<SOLVED> Net Applet has disappeared ... and won't come back

[parnote]

On my one computer that has KDE 4 installed (fully updated, I might add), I decided to reinstall in the hopes that some quirky behaviors I was experiencing (and unable to get help on here in the forum) might be resolved. I had originally installed KDE 4.3.x, and kept it fully updated since that initial installation. Still, figuring there were some conflicting settings from all the updates over the years, I figured a reinstall might help.

Soooo ... I made a new Live USB, and reinstalled PCLinuxOS 2012.12 (that was a whole other story in itself). Once I had it reinstalled, the very first thing I did was apply updates. KDE was upgraded to 4.9.5. In the middle of the update to 4.9.5, plasma-desktop crashed, and it took out my panel. So, I rebuilt my panel (right click on the desktop, unlock widgets, Add Panel > Default Panel) and tweaked it to look like the originally installed panel. In the process of losing and recreating my panel, net_applet disappeared and now won't come back.

Running net_applet from a terminal, it reports that net_applet is already running, but it's nowhere to be found. I also tried net_applet --force and net_applet --force --auto. Using pkill to stop net_applet and then reissuing the net_applet command also yielded no better results.

Does anyone have any idea of how to get my net_applet icon back? It's not visible anywhere on the desktop, and definitely not in the system tray, where it traditionally resides.

Help! And TIA!

parnote

[Old-Polack]

Did you click the little triangle in the system tray?

[parnote]

Yep ... clicked the triangle and nothing there other than the battery monitor.

I swear ... it''s nowhere to be found, but when trying to start it from a terminal session, it reports that net_applet is already running. And I've looked under icons (only two on my desktop), moved panels around looking for it, moved widgets around looking for it. It's gone AWOL.

[Old-Polack]

Did you try logging out and back in? Reboot?

[Just17]

Ctrl,Esc  to bring up the system process, search for  net ......  kill the net_applet process .....  leave the window open and try launching net applet again .... this time from a terminal to see if there is any output.

[parnote]

Did you try logging out and back in? Reboot?

Numerous times.

[parnote]

Ctrl,Esc  to bring up the system process, search for  net ......  kill the net_applet process .....  leave the window open and try launching net applet again .... this time from a terminal to see if there is any output.

Just17,

I've killed the process many times from the command line (pkill net_applet), and restarted net_applet with the net_applet --force command (same one used in the NetApplet menu item in the launch menu). There is no output, until you try to restart it again ... and then it says "net_applet is already running." Yet there is still nothing on the screen ... no icon in the system tray, no little window ... nothing. Without the icon, there's no way to access the right click menu that garners you access to net_applet's functions.

[Just17]

KDE was upgraded to 4.9.5. In the middle of the update to 4.9.5, plasma-desktop crashed, and it took out my panel. So, I rebuilt my panel (right click on the desktop, unlock widgets, Add Panel > Default Panel) and tweaked it to look like the originally installed panel.

I wonder if you now have two panels running .....  one unseen, but with net-applet present .....

[parnote]

KDE was upgraded to 4.9.5. In the middle of the update to 4.9.5, plasma-desktop crashed, and it took out my panel. So, I rebuilt my panel (right click on the desktop, unlock widgets, Add Panel > Default Panel) and tweaked it to look like the originally installed panel.

I wonder if you now have two panels running .....  one unseen, but with net-applet present .....

I see where you are going. Good thought.

AFAIK, you can only have one system tray, regardless of how many panels you have. And, since NetApplet typically resides in the system tray and is absent from there, I don't know where else to look for it.

Also, just to be sure that net_applet was, in fact, not running, I issued the pkill net_applet command three or four times from the command line, which should insure that there are no instances of net_applet running.

If there is another panel running amok, hidden somewhere on my system, I'm at a loss as to how to find it.

[agmg]

Not sure if you have already tried this...

Right-click on the system tray and select "System Tray Settings"



Then go to Entries and check what's going on with "net_applet"

[parnote]

Thanks, agmg, but I tried that and NetApplet is not listed. Seriously ... NetApplet is AWOL. It's reported as running, but isn't anywhere to be found.

[agmg]

Have a look under ~/.kde4/share/config

There is a file called plasma-desktop-appletsrc

Open the file with Kwrite and search for "plugin=panel".
You may have two entries similar to the one below.

Code: [Select]

[Containments][3]
activity=
activityId=
desktop=-1
formfactor=2
geometry=0,-47,1024,41
immutability=1
lastDesktop=-1
lastScreen=0
location=4
plugin=panel
screen=0
zvalue=0
Look at the screen=0.
Maybe one panel is going on another screen.

If this doesn't work, you could delete ~/.kde4/share/config/plasma*, reboot and begin again with the defaults

EDIT: made a correction, the right folder is kde4 not kde

[parnote]

Have a look under ~/.kde/share/config

There is a file called plasma-desktop-appletsrc

Open the file with Kwrite and search for "plugin=panel".
You may have two entries similar to the one below.

Code: [Select]

[Containments][3]
activity=
activityId=
desktop=-1
formfactor=2
geometry=0,-47,1024,41
immutability=1
lastDesktop=-1
lastScreen=0
location=4
plugin=panel
screen=0
zvalue=0
Look at the screen=0.
Maybe one panel is going on another screen.

If this doesn't work, you could delete ~/.kde/share/config/plasma*, reboot and begin again with the defaults

I'll give that a try and report back. Thanks, agmg!

[parnote]

Have a look under ~/.kde/share/config

There is a file called plasma-desktop-appletsrc

Open the file with Kwrite and search for "plugin=panel".
You may have two entries similar to the one below.

Code: [Select]

[Containments][3]
activity=
activityId=
desktop=-1
formfactor=2
geometry=0,-47,1024,41
immutability=1
lastDesktop=-1
lastScreen=0
location=4
plugin=panel
screen=0
zvalue=0
Look at the screen=0.
Maybe one panel is going on another screen.

If this doesn't work, you could delete ~/.kde/share/config/plasma*, reboot and begin again with the defaults

Success! agmg, you are BRILLIANT! Just17 ... my hats off to you, as well, since you had suggested that I might have a second hidden panel running amok on my screen.

Here's what I did. I opened up the plasma-desktop-appletsrc file, like agmg suggested, and searched for plugin=panel. Come to find out, there WERE two panels defined ... one for screen=0, the other one for screen=-1. So, I made a backup of plasma-desktop-appletsrc (just added the .bak file extension to it), then deleted the section that contained the panel plugin for screen=-1. A simple logout and back in to restart plasma-desktop, and now everything is back ... including my NetApplet!

Thanks a million, guys! I'm marking this one SOLVED.

parnote

[Old-Polack]

AFAIK, you can only have one system tray, regardless of how many panels you have.

I know you have this solved, but as an FYI, I have two panels on my default desktop, one at the bottom, as usual, and one at the top of the screen. The top panel is primarily to hold the smooth task widget, to make room on the bottom panel for more application launchers. It also has a quick launch widget for a few launchers that are not used that often, just to keep them separate from the most used ones, which are on a quick launch widget on the bottom panel. Both panels have a system tray, at the moment, but some of the icons that normally fill the tray will only display on the default bottom panel. NetApplet is one of those.

If I remove the bottom panel entirely, or remove the system tray from the bottom panel, then NetApplet will appear in the system tray at the top.

In order to add specific application launchers to the top panel, it has to have its own Application Launcher Menu widget added first. With that in place, it pretty much acts the same as the default panel, but is completely independent from the default panel.