Signal Desktop Application does not close on exit button (even though minimize to system tray is disabled)

[sim0nschneider]

• [x ] I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates

• [x ] I am using Signal-Desktop as provided by the Signal team, not a 3rd-party package.

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Bug Description

Since I installed the newest signal version on a new Windows 11 PC, Signal always stays open in the background, even when the "Minimize to system tray" setting is not enabled.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Set this Settings:

2. Close Signal App with the X Button of the window.

Actual Result:

Signal does not fully close. and is still visible in the system tray. In Addition to that Notifications still are shown, if enabled. It seems like the "Minimize to system tray" setting is always active (even if disabled in settings).

Expected Result:

In the earlier versions, the result was, that Signal would fully close. No notifications would be shown.

Platform Info

Signal Version: 6.30.2

Operating System: Windows 11 (22H2, 22621.2134)

Linked Device Version: 6.31.2 (Android)

[indutny-signal]

Sorry about this. Could you send me your debug log, please?

[sim0nschneider]

Sorry about this. Could you send me your debug log, please?

Sure. This is a debug log after I once opened signal, then closed it (however it was still in system tray) and reopened again from there: debuglog.txt

[ChristophHertrich]

I can confirm that I face the same issue as sim0nschneider, also on Windows 11 with version 6.32.0.

[ayumi-signal]

@ChristophHertrich Hi, sorry you're experiencing this issue as well.

• Can you share the repro steps? For example, was Signal never installed before and a fresh install, or an upgrade; and if the setting has been changed previously.
• Can you check in ephemeral.json the value of system-tray-setting? On Windows it's at C:\Users\[user]\AppData\Roaming\Signal\ephemeral.json.
• When you run into the issue, then go to settings and toggle it on then off, does that fix it?

[ChristophHertrich]

Thanks for your reply. It was a fresh install. Interestingly, the update to version 6.33.0 seems to have it fixed. I don't know if that makes any sense. Now, the value is "system-tray-setting": "DoNotUseSystemTray", which makes sense because the problem is fixed. I cannot reproduce it anymore (and I don't want to).

[sim0nschneider]

Today after updating to version 6.33.0 I still had the same issue. Then after once enabling and disabling the "minimize to system tray" setting now the issue is resolved on my side and everything works like expected again. Thanks!

[ayumi-signal]

@ChristophHertrich @sim0nschneider Thanks for the information, and glad that it's fixed for now for you.

I haven't been able to repro it yet so I'll leave this open for tracking. If anyone runs into this issue again please note any relevant info:

• Fresh/upgrade
• Did you open the app and do anything
• When did you modify the setting
• Value of ephemeral.json system-tray-setting

[aradapilot]

Tried a fresh beta install on ubuntu. Same issue, the tray behavior is on by default, even though the default for the preference is off (unchecked). enabling then disabling fixes this, and it does persist through close/open going forward. so this is a bug in how the defaults are handled initially.

[incyi]

Fresh install on windows 10 enterprise 22H2 Signal 6.40.0 First modify the setting to off then closed signal, completly.

After this the setting is still: "system-tray-setting": "MinimizeToSystemTray",

For me it looks like that changing this settings in the UI does not change it in the ephemeral.json file.

[Bujiraso]

On NixOS, signal-desktop-6.40.0 does not even show the checkboxes

Even with

  "system-tray-setting" : "DoNotUseSystemTray"

hand-coded into the config.json, it still stays open.

... I'm gonna put this next bit as a heading to emphasize, don't mind the "shouting"

Staying open in the background should NOT be Signal-desktop's default choice.

This should be switched to close by default and ensure there is configuration by the user to stay open

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Hoping for a fix on this one. Cheers

[EirikDaude]

I have the same issue in Signal 6.46.0 on Win11, fresh install.

Enabling and then disabling the option to minimize to system tray seems to fix it.

Gotta agree with the previous poster that having the program stay active in the background is a weird default behaviour.

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

@EirikDaude Can you say more about your situation? 'Minimize to system tray' is supposed to be enabled by default on Windows. What exactly did you see?

[jonpovey]

Fresh install on 7.0.0 on Win10 here. Linked it to my phone, sent a couple of messages, then "closed" it and it went to system tray and I got the notification I could change settings. Went into settings and "Minimise to system tray" checkbox is clear, un-checked.

Before I changed the settings, ephemeral.json contained the line "system-tray-setting": "MinimizeToSystemTray",

If I toggle the setting to checked and back to un-checked in the GUI, the line changes to "system-tray-setting": "DoNotUseSystemTray", and Signal quits when I click close, which is what I wanted.

[Chwiggy]

On NixOS, signal-desktop-6.40.0 does not even show the checkboxes

this issue persists with signal-desktop-7.2.1 on nixos 24.05, same as the inability to set this manually in the configs

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

@Chwiggy 7.4.0 is the latest - what do you see on that version?

[Chwiggy]

@scottnonnenberg-signal the setting does appear to be back, tho i'm also running that now in it's own container, might need to update the version nixpkgs ships for that

[fvilers]

Same on Fedora 40, Signal Desktop 7.21.0. This is very annoying and should never be the default.

[trevor-signal]

@fvilers can you be specific about what you're experiencing? Are you disagreeing with the default setting, or is the setting not being respected when you change it?

[fvilers]

@trevor-signal Sorry for not being specific. I meant that an application should never minimize to system tray when the user clicks on the close button. It's a terrible UX for an app to not behave like the user expect it too (and like the operating system has been designed for).

More over, "Minimize to the system tray" is unchecked in the Prefences, and I have "system-tray-setting": "DoNotUseSystemTray" in ~/.config/Signal/ephemeral.json but the app just stays in the system tray when I close it.

[trevor-signal]

@fvilers sorry about that; could you share a debug log after you close the window (and it minimizes to tray)?

[fvilers]

@trevor-signal of course debuglog.txt

EDIT: this issue might be within the package I installed. I built the 7.22 version locally and can't reproduce the bug.

EDIT2: and I nuked my local database doing so :-s

[ayumi-signal]

@fvilers Thanks for that info, the log has this line:

getSystemTraySetting saw --use-tray-icon flag. Returning MinimizeToSystemTray

Suggesting that the app is being launched with the command line flag? This flag will override the config setting.

Perhaps related to packaging or how the app is being run.

Also the database error means the new DB is incompatible (is a newer version), if you run an older version then the data will still be available. Suggest to backup the signal config directory ~/.config/Signal to be absolutely sure.

[fvilers]

Thanks @ayumi-signal for your answer. I'm still new to Linux & Gnome desktop so I'm discovering some things. As I said previously, I installed signal-desktop from the open suse repository and I'm starting the application from the Gnome app menu. I didn't think that --use-tray-icon had an impact to the app itself as it's an electron flag and my first thought was that it enables the system tray features on the electron level.

I tried to launch signal-desktop from the command line and could exit the application without minimizing to the system tray. I copied the desktop entry file installed from the package to ~/.local/share/applications and removed the --use-tray-icon argument and now the application is correctly exiting when using the window close button. Thanks again for your help!

About the database, I already restored yesterday's backup and everything is running smoothly.