Mysterious icon in system tray with red X.

[Robbie Hatley]

Greetings, group. I've got an annoying little problem with my
Windows 2000 that keeps cropping up. Often, when coming back from
stand-by, my system tray contains a little icon, a video terminal
with a line descending and turning right, with a red X on the line.
It looks like this:

http://www.well.com/~lonewolf/system-tray.gif

That's a 2x blowup of my system tray. All but one of the icons
are known to me:

Top Row:
Power Settings
Volume Control
Nvidia Sound Settings
Nvidia Video Settings
Bottom Row:
Epson Printer Settings
English Input Method
***MYSTERY ICON***
Local Area Connection

What the heck *IS* that mystery icon??? Single clicking it
does nothing. Right-click does nothing. Hovering over it
fails to pop-up a tooltip (unlike all my other system-tray
icons). It does not seem to be related to any running process.
So... what is it??? Anyone have any idea of what it is, or
how to find out?

(Note that doing cold shut-down and restart makes it go away
for a few days. But a few days later, it will pop up again,
always after coming off stand-by mode.)

--
Puzzled,
Robbie Hatley
lonewolf aatt well dott com
www dott well dott com slant user slant lonewolf slant

 

[philo]

Re: Mysterious icon in system tray with red X.


"Robbie Hatley" <lonewolf@well.com> wrote in message
news:r7ydnSDyDLq9TvLVnZ2dnUVZ_tHinZ2d@giganews.com...
>
> Greetings, group. I've got an annoying little problem with my
> Windows 2000 that keeps cropping up. Often, when coming back from
> stand-by, my system tray contains a little icon, a video terminal
> with a line descending and turning right, with a red X on the line.
> It looks like this:
>
> http://www.well.com/~lonewolf/system-tray.gif
>
> That's a 2x blowup of my system tray. All but one of the icons
> are known to me

Maybe it's just showing that an external monitor is not connected



> Top Row:
> Power Settings
> Volume Control
> Nvidia Sound Settings
> Nvidia Video Settings
> Bottom Row:
> Epson Printer Settings
> English Input Method
> ***MYSTERY ICON***
> Local Area Connection
>
> What the heck *IS* that mystery icon??? Single clicking it
> does nothing. Right-click does nothing. Hovering over it
> fails to pop-up a tooltip (unlike all my other system-tray
> icons). It does not seem to be related to any running process.
> So... what is it??? Anyone have any idea of what it is, or
> how to find out?
>
> (Note that doing cold shut-down and restart makes it go away
> for a few days. But a few days later, it will pop up again,
> always after coming off stand-by mode.)
>
> --
> Puzzled,
> Robbie Hatley
> lonewolf aatt well dott com
> www dott well dott com slant user slant lonewolf slant
>
>

 

[Andrew Rossmann]

Re: Mysterious icon in system tray with red X.

In article <r7ydnSDyDLq9TvLVnZ2dnUVZ_tHinZ2d@giganews.com>,
lonewolf@well.com says...
>
> Greetings, group. I've got an annoying little problem with my
> Windows 2000 that keeps cropping up. Often, when coming back from
> stand-by, my system tray contains a little icon, a video terminal
> with a line descending and turning right, with a red X on the line.
> It looks like this:
>
> http://www.well.com/~lonewolf/system-tray.gif
>
> That's a 2x blowup of my system tray. All but one of the icons
> are known to me:
>
> Top Row:
> Power Settings
> Volume Control
> Nvidia Sound Settings
> Nvidia Video Settings
> Bottom Row:
> Epson Printer Settings
> English Input Method
> ***MYSTERY ICON***
> Local Area Connection
>
> What the heck *IS* that mystery icon??? Single clicking it
> does nothing. Right-click does nothing. Hovering over it
> fails to pop-up a tooltip (unlike all my other system-tray
> icons). It does not seem to be related to any running process.
> So... what is it??? Anyone have any idea of what it is, or
> how to find out?

I would guess it's something network related. Can you double-click it?
How many icons do you have BEFORE the mystery icon shows up? Maybe it is
for some program you have, but never noticed that version?

