Are you sure this happens after the service crashed? If so, this is a bug in unity8 (or more likely qmenumodel), which should respawn the service. Alternatively, it should not show the messaging menu at all when the service is down.
Ted, we can respawn without upstart as well. That's what we're doing in libindicator. I'm asking because this could also be the bug that didn't clear the "blue" status after dismissing messages, which I've just fixed in lp:~larsu/indicator-messages/blue. ** Changed in: indicator-messages (Ubuntu) Assignee: Charles Kerr (charlesk) => Lars Uebernickel (larsu) -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of DX Packages, which is subscribed to indicator-messages in Ubuntu. Matching subscriptions: dx-packages https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1234680 Title: indicator-messages blue even though there are no messages Status in “indicator-messages” package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Bug description: After an indicator-messages crash the indicator comes back up and shows an empty queue (it lost all the messages, notifications in it) and it is blue. See screen capture attached. ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.10 Package: indicator-messages 13.10.1+13.10.20130930-0ubuntu1 Uname: Linux 3.4.0-3-mako armv7l ApportVersion: 2.12.5-0ubuntu1 Architecture: armhf Date: Sun Oct 6 12:29:50 2013 InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-10-03 (3 days ago) InstallationMedia: Ubuntu Saucy Salamander (development branch) - armhf (20131003) MarkForUpload: True ProcEnviron: TERM=linux PATH=(custom, no user) SourcePackage: indicator-messages UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install) To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/indicator-messages/+bug/1234680/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~dx-packages Post to : dx-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~dx-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp