No Icons or Control in Notification Bar

talkinggoat

I have Ubuntu 16.04 and just upgraded my version of PIA to 75. I also have an encrypted home folder, so I followed the instructions about putting the folder into /opt. NBD. It worked fine with the previous version. Now, it's not working, at all. I moved the previous version to /opt/pia_manager_old and moved the new version in /opt/pia_manager. Then created the link to ~/.pia_manager. I can get it to launch, using the run.sh script in the command line, but there are no icons or indications it's running, other than the popups telling me I'm connected. . 

martouf

did you somehow disable the AppIndicators facility?

talkinggoat

I don't see how. All the other app indicators are working. All I did was move the old version to an old folder, setup the new version and re-link to it. 

Max-P

Might need to force XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=Unity even if you're not unity. This should force the app to use the AppIndicator version of the tray instead of legacy Xembed. If that doesn't work, then you might want to set XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP to some random string so it falls back into the Xembed tray, which I think Ubuntu 16.04 still support.

martouf

please do let us know how it works out ..

sfuller333

I'm on 17.10 and experiencing the same issue. Is there documentation of the bug so that someone like myself can pick this task up? Having a functioning control plane should be a high priority bug to fix. Otherwise, you are bricking novice users internet access with no way to easily disable or configure the application.

[Deleted User]

@sfuller333, which version of the app do you have installed? v75 should work out of the box on 17.10 — I'm using it myself with no issue. What troubleshooting have you tried?

RuggedPineapple

Same issue on Xubuntu 17.10

Worked fine until recently, now it shows up when unconnected, but as soon as I select a vpn in the app the panel icon disappears and I still show as unprotected.

RuggedPineapple

Update: Seems to only crash out with certain VPN locations. Most will work/fail at random, but Singapore crashes the applet every time.

Max-P

@RuggedPineapple Thanks for the report. This one we are already aware of. Try going to settings, set the region in there and then use the normal "Connect" option as a workaround in the meantime.

sfuller333

@PIAColleen
I'm using v75. on Ubuntu17.10/Gnome3.26.2

I had altered the run.sh to change the XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=Unity per the online help articles (despite it making no sense for this version of Ubuntu which ships with Gnome) and it seems that the fresh installation didn't overwrite the run.sh file (or another regression was resolved in Gnome). Removing that alteration seems to have fixed the issue. Hopefully this persists as it has been very flaky. Now the issue is that the text in the dropdown is appearing as boxes instead of letters. This has been a terrible experience in terms of usability. I can't even disable the plugin and it's cost me literally hundreds of dollars (due to this product being installed, I had inadvertently signed up for 5 moviepass subscriptions instead of the two that I had wanted - since the 200 response from their service never made it to the web worker waiting for it in the browser). Simply killing the pia processes doesn't remove the iptables rules so, effectively the network stack is dead if you don't shut down the program using the manager.

sfuller333

@PIAColleen
Additionally, tray icons have been deprecated. Shouldn't this app move to a supported method of control? Relying on an extension to provide core functionality is bs.

martouf

-tray- icons have absolutely not been deprecated. where did you get that idea?  AppIcons as a method to produce them in the UI is deprecated.  the one is not equivalent to the other.

Max-P

@martouf Tray icons indeed haven't quite been deprecated, but Gnome decided they wouldn't be supporting those anymore. PIA doesn't use a shell extension however, it uses Ubuntu's usual AppIndicator support which Ubuntu provides in Gnome shell with an extension.

@sfuller333 The font in the legacy tray menu is fixed in v76 already, but in the meantime I have posted a workaround a while ago in this thread: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/forum/discussion/comment/51299/#Comment_51299

If you have too much trouble with the PIA app, we have an alternative setup that uses the standard NetworkManager in Ubuntu here which might suit your needs better: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/client-support/ubuntu-openvpn

martouf

it's splitting hairs, Max-P. Gnome decided a bunch of things wouldn't be "core gnome" any more and the responsibility of other software built on top of Gnome. Notification icons (or "tray" icons) are not going anywhere.