Ubuntu – How to fix broken dropbox *menu* in xubuntu 18.04

command linedropboxinternetxfcexubuntu

There are many threads about how to restore the dropbox icon. For instance, this link.

Following those instructions in xubuntu 18.04 restores the menu icon, but left or right clicking the icon just brings up a useless, empty menu. Specifically, running the following in a terminal brings me to this state:

dropbox stop

env XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=Unity dropbox start

I'm aware that on xubuntu Unity is not the desktop. Running

echo $XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP

returns XFCE, but replacing XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=Unity by XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=XFCE brings the dropbox back to a broken state where the normal dropbox icon doesn't appear at all.

Any thoughts on what to do?

Best Answer

On clean installation of Xubuntu 18.04.1 LTS I started with

sudo apt-get install thunar-dropbox-plugin

then rebooted, logged in and waited for proprietary DropBox installer to finish, then logged in to my DropBox account. Then got icon in place, but left and right clicks did not work.

To fix it we need to change dropbox start -i to dbus-launch dropbox start -i.

I recommend to make it with script:

rm ~/.config/autostart/dropbox.desktop
dropbox autostart y
sed -i "s/dropbox start -i/dbus-launch dropbox start -i/" ~/.config/autostart/dropbox.desktop

Then logout and login back and enjoy:

Dropbox on Xubuntu

Note: if this method does not work for you try to remove dropbox completely with

dropbox stop
rm -rf ~/.dropbox ~/.dropbox-dist
sudo apt-get purge thunar-dropbox-plugin
sudo apt-get autoremove

then reboot and start from the beginning.

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