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Topic: 0.6.2 and Ubuntu 12.04 not playing nice (Read 8453 times)

hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
April 25, 2013, 08:54:14 AM
#35
I hate Unity too.  Wink

Then give elementary OS a try. its based on ubuntu, runs all ubuntu apps but has the best UI Ive come across so far.
oh and no problems with bitcoin-qt
hero member
Activity: 490
Merit: 500
April 25, 2013, 06:54:19 AM
#34
I don't know if this will help, but this is what I did with Ubuntu 12.04LTS and older version of Bitcoin-QT (not sure version but < 0.8.1)

Quote
Click on the top icon in the side tray.
Type "Bitcoin".
Click on the icon that looks like pencils,pen,ruler near the bottom if nothing shows.
It should come up with a Bitcoin icon that you can drag and drop into the side bar.
After launching it from the side bar, if you minimize, the sidebar gets a small white arrow, click this maximizes it again.
The menu bar is attached to the top of the screen, you need to click on the window to get focus before it shows the correct menu items though. If it don't work close bitcoin and start it again.

I hate Unity too!  Wink

You're welcome to donate to 1LUF4Jp8PprpHcQVwXyLjCrdbSjFuaycUs if this helped you avoid pulling your hair out in anger. Thanks.
legendary
Activity: 1358
Merit: 1002
April 25, 2013, 06:30:03 AM
#33
For people who don't want to compile from source, here's the solution:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/get-the-bitcoin-qt-menus-back-on-unity-ubuntu-1204-and-up-187302
sr. member
Activity: 456
Merit: 250
September 14, 2012, 04:52:50 AM
#32
I have the same issue of no file menu and no tray icon, I installed via the repo ppa:bitcoin/bitcoin.
I'm considering removing bitcoin-qt and installing it again but I'm worried I won't backup my wallet and chain data files correctly.

oh forgot to post an update here.. if you compile from source everything is fine.
newbie
Activity: 27
Merit: 0
September 14, 2012, 04:48:58 AM
#31
I have the same issue of no file menu and no tray icon, I installed via the repo ppa:bitcoin/bitcoin.
I'm considering removing bitcoin-qt and installing it again but I'm worried I won't backup my wallet and chain data files correctly.
sr. member
Activity: 456
Merit: 250
August 30, 2012, 08:38:52 PM
#30
And... now its gone again.  Guess I'll just stick with the command line until this is resolved.

The only way I found it to be working 100% of the time is to launch Bitcoin-qt using the shortcut on the desktop.
Shortcuts on the launcher always go on and off as they please.

I got the shortcut on the desktop but it seems to decide by itself when it wants to show me its tray icon.. what a tease.  Gotta cross my fingers everytime I run it.
legendary
Activity: 1358
Merit: 1002
August 30, 2012, 08:09:52 AM
#29
And... now its gone again.  Guess I'll just stick with the command line until this is resolved.

The only way I found it to be working 100% of the time is to launch Bitcoin-qt using the shortcut on the desktop.
Shortcuts on the launcher always go on and off as they please.
sr. member
Activity: 456
Merit: 250
August 30, 2012, 02:11:24 AM
#28
And... now its gone again.  Guess I'll just stick with the command line until this is resolved.
sr. member
Activity: 456
Merit: 250
August 30, 2012, 02:08:45 AM
#27
tiptopgem, do you by any chance have Bitcoin pinned on the Laucher?
As soon as I unpinned mine from the sidebar launcher I got the menus back. Now at least I could change the options to close it instead of minimizing to tray lol

EDIT: Fixed it.
As soon as I unpinned it the icon never again showed up on the launcher sidebar. Here's what I did to fix all of the problems.
Open dash, type Bitcoin. Get your mouser over the Bitcoin icon and drag it to your desktop, it will create an icon/shortcut on the desktop. You can drag that shortcut to the launcher sidebar if you wish and voilá, whenever you use it, be it on the desktop or on the sidebar launcher, you will have the menus and system tray icon back Wink

For some strange reason, when I added the desktop shortcut to the sidebar launcher, it remained there but it didn't had the little arrow that open apps have. After a couple restarts I managed to drag the Bitcoin shortcut from the dash to the launcher sidebar and now it works as intended, menus and tray icon included, having the arrow on the side od the icon when the client is open.

Some odd shit, I'll tell you that lol

Am I the only one still have problems with this?  Tried everything you said psy.. no luck.  I noticed the when I open 2 instances of the client I get the "bitcoin is probably already runing" error and I get the tray icon back but when I hit ok.. poof its gone again lol.

