No Network Manager icon in the notification area, so I can't use my VPN connection

Solution 1:

I fixed it!

The solution was to remove eth0 from /etc/network/interfaces - it ended up there because I installed this system over the network rather than using a CD. I logged out and went to a console window, and did the following:

sudo stop gdm
sudo stop network-manager
sudo ifdown eth0
sudoedit /etc/network/interfaces # comment out eth0 entry
sudo start network-manager
sudo start gdm

I then logged back in, and the icon was present! Rar!

Solution 2:

Go to panel preferences and edit Notification area, check that icon size =16px as below the nm-applet icon vanishes!

update to xfce 4.10 fixes it I think.

upgrade xfce 4.10

seems there are multiple reasons for this problem!