka Try to start copyq from console and see if there are any warnings or errors.

[genachka]

I exited and confirmed the process wasn't running. Started from console, copied to clipboard, pasted from clipboard, open via keyboard hotkeys. Nothing generated any errors or warnings on console.

[hluk]

I tested this in Cinnamon 2.8.6 on Ubuntu 16.04 and on Cinnamon 3.2.0 on Arch Linux.

If I start CopyQ after the panel and tray is started, everything looks fine. When starting CopyQ on login, tray icon is missing.

As workaround I edit file ~/.config/autostart/copyq.desktop and replace

Exec="/usr/bin/copyq"

with

Exec=sh -c "sleep 5; /usr/bin/copyq"

Not sure why you cannot see icon even after restart. Seems like something in Cinnamon is broken or a dependency is missing. Problem could also be that the icon is in SVG format (/usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/copyq-normal.svg).

[hluk]

As mentioned in #589, the icon could be in incompatible format, so you can try to run following to re-convert the icon.

sudo convert -background none /usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/copyq-normal.svg{,}

[genachka]

I tested this in Cinnamon 2.8.6 on Ubuntu 16.04 and on Cinnamon 3.2.0 on Arch Linux.
Any chance you can also try it with Cinnamon 3.2.6? That's what I'm on and may help figuring this out.

Converting icon via (sudo convert -background none /usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/copyq-normal.svg{,}) didn't make a difference. :(

[hluk]

Can you test this with copyq-2.8.2-beta package? Packages are here. It should install icons in PNG format too.

[genachka]

Unfortunately it didn't help. :(

[genachka]

I thought I may have grabbed the previous version from that link and so I just tried again. Turns out I did grab the right now, but as noted previously it didn't help. Any other suggestions / ideas?

[hluk]

@genachka I just tested tray icon with Cinnamon 3.2.7 on Arch Linux and icon is still visible in tray.

Can you check if option "Disable tray" is unchecked under "Tray" config tab?

Also you can try removing following icons (which are replaced with PNG formats in new version):

• /usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/copyq-normal.svg
• /usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/copyq-busy.svg

[genachka]

"Disable tray" is unchecked. I deleted the two .svg icons. And does appear I do have the .png versions:

/usr/share/icons/hicolor/128x128/apps/copyq-normal.png
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/16x16/apps/copyq-normal.png
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/22x22/apps/copyq-normal.png
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/24x24/apps/copyq-normal.png
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/32x32/apps/copyq-normal.png
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps/copyq-normal.png
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/64x64/apps/copyq-normal.png

and

/usr/share/icons/hicolor/128x128/apps/copyq-busy.png
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/16x16/apps/copyq-busy.png
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/22x22/apps/copyq-busy.png
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/24x24/apps/copyq-busy.png
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/32x32/apps/copyq-busy.png
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps/copyq-busy.png
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/64x64/apps/copyq-busy.png

[hluk]

@genachka I probably won't be able to do anything with this -- looks like bug in Cinnamon with Qt 5 apps (strangely I don't see this issue on Arch Linux). Do you have any icons in tray (especially Dropbox, Skype or other apps using Qt 5)?

[genachka]

I do have Skype (for Linux Alpha) and Shutter and Remmina and Chrome icons on the tray, though I don't know which of these are Qt 5?

[l4r1k4]

install libqt4-svg to solve this.

[hluk]

Is this still an issue? Last time I checked the app with Cinnamon everything worked fine.

@matteotanca The app uses Qt 5, not Qt 4, so libqt4-svg shouldn't be needed. (Actually, only OpenSUSE package uses Qt 4 but I'll be dropping it altogether in near future.)

[genachka]

@matteotanca already had that installed, doesn't help me.

@hluk Yes, still an issue for me.

[raqua]

Works fine for me on Cinnamon and Arch Linux.

[genachka]

@raqua which Cinnamon version? I'm on 3.4.6 under Ubuntu 16.04 and have no tray icon.

[raqua]

I am not currently at my home computer, but I guess I am on the latest Cinnamon version for Arch linux, which should be 3.4.6.
Right now, I am on Mint 18 with Cinnamon 3.4.6 and it works fine too.

[hluk]

@genachka Do you use any extensions for tray?

[genachka]

Nope, no extensions.

[l4r1k4]

In Ubuntu 16.04 LTX if you uninstall libqt4-svg you have not tray icon. If you install it then tray icon is visible, so maybe its still using qt4 for some reason.

[hluk]

@matteotanca What does copyq --version print? (Qt 4 or Qt 5?)

Maybe the library that provides indicator compatibility for Qt 5 tray requires Qt 4 -- it's still odd that it needs library for SVG (libqt4-svg) because the tray icons are installed also in PNG format (looks like it picked wrong format).

[genachka]

@matteotanca I already had libqt4-svg installed, still no icon:
libqt4-svg is already the newest version (4:4.8.7+dfsg-5ubuntu2).

[l4r1k4]

I did an apt purge copyq and deleted .config/copyq from my home.
Then i purged libqt4-svg and reinstalled copyq.
I can see the tray icon and it's working fine.
Maybe i was inheriting something wrong from an old version.

CopyQ Clipboard Manager v3.1.2 (hluk@email.cz)
Built with: Qt 5.5.1, LibQxt 0.7.0

[genachka]

@matteotanca followed your steps, didn't help me. I then purged and cleaned copyq from my environment and upgraded to 17.10. In 17.10 it now works. Don't know for sure if it was because of clean up or just something that is different with the upgrade to 17.10 but in the end it works now.