--
If there is a no_junk in my address, please REMOVE it before replying!
All junk mail senders will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the
law!!
http://home.att.net/~andyross

 

[John John (MVP)]

Re: Mysterious icon in system tray with red X.

It's telling you that the Local Area Network cable is unplugged.

John

Robbie Hatley wrote:

> Greetings, group. I've got an annoying little problem with my
> Windows 2000 that keeps cropping up. Often, when coming back from
> stand-by, my system tray contains a little icon, a video terminal
> with a line descending and turning right, with a red X on the line.
> It looks like this:
>
> http://www.well.com/~lonewolf/system-tray.gif
>
> That's a 2x blowup of my system tray. All but one of the icons
> are known to me:
>
> Top Row:
> Power Settings
> Volume Control
> Nvidia Sound Settings
> Nvidia Video Settings
> Bottom Row:
> Epson Printer Settings
> English Input Method
> ***MYSTERY ICON***
> Local Area Connection
>
> What the heck *IS* that mystery icon??? Single clicking it
> does nothing. Right-click does nothing. Hovering over it
> fails to pop-up a tooltip (unlike all my other system-tray
> icons). It does not seem to be related to any running process.
> So... what is it??? Anyone have any idea of what it is, or
> how to find out?
>
> (Note that doing cold shut-down and restart makes it go away
> for a few days. But a few days later, it will pop up again,
> always after coming off stand-by mode.)
>

 

[Robbie Hatley]

Re: Mysterious icon in system tray with red X.


Regarding my "mystery icon" (a video terminal with a line descending
and turning right, with a red X on the line)
http://www.well.com/~lonewolf/system-tray.gif

"philo" wrote:

> Maybe it's just showing that an external monitor is not connected

Hmmm. I'd not thought of a video-related explanation.

However, there is no second monitor (or any provision for one) on
my system, nor is my monitor unplugged (else I could not have seen
the icon, nor written a post about it).

As for "external monitor", aren't they all? I haven't seen an
internal monitor since I was working on a TRS80 back in 1978 or so.

So thanks for the tip... but no cigar.

--
Cheers,
Robbie Hatley
lonewolf aatt well dott com
www dott well dott com slant user slant lonewolf slant

 

[Robbie Hatley]

Re: Mysterious icon in system tray with red X.


Regarding my "mystery icon" (a video terminal with a line descending
and turning right, with a red X on the line)
http://www.well.com/~lonewolf/system-tray.gif

Andrew Rossmann wrote:

> I would guess it's something network related.

So I thought, but it does not correspond to any network i can detect.

> Can you double-click it?

Yes, I sure can.

Oh, you mean, does anything HAPPEN when I double-click it?
Yes! I hear two clicks! Other than that, nothing happens.

> How many icons do you have BEFORE the mystery icon shows up? Maybe it is
> for some program you have, but never noticed that version?

I suppose that's possible, but if so, it must be one of the background
daemons. It's not related to an application program.

I'm thinking it has to do with the order in which processes are restarted
when coming back from stand-by. If they're restarted in the wrong order,
a process may be started at a time when a prerequisite process is not yet
started, and paint that icon. Later, the prerequisite starts, and the
process that painted the icon resumes normal operation, but the programmer
neglected to write code to erase the icon. That's my current guess.
(Which may, of course, be dead wrong.)

--
Cheers,
Robbie Hatley
lonewolf aatt well dott com
www dott well dott com slant user slant lonewolf slant

 

[Robbie Hatley]

Re: Mysterious icon in system tray with red X.


"John John (MVP)" wrote of my "mystery icon":

> It's telling you that the Local Area Network cable is unplugged.

Well, if my network is unplugged, how are these messages getting
into Usenet? Besides, I already have a network icon.

But let me unplug my cable for a minute and see what happens.

:::unplugs ethernet cable:::

Wow, now I have 2 identical icons, each a video terminal with
a line that descends and turns right, with a red X on the line.

::lugs ethernet cable back in:::

Now back to one regular network icon, and one "red-X" icon.

