Launcher Icon Ubuntu 20.04

norabailey
Hi, I recently updated from Ubuntu 16.04 to 20.04 (dragging my feet as I don't like change). Zotero is still working fine if I launch it from the terminal, but the launcher icon has disappeared. I tried redoing the launcher icon setup, including even downloading a fresh version of Zotero, but it isn't working. In my .local/share/applications it says the link to zotero.desktop doesn't exist (even though I've made sure it did by deleting and re-creating it), and clicking on zotero.desktop in opt/zotero gives me an error "Failed to add a plugin to the panel GDBus ..."

That's about the limit of my Linux-fu and troubleshooting skills, so I'm hoping someone else will be able to help me! I love Zotero and having to launch it from the terminal is a pain. Thanks!!
  • dstillman
    In my .local/share/applications it says the link to zotero.desktop doesn't exist (even though I've made sure it did by deleting and re-creating it
    What's the exact command you're running?
  • norabailey
    The commands I used were:

    `./set_launcher_icon`

    and

    `ln -s /opt/zotero/zotero.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/zotero.desktop`

    which created the link in .local/share/applications. But since the launcher icon still wasn't showing up, I tried double clicking on the link from the gui and that's when I got the message "This link cannot be used because its target "/opt/zotero/zotero.desktop" doesn't exist."

    But "/opt/zotero/zotero.desktop" does exist! And if I try to double-click on zotero.desktop in opt/zotero gui, I get the "Failed to add a plugin to the panel" error.
  • dstillman
    "/opt/zotero/zotero.desktop" is just an example. That has to be the path to where you actually have the extracted files.
  • norabailey
    Yes, but I did extract the files into opt/zotero so it should apply.
  • dstillman
    What's the output of this command?

    ls -la ~/.local/share/applications/zotero.desktop /opt/zotero/zotero.desktop
  • norabailey
    edited February 3, 2021
    It says

    `ls: cannot access '/opt/zotero/zotero.desktop': No such file or directory
    lrwxrwxrwx 1 XYZ XYZ 26 Feb 2 10:27 /home/XYZ/.local/share/applications/zotero.desktop -> /opt/zotero/zotero.desktop`

    But if I do `cd opt/zotero` then `ls` zotero.desktop is definitely listed!
  • dstillman
    opt/zotero isn't the same as /opt/zotero
  • norabailey
    Huh. Did not know that!

    So I should just start over using `ln -s opt/zotero/zotero.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/zotero.desktop` instead?
  • norabailey
    Ohh I think I see now! I found the other opt folder. I'll try moving the zotero files there and see it works.
  • dstillman
    So I should just start over using `ln -s opt/zotero/zotero.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/zotero.desktop` instead?
    No.

    First, "opt/zotero" doesn't mean anything on its own — that's just a relative path. I assume you happen to be starting in your home directory and therefore really mean ~/opt, but you need to be using absolute paths.

    In any case, /opt is the standard location for non-system, non-package-manager programs, so while you can technically run Zotero from anywhere, that's an appropriate location.
  • norabailey
    Okay, that fixed the problem with the link, but I'm still not getting an icon and the zotero.desktop is throwing the same error:

    Failed to add a plugin to the panel
    GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.xfce.Panel was not provided by any .service files
  • dstillman
    We can't help with general Linux problems, sorry. If ./zotero works, Zotero is working, and you'll need to troubleshoot any launcher problems elsewhere.
  • dstillman
    (For the icon, I assume you just didn't run ./set_launcher_icon again after moving the files.)
  • norabailey
    I did run ./set_launcher_icon again, but yeah this must be a problem on my side after upgrading.

    Thanks for all the help!
  • norabailey
    Aha, well this time when I ran Zotero, I was able to right click on the launcher and set it as a favorite (that option wasn't appearing before), so the problem seems to have been solved well enough for me.

    Thanks again!
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