Recently in Gwibber / Me Menu issues in Ubuntu Category

I've tried many different things in the hope of solving my Gwibber/Me Menu/Social bar problem in Ubuntu Lucid.

That problem, for those not reading along (you're the better for it, I assure you) is that for some reason even after I start Gwibber and send a social-broadcast message (to Twitter in my case), the "social bar" in the upper panel's Me Menu does not appear.

However, if I add a social-broadcasting account (say a secondary Twitter account or Facebook), during that computing session the social bar reappears. However, once the computer is rebooted, the bar disappears and won't reappear until another social-broadcast account is added.

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The social bar in Ubuntu Lucid's Me Menu is a great idea. The only problem is that it's powered by Gwibber. It should be a much lighter application in its own right - one that works without the need to start Gwibber. (Maybe it just doesn't work this way on my system.)

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Here's how I "fixed" my Gwibber/Me Menu situation:

Step 1: After booting into Ubuntu Lucid, start Gwibber. If you don't have any accounts programmed into the social-updating client, enter one now.

Step 2: In the Gwibber menu, under Edit - Preferences, uncheck the "Start service at login" box.

Step 3: In the desktop's menu, under System - Preferences - Startup Applications, click "Add" and create an entry that runs gwibber-service when you start your computer.

Step 4: Reboot. Now you should have the "social bar" in the Me Menu without having to do anything.

Note: I'm pretty sure that most users do not have this problem and as a result do not need this fix. But if you do have this problem, going through these steps will fix it.

Opinion: Is this how it's supposed to work? It's better than no social bar at all, even though it would be better for the social bar to be available for updating even without Gwibber running.

I'll take what I can get. At least I have the social bar.

Thus far the "social from the start" desktop in Ubuntu is working but needs refinement - not bad for its first release, I suppose.