NotifyIcon remains in Tray even after application closing but disappears on Mouse Hover

Question

There are many questions on SO asking same doubt. Solution for this is to set

notifyIcon.icon = null and calling Dispose for it in FormClosing event.

In my application, there is no such form but has Notification icon which updates on Events. On creation, I hide my form and make ShowInTaskbar property false. Hence I can not have a "FormClosing" or "FormClosed" events.

If this application gets event to exit, It calls Process.GetCurrentProcess().Kill(); to exit.

I have added notifyIcon.icon = null as well as Dispose before killing, but still icon remains taskbar until I hover mouse over it.

EDIT: If I assume that this behaviour is due to calling GetCurrentProcess().Kill(), Is there any elegant way to exit from application which will clear all resources and remove icon from system tray.

Answer 1

The only solution that worked for me was to use the Closed event and hide and dispose of the icon.

icon.BalloonTipClosed += (sender, e) => { 
                                            var thisIcon = (NotifyIcon)sender;
                                            thisIcon.Visible = false;
                                            thisIcon.Dispose(); 
                                        };

Answer 2

You can either set

notifyIcon1.Visible = false;

OR

notifyIcon.Icon = null;

in the form closing event.

Answer 3

Components just must be disposed in the right order like this :

NotifyIcon.Icon.Dispose();

NotifyIcon.Dispose();

Add this to the MainWindow closing event.

Hope this will help.

Answer 4

Use this code when you want to do it when you press the Exit or Close button:

private void ExitButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    notifyIcon.Dispose();
    Application.Exit(); // or this.Close();
}

Use this code when you want to do it when the form is closing:

private void Form1_FormClosing(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    notifyIcon.Dispose();
    Application.Exit(); // or this.Close();
}

The important code is this:

notifyIcon.Dispose();

Answer 5

Use notifyIcon.Visible = False in FormClosing event

Answer 6

This is normal behaviour, unfortunately; it's due to the way Windows works. You can'r really do anything about it.

See Issue with NotifyIcon not dissappearing on Winforms App for some suggestions, but none of them ever worked for me.

Also see Notify Icon stays in System Tray on Application Close

Microsoft have marked this as "won't fix" on Microsoft Connect.

Answer 7

The only way that works to me was:

1. On design screen changing notifyicon1 property visible=false

2. Insert the code below on main form "activated" event:

NotifyIcon1.Visible = True

3. Insert the code below on main form "closing" event:

NotifyIcon1.Visible = false
NotifyIcon1.Icon.Dispose()
NotifyIcon1.Dispose()

Answer 8

I don't think WPF has it's own NotifyIcon, does it? If you're using the 3rd party Harcodet.Wpf.TaskbarNotification, then try this:

In order to prevent my app from closing when the window is closed (run in background), I separated the logic for closing the window (hitting the x button in the upper right) and actually shutting it down (through the context menu). To make this work, make your context menu set _isExplicitClose to true. Otherwise, it'll just hide the window and continue to run.

What this does is, on explicit close, hide tray icon and the form before closing. This way the icon isn't hanging around after the application is shutdown.

private bool _isExplicitClose;
protected override void OnClosing(System.ComponentModel.CancelEventArgs e)
{
    base.OnClosing(e);

    if (!_isExplicitClose)
    {
        e.Cancel = true;
        Hide();
    }
}

protected void QuitService(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
   _isExplicitClose = true;
   TaskbarIcon.Visibility = Visibility.Hidden;
   Close();
}

Answer 9

Try Application.DoEvents(); after setting notifyIcon.Icon to null and disposing:

notifyIcon.Icon = null;
notifyIcon.Dispose();
Application.DoEvents();

And consider Environment.Exit(0); instead of Process.GetCurrentProcess().Kill().

Answer 10

i can tell you can solve the problem simply using the .dispose() method, but that is not called if you kill the process instead of exit the application.

please refer to Application.Exit if you have built a simple Windows Form application else refer to Environment.Exit that is more general.

Answer 11

I tried all of these and none of them worked for me. After thinking about it for a while I realized that the application creating the "balloon" was exiting before it had a chance to actually dispose of the balloon. I added a while loop just before Application.Exit() containing an Application.DoEvents() command. This allowed my NotifyIcon1_BalloonTipClosed to actually finish disposing of the icon before exiting.

while (notifyIcon1.Visible)
{
    Application.DoEvents();
}
Application.Exit();

And the tip closed method: (You need to include the thisIcon.visible = false in order for this to work)

private void NotifyIcon1_BalloonTipClosed(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    var thisIcon = (NotifyIcon)sender;
    thisIcon.Icon = null;
    thisIcon.Visible = false;
    thisIcon.Dispose();
}

Answer 12

I had the exact same problem as you.

The proper way are send WM_CLOSE message to a process.
I use the c# code I found in this article.
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/82992842-80eb-43c8-a9e6-0a6a1d19b00f/terminating-a-process-in-a-friendly-way

Answer 13

edit codes of ...Designer.cs as below coding.

        protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
           {
           if (disposing )
               {
               this.notifyicon.Dispose();
               }
           base.Dispose(disposing);
           }

Answer 14

I couldn't make any one of the other solutions work. It turned out to be kind of a hybrid of all the above! I hunted and pecked until I had a consistently working solution both in debug and in EXE execution modes! I have no idea why MSFT would mark this as "Not going to fix"? I wish I had that liberty!

        private void exitToolStripMenuItem_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        //THIS CODE IS CRAZY BUT MUST BE DONE IN ORDER TO PROPERLY REMOVE THE SYSTEM TRAY ICON!
        //GREAT ARTICLE ON THIS ON STACK OVERFLOW
        //https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14723843/notifyicon-remains-in-tray-even-after-application-closing-but-disappears-on-mous

        //BTW THIS IS KIND OF A BLEND OF ALL THE SOLUTIONS BECAUSE I COULD NOT FIND A SINGLE SOLUTION THAT WOULD WORK!
        systray_icon.Visible = false;
        while (systray_icon.Visible)
        {
            Application.DoEvents();
        }
        systray_icon.Icon.Dispose();
        systray_icon.Dispose();
        Environment.Exit(1);
    }

Answer 15

The right answer has already been given. But you must also provide a delay, for example with a timer. Only then the application can still remove the icon in the background.

private System.Windows.Forms.Timer mCloseAppTimer;
private void ExitButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) 
{ 
    notifyIcon.Visible = false; notifyIcon.Dispose; 
    mCloseAppTimer = new System.Windows.Forms.Timer(); 
    mCloseAppTimer.Interval = 100; 
    mCloseAppTimer.Tick += new EventHandler(OnCloseAppTimerTick); 
} 
private void OnCloseAppTimerTick(object sender, EventArgs e) 
{ 
    Environment.Exit(0); // other exit codes are also possible 
}