BlueDevil icon missing

[saurav]

I have a Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop with Intel integrated graphics. Whenever I use KDE 4.5 with desktop effects enabled, the BlueDevil bluetooth icon does not appear when set to appear automatically until I point to the place where the icon should be. From then on it appears and disappears correctly (according to the state of the laptop's wireless switch) for the rest of the session. Does anyone have any ideas on this?

[Snowhog]

Re: BlueDevil icon missing

Try resizing the Panel 'just a bit' and see if it doesn't appear and stay visible.

[saurav]

Re: BlueDevil icon missing

@Snowhog: Thanks but it didn't help.

[wizard10000]

Re: BlueDevil icon missing

Right-click the system tray and adjust system tray settings - change the bluedevil icon from auto to always visible.

[saurav]

Re: BlueDevil icon missing

@wizard10000: I did that but there's no way to tell whether BT is on by looking at or even right-clicking the BlueDevil icon.

[wizard10000]

Re: BlueDevil icon missing

IME if your bluetooth stack isn't running you won't get a bluedevil icon.

Does that help?

[saurav]

Re: BlueDevil icon missing

Bluetooth is working OK. The problem is that the BlueDevil icon doesn't show itself the first time I turn on Bluetooth. The system just creates an empty space where the icon is supposed to be. When I point to that space the icon appears. From then on for the rest of the session the icon appears and disappears correctly depending on the state of the Bluetooth switch.

[wizard10000]

Re: BlueDevil icon missing

Bluetooth is working OK. The problem is that the BlueDevil icon doesn't show itself the first time I turn on Bluetooth. The system just creates an empty space where the icon is supposed to be. When I point to that space the icon appears. From then on for the rest of the session the icon appears and disappears correctly depending on the state of the Bluetooth switch.

Ah. I'm with you now - you hit the switch and a space for the icon appears but the icon itself doesn't appear until you mouseover the space where the icon should be.

I think this is a panel problem, not a bluedevil problem. I'm not a big fan of KDE's panel anyway, but I have a few ideas.

- change your desktop theme, reboot and then change it back and see if the problem goes away.

- remove the system tray from your panel, reboot and then re-add it.

- remove the system tray from your panel and create a new panel and see if the new one works.

- create a new user and see if the new user has the same problem.

- boot into single-user mode, rename your .kde directory and see if that fixes the problem - if it doesn't fix things you can always put the directory back where it was.

If none of these work I'm pretty well stumped. Maybe someone else has an idea or a trip to the KDE forums or filing a bug on Launchpad would be the next step.

Hope this helps -

[saurav]

Re: BlueDevil icon missing

Thanks, wizard. I'll try out the steps you have mentioned and report back here but I'm doubtful about this issue because this is an old problem, I'm using KDE 4.5 and it still hasn't been solved. Anyway, let's see.

[saurav]

Re: BlueDevil icon missing

@wizard10000: I tried out your suggestions and found that the problems occurs with the Air theme. But I like and use the Air theme so there's nothing I can do (other than going hunting for a similar theme) . Oh well.... Thanks for helping me find out the cause of the problem.

[wizard10000]

Re: BlueDevil icon missing

You're more than welcome. Glad we found a cause for it at least

[kubicle]

Re: BlueDevil icon missing

One more thing you can try is clearing the Air theme cache files in /var/tmp/kdecache-[username]

[saurav]

Re: BlueDevil icon missing

@kubicle: Thanks, tried it, but it too didn't work. I'm using another Plasma theme now so for the time being it's OK.

[saurav]

Re: BlueDevil icon missing

I have found a sort of "workaround" for this but the result may not look nice with all themes. Disabling the system tray widget background for the plasma theme works but it causes the system tray to look different because the tray part is no longer themed. Still, it does look acceptable with some themes. The background can be disabled by opening the widgets subdirectory within the plasma theme directory, and then renaming the systemtray.svgz file there.