NOTE: As I was typing this post I opened it again and BAM! I got the tray icon back.. seems to be working everytime I open again.. definitely "Some odd shit"
legendary
Activity: 1358
Merit: 1002
tiptopgem, do you by any chance have Bitcoin pinned on the Laucher?
As soon as I unpinned mine from the sidebar launcher I got the menus back. Now at least I could change the options to close it instead of minimizing to tray lol

EDIT: Fixed it.
As soon as I unpinned it the icon never again showed up on the launcher sidebar. Here's what I did to fix all of the problems.
Open dash, type Bitcoin. Get your mouser over the Bitcoin icon and drag it to your desktop, it will create an icon/shortcut on the desktop. You can drag that shortcut to the launcher sidebar if you wish and voilá, whenever you use it, be it on the desktop or on the sidebar launcher, you will have the menus and system tray icon back Wink

For some strange reason, when I added the desktop shortcut to the sidebar launcher, it remained there but it didn't had the little arrow that open apps have. After a couple restarts I managed to drag the Bitcoin shortcut from the dash to the launcher sidebar and now it works as intended, menus and tray icon included, having the arrow on the side od the icon when the client is open.

Some odd shit, I'll tell you that lol
legendary
Activity: 1736
Merit: 1000
Truly decentralized stable asset
Just upgraded the client to 0.6.2 and the icon is no longer in the system tray (notification area?) when bitcoin is running.  It is also absent from the menu bar.  Hmmmm.  I guess I could choose to never minimize it but that doesn't seem practical.

Anyone?
restore program focus
terminal:> wmctrl -a bitcoin


Darn!  I was so hopeful when I saw this.  But no, it doesn't work at all.  Nothing happens.
qdi
hero member
Activity: 571
Merit: 500
Just upgraded the client to 0.6.2 and the icon is no longer in the system tray (notification area?) when bitcoin is running.  It is also absent from the menu bar.  Hmmmm.  I guess I could choose to never minimize it but that doesn't seem practical.

Anyone?
restore program focus
terminal:> wmctrl -a bitcoin
legendary
Activity: 1736
Merit: 1000
Truly decentralized stable asset
I'm not either.
legendary
Activity: 1358
Merit: 1002
Are you guys starting bitcoin automatically on startup?

Not me.
Lucky for me I didn't check that box on the Options or else I would be stuck with it, just like I'm stuck with the Minimize to tray on close lol
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
Are you guys starting bitcoin automatically on startup?
legendary
Activity: 1358
Merit: 1002
What if I don't want to kill it but I just want to see it- or get a new receiving address?

You stop it and you start it again, maybe?
At least you don't have to reboot, like you said you were doing.
This is not a solution, just a workaround.
Or in alternative, do what I do, leave the window always open in it's own Workspace.
I'm sure it will be solved sooner or later. For now we have to live with it, I guess
legendary
Activity: 1736
Merit: 1000
Truly decentralized stable asset
What if I don't want to kill it but I just want to see it- or get a new receiving address?
legendary
Activity: 1358
Merit: 1002
You can use System monitor or kill command to stop it from the command line. I use htop, but I figure you don't have it installed Wink

http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/stop-process-ubuntu-linux-command/
legendary
Activity: 1736
Merit: 1000
Truly decentralized stable asset
There are no menus(Bitcoin menus) and no tray Icon. The tray icon appears when you launch a second instance and it crashes because bitcoin is already running.

FWIW, no such problem here with ubuntu 12.04 and bitcoin-qt 0.6.2 from the stable channel. Menu's work, tray icon works.

Strange. Doesn't work here. Same problem as OP, since day 1. Stable channel also. Only beta stuff I have here is Armory and Firefox. And now that I talk about it Armory tray icon also not there anymore, but at least has the menus lol

+1, and thank God now I don't feel like I am losing my mind.  Yeah, basically the only way for me to access bitcoin is to shut the computer down.  When I restart, I can go to bitcoin qt and start it.  Then it is there for me.  But as soon as I minimize the window it is GONE.  Like, totally gone.  It isn't shut down- I know this because if I go to the bitcoin qt icon and double-click again it tells me it is already running.  I just have no way to get to it.

As a Linux n00b, this is baffling to me. 
sr. member
Activity: 453
Merit: 250
As an aside; I noticed I only get the tray icon when launching via my shortcut. If I run bitcoin-qt from a terminal, no tray-icon.
legendary
Activity: 1358
Merit: 1002
There are no menus(Bitcoin menus) and no tray Icon. The tray icon appears when you launch a second instance and it crashes because bitcoin is already running.

FWIW, no such problem here with ubuntu 12.04 and bitcoin-qt 0.6.2 from the stable channel. Menu's work, tray icon works.

Strange. Doesn't work here. Same problem as OP, since day 1. Stable channel also. Only beta stuff I have here is Armory and Firefox. And now that I talk about it Armory tray icon also not there anymore, but at least has the menus lol
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
There are no menus(Bitcoin menus) and no tray Icon. The tray icon appears when you launch a second instance and it crashes because bitcoin is already running.

FWIW, no such problem here with ubuntu 12.04 and bitcoin-qt 0.6.2 from the stable channel. Menu's work, tray icon works.
legendary
Activity: 1358
Merit: 1002
... why is any of that necessary?
If you just install the bitcoin-qt client from the stable channel, it works fine, with launcher and everything. No problems with unity either on my laptop.

Code:
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:bitcoin/bitcoin
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install bitcoin-qt
(or use ubuntu software center to do the same through a GUI)

The problem is not the launcher... There are no menus(Bitcoin menus) and no tray Icon. The tray icon appears when you launch a second instance and it crashes because bitcoin is already running.

