Workaround for the xfce indicator plugin

Solution 1:

You could always remove the indicator and use the native XFCE notification area... I've found the indicator plugin under XFCE to be a pain to work with.

Solution 2:

I had a similar problem and found a bug report with a workaround that seems to do the trick. The workaround is as follows. I modified it a little so that you don't need to actually right click the active indicator panel, which could be tricky if it keeps crashing.

1. Right click the panel and select Panel -> Panel Preferences
2. Select the Items tab and add Indicator Panel if it's not already there
3. Select Indicator Panel and click the edit button (spanner over a page)
4. Click the Hidden checkbox next to Application Menus (Global Menu)
5. Restart the panel: xfce4-panel -r

The screenshot below shows how what these menus should look like.

Solution 3:

I spent a few hours on pages like this as I've had a problem with it instantly getting the 'unexpectedly left the panel' error as I try to execute the Indicator Plugin, with no way of accessing the settings.

I had compiled gtk3.12 earlier, which seemed to be the root of the problem. Luckily I hadn't nuked the folder from my trash, and restoring it and running sudo make uninstall from the gtk3.12 compile folder fixed it. On the off chance someone did the same or similarly, I might save a few hours of headaches and frustration.