Applications lose link to dock in ubuntu 20.04

Solution 1:

Not only is your application not available on the dock, it is also not listed in the Alt+Tab switcher. Indeed, going to the overview is the only way to get to the application.

This is likely due to the Startupnotify system. When this is set for an application, it indicates to the desktop that the applications will notify the shell when it is ready. This allows the shell to provide some feedback while the application is still loading.

That does not work always well on Gnome Shell. Sometimes, it cause an application's icon not to appear or to appear only after maybe 30 seconds or more.

To get rid of the issue, turn StartuNotify off in the .desktop launcher of the program. Create your own copy of the system wide .desktop file in ~/.local/share/applications. Edit that copy to set StartupNotify to false, as: StartupNotify=false. That copy will override the system wide launcher.

For applications that are installed through the regular APT system, the system wide launchers are under /usr/share/applications. These from applications installed through snap are under /var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications/.