I think I see what happened, now. On coming back from stand-by,
Windows tries to start a program that requires a network connection,
but the network is not up yet, so Windows displays a red-X icon.
After the network comes up, it also displays the normal network
icon, but fails to erase the "red-X" one, which then stays there
forever. A bug in the code that handles network icons in system
tray.

If my guess is right, if I don't restart the system for a while
and just put it in stand-by every night, after a while I'll
collect a whole slew of red-X icons in my system tray. That
ought to be fun, now that I know its harmless.

--
Cheers,
Robbie Hatley
lonewolf aatt well dott com
www dott well dott com slant user slant lonewolf slant

 

[Tom Del Rosso]

Re: Mysterious icon in system tray with red X.

"Robbie Hatley" <lonewolf@well.com> wrote in message
news:bK2dnb-5msMaruzVnZ2dnUVZ_u6dnZ2d@giganews.com
>
> I think I see what happened, now. On coming back from stand-by,
> Windows tries to start a program that requires a network connection,
> but the network is not up yet, so Windows displays a red-X icon.
> After the network comes up, it also displays the normal network
> icon, but fails to erase the "red-X" one, which then stays there
> forever. A bug in the code that handles network icons in system
> tray.

Noooooo. It means you have 2 network adapters. Open "Network and Dial-up
Connections" in control panel. One of them may be a virtual adapter. If
you don't need it, disable it, or delete it if it's virtual.


--

Reply in group, but if emailing add another
zero, and remove the last word.

 

[Robbie Hatley]

Re: Mysterious icon in system tray with red X.


On 2008-07-09, "Tom Del Rosso" wrote:"

> "Robbie Hatley" <lonewolf@well.com> wrote in message
> news:bK2dnb-5msMaruzVnZ2dnUVZ_u6dnZ2d@giganews.com
> >
> > I think I see what happened, now. On coming back from stand-by,
> > Windows tries to start a program that requires a network connection,
> > but the network is not up yet, so Windows displays a red-X icon.
> > After the network comes up, it also displays the normal network
> > icon, but fails to erase the "red-X" one, which then stays there
> > forever. A bug in the code that handles network icons in system
> > tray.
>
> Noooooo. It means you have 2 network adapters. Open "Network and Dial-up
> Connections" in control panel. One of them may be a virtual adapter. If
> you don't need it, disable it, or delete it if it's virtual.


YYYYYYEEEEEESSSSSS iiittt mmmeeeaaannnsss just what I said it means.

No, I don't have two network adaptors, either physical or virtual.
Why do you think I would not have noticed? In fact, if you actually
READ the previous posts in this thread, you'd see that I already
thorougly checked-out those options before bothering to post to
this group.

Furthermore (again as I already made very clear in previous posts)
neither right-clicking, nor left-clicking, nor double-clicking this
zombie icon has any effect whatsoever. It's dead weight. It does
nothing, indicates nothing, and always disappears the next time the
machine is restarted.

So NO, it is NOT a second network adaptor, either physical or virtual.
It's not linked or related to any NIC, virtual adaptor, port, or other
network-related entity in, on, or attached-to my computer. It is a
zombie.

So yes, it must be a left-over "cable disconnected" icon from my
one existing NIC.

Therefore, yes, it can only be a bug somehere in the code that
writes/erases "network cable disconnected" icons to the system tray.
I can see no other option that fits the facts. Can you? (And this
time, I recommend that would-be respondants go back and read the whole
thread before jumping in with suggestions which have already been
ruled-out by observations in previous posts.)

Update as of 2008-08-10: Over the last month, the mysterious icon
has not returned even once, so I am unable to either verify or
debunk my theory as to its origins. It seems the most likely
cause, though. Probably just one of thousands (millions?) of
minor bugs which haunt all of todays huge operating systems.
Most of them are only triggered by exceptionally rare circumstances,
which is why they were never caught during alpha or beta testing.
No big surprise there, really. Where there's software, there's bugs.

--
Cheers,
Robbie Hatley
lonewolf aatt well dott com
www dott well dott com slant user slant lonewolf slant

>
>
> --
>
> Reply in group, but if emailing add another
> zero, and remove the last word.
>
>