I have the same problem. To make it worse I had the minimize to tray on close, so if by accident I minimize it, I can't get the bitcoin window back. I also can't access the options to change that behaviour. Also, if I want to really close Bitcoin-qt I have to use htop and terminate the process.

To OP: Don't you get mad when you say one thing and everybody else responds about some other thing? Wink
I told Gavin about this problem on the 0.6.2 thread.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
... why is any of that necessary?
If you just install the bitcoin-qt client from the stable channel, it works fine, with launcher and everything. No problems with unity either on my laptop.

Code:
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:bitcoin/bitcoin
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install bitcoin-qt
(or use ubuntu software center to do the same through a GUI)
sr. member
Activity: 453
Merit: 250
OK; if you downloaded the program from sourceforge or somewhere we are going to have to get our hands a little dirty. Let's begin.

Put the following lines in a new text file on your desktop and name it Bitcoin.desktop (only the .desktop part of the file is important).

Code:
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Name[en_GB]=Bitcoin
Exec=/usr/local/bin/bitcoin-qt
Comment[en_GB]=lauch bitcoin gui application
Name=Bitcoin
Comment=lauch bitcoin gui application

Note the line Exec=... This should be the full path to wherever you downloaded the package. (Pro-tip if you move it to /usr/local/bin then you can run it from any terminal)

Make the file executable by right-click -> properties (or use
Code:
chmod u+x Desktop/Bitcoin.desktop
from the command line)

This should give you an old fashioned desktop shortcut to the bitcoin client. When the client is running you can right click the icon on the launcher menu and select 'Lock to Launcher'. This will mean it is a permanent button on the menu.

Hope that works for you.

Edit: One more finishing touch...
Right click the desktop shortcut.
Click the icon button on the left of the basic tab, navigate to the downloaded package and choose /bitcoin-0.6.2-linux/src/share/pixmaps/bitcoin80.xpm.
Now you have a shiny logo for the program, but you might need to unlock and relock it to the launcher to make the logo show up there too.
legendary
Activity: 1736
Merit: 1000
Truly decentralized stable asset
More good info!  Unfortunately that doesn't give me access to bitcoin though.  Sad
sr. member
Activity: 453
Merit: 250
I believe they are two separate menu systems. Press the super/windows key to launch apps or bring them to the forefront. When using an app, press alt to get the HUD menu that replaces traditional point and click menu for things like file->save etc.

The HUD menu is very new and may not work with all programs.
legendary
Activity: 1736
Merit: 1000
Truly decentralized stable asset
Hey Kiko that is a valuable bit of information; thank you!  Now can you tell me what I would type in the HUD to get the bitcoin client to appear?
sr. member
Activity: 453
Merit: 250
I thought this was a bug and had similar symptoms. Then I remembered the new HUD menu in Ubuntu! Press Alt and then type file or whatever menu you would be looking for.
Hope that helps. It's all very futuristic; they kind of sprung it on us, I agree.
legendary
Activity: 1736
Merit: 1000
Truly decentralized stable asset
The menu was available (at the top of the screen) when I was using the old version of bitcoin with 11.10, and the old version of bitcoin with 12.04, but the new version of bitcoin with 12.04 will not show a menu there at all.  It pretty much makes bitcoin useless.  I guess I either have to revert to the last bitcoin version to change my Ubuntu back to 11.10. 

Any chance there will be a fix for this soon?  Or is Ubuntu compatibility pretty low on the priority list?
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
I can't access the menu, so changing options is out.  Sad

Unity uses a global menu, much like OS-X. So your menu is (usually) not in the application window, its in the taskbar. When bitcoin has focus, Move your mouse to the upper edge of the screen, thats where it should appear. Sorry if you know all that already, but its a common cause for confusion.

Edit: just tried 0.6.2 on ubuntu 12.04 using unity (yuck), it seems to work fine
legendary
Activity: 1736
Merit: 1000
Truly decentralized stable asset
I can't access the menu, so changing options is out.  Sad
legendary
Activity: 2506
Merit: 1010
Just upgraded the client to 0.6.2 and the icon is no longer in the system tray (notification area?) when bitcoin is running.  It is also absent from the menu bar.  Hmmmm.  I guess I could choose to never minimize it but that doesn't seem practical.

Anyone?

The interaction with the menu bar is different in 0.6 (never shows as a running app), but the icon in the notification area (tray) works fine on my 11.04 so maybe there is something different with 12.04.

I did change the option "Minimize on close" (enabled it) so that I am not accidentally shutting down the program.  Does that cause the notification icon to appear perhaps?

hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
Code:
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell
Log out, select "gnome" as your DE, log in.

Well, TBH, i havent tried 6.2 on gnome shell yet, but even if it doesnt work, its a whole lot better than unity Smiley
legendary
Activity: 1736
Merit: 1000
Truly decentralized stable asset
Just upgraded the client to 0.6.2 and the icon is no longer in the system tray (notification area?) when bitcoin is running.  It is also absent from the menu bar.  Hmmmm.  I guess I could choose to never minimize it but that doesn't seem practical.

Anyone?
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