Betterbird not minimizing to system tray

[KodyVB]

Describe the bug

When Betterbird is minimized with the "When Betterbird is minimized, move it to the tray" option enabled, it minimizes to KDE Plasma's Icons-only Task Manager, instead. This was tested on both v102.15 from NixOS 23.05 and v115.3.2 from Unstable, both using Home Manager.

Steps To Reproduce

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Install Betterbird
2. Enable the "When Betterbird is minimized, move it to the tray" option
3. Minimize Betterbird

Expected behavior

Betterbird minimizes to the system tray

Actual behavior

Betterbird minimizes to the task bar instead

Additional context

I asked somebody else to try it, and it behaved as expected when they initially installed it as v102.15, but when they tried it on v115.3, they had the same issue.
When I first installed Betterbird, I also uninstalled Thunderbird, so maybe the bug only happens when you're going from one version of TB/BB to another? Or maybe that's a red herring, I'm not totally sure, just thought it might be good to know.

Notify maintainers

@SuperSandro2000

Metadata

Please run nix-shell -p nix-info --run "nix-info -m" and paste the result.

[user@system:~]$ nix-shell -p nix-info --run "nix-info -m"
  /nix/store/gv2cl6qvvslz5h15vqd89f1rpvrdg5yc-stdenv-linux
copying path '/nix/store/gv2cl6qvvslz5h15vqd89f1rpvrdg5yc-stdenv-linux' from 'https://cache.nixos.org'...
 - system: `"x86_64-linux"`
 - host os: `Linux 6.1.57, NixOS, 23.05 (Stoat), 23.05.4335.898cb2064b6e`
 - multi-user?: `yes`
 - sandbox: `yes`
 - version: `nix-env (Nix) 2.13.5`
 - channels(kody): `"home-manager-23.05.tar.gz, nixos-unstable"`
 - nixpkgs: `/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/nixos`

[SuperSandro2000]

No idea and I currently do not have the time to debug this.

[LinuxMason]

I also have this issue and noticed more with both betterbird packages.

• System tray icon doesn't work
• Cannot run betterbird independently of and simultaneously with Thunderbird
• betterbird-unwrapped package doesn't produce an app icon.

[SuperSandro2000]

You are not supposed to use the unwrapped variant. The full functionality is only contained in the wrapped package.

[LinuxMason]

You are not supposed to use the unwrapped variant. The full functionality is only contained in the wrapped package.

Gotcha. New to NixOS and I didn't know that. Thanks for informing me.

Is there any workaround to fix this tray icon bug?

[MatthewCash]

Are you using wayland? If so, minimize to tray isn't supported, see Betterbird/thunderbird-patches#279.

Try forcing X11 with MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=0 betterbird and seeing if that changes anything.

[LinuxMason]

Are you using wayland? If so, minimize to tray isn't supported, see Betterbird/thunderbird-patches#279.

Try forcing X11 with MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=0 betterbird and seeing if that changes anything.

Ah, interesting. It does work when I logged out of Wayland and back into X11.

Very odd though because on my Arch system I use Wayland as well, but it works just fine. I suppose the betterbird AUR maintainer must've added a similar environment variable as a workaround.

I'll have to try this solution later to see if I can get it working.

[MatthewCash]

Very odd though because on my Arch system I use Wayland as well, but it works just fine. I suppose the betterbird AUR maintainer must've added a similar environment variable as a workaround.

We explicitly enable wayland for Mozilla applications, the AUR package probably does not.

nixpkgs/pkgs/applications/networking/browsers/firefox/wrapper.nix

Line 326 in af3a3d8

--set-default MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND 1 \

[LinuxMason]

Very odd though because on my Arch system I use Wayland as well, but it works just fine. I suppose the betterbird AUR maintainer must've added a similar environment variable as a workaround.

We explicitly enable wayland for Mozilla applications, the AUR package probably does not.

nixpkgs/pkgs/applications/networking/browsers/firefox/wrapper.nix

Line 326 in af3a3d8

--set-default MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND 1 \

I added this environment variable to a custom desktop entry via home-manager and it worked. I now have the system tray working in Wayland.

Thanks for your help.