I3bar with notification/tray area not working

[jtl]

Greetings

Running Ubuntu MATE 18.04 on a laptop with a HiDPI display (2880x1800 at 15.4"). The experience (barring Qt applications) is much better then I expected

Anyways I replaced the default window manager with i3, and one issue I've been having is applications that utilize the notification/tray area (such as VLC, Riot.im dekstop app, etc.) don't display in the tray area despite it being enabled in the i3 config for i3bar.

bar {
        mode hide
        position top
        status_command i3status
        tray_output primary
}

(Bar is hidden unless WIN key is held down.)

I had this working on another system with another distribution (Void Linux) some time ago, so I know this is possible.

Thanks

[vkareh]

Long shot, but is it possible that indicators are running in the background and are hijacking the status icons? Try running ps fe | grep indicator and see if there's anything. Kill those processes and see if anything changes

[jtl]

@vkareh

ps fe | grep indicator

Getting closer.

ps -ef isn't correct for this, since it lists the processes of the shell. However I tried with ps -auwx and I think it's the cause of the issue. I tried starting VLC and it finally showed up in the tray as well, whereas it didn't beforehand.

[jtl]

Forgot to update but I believe the final solution was disabling the indicator applets from launching at startup using "Startup Applications".

Thanks