However it did show updates before I removed it and then installed again to system tray. It works somewhat, for example, if I power down and back up, it'll have the numeral 2 showing and a popup indicates (1) connection to wifi and (2) touchpad disabled. Or if I disable wifi and turn it back on, those actions will appear in my Notifications. I guess I'm only lacking actual Updates notifications. During this time of removal there were several updates taking place. Don't know if it was me or an update which caused this. Additionally, If I have one or both of the above mentioned updates appear in the notifier, and I click on the widget, the window which appears listing those notifications differs from my "original" window. Has a bit more info and appears more robust.

Five to six times (over the course of a few days) I have checked the Software Updater app and there will be updates awaiting installation. When I click "ok" to update, they do update and at the same time the notifier widget will "wake up" and show a number, for example, if the update is a single package of 18 updates, it'll show the number "1". I could turn the Updater into a fat green widget but I prefer not to. I've checked the Notifications settings and everything appears to be correctly checked or unchecked. I have Kubuntu 14.04. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Sounds like a bug in whatever apt daemon is supposed to signal package updates.
The internet says you require update-manager-kde or muon-updater installed (and whatever service thy provide: running)

Random instructions: http://askubuntu.com/questions/195624/u ... in-kubuntu
I've no ubuntu, can't tell you more, sorry

Thanks. I have checked notification and updater settings and each item within those that should be selected (checked) is indeed checked. Either a bug happened randomly or it came with one of my many, many, recent updates.