I'm on arch linux and I recently just installed KDE. Comming from gnome most recently and previously from XFCE and Unity, I have to say KDE is by far my favourite overall, due to the smoothness and functionality that the DE offers. However, I have this problem with the tray icons that is really starting to irritate me. I have attempted to research possible solutions but every source I come across suggests that my problem is caused by an unpatched bug (and I've found other complaints about the issue that date years back).

My problem is that every tray icon I have is blurry and has a sort of black background / black outline / black spots around it. I don't know how to describe it accurately so I will just include a picture of it here:

https://gyazo.com/d850912f997badf7882c2150c3e69634

Basically, you can see around each icon (especially the tray icon for Pidgin and Mullvad) those black shadows / black markings that surround the icons. In addition, the icons are blurry. I am using the same applications that I used on XFCE and Gnome and Unity, and KDE is the only DE that gives me this problem, which leads me to believe that it is NOT a problem with the icons themselves, rather some setting or some problem in KDE. I just want the blackness behind the tray icons to go away. I asked for help on another forum and was told that this "Looks like **** xembed tray icons," so if that helps you help me, so be it.

Just some further info:
- I'm using KDE Plasma 5
- I'm using Nvidia for my driver (if this even matters)
- For my DM i'm using sddm
Anyone know how I can fix this????

ryanlenin wrote:Anyone know how I can fix this????

Try updating to 5.6.0, there have been some improvements in this area.

Looks to me as if alpha transparency wasn't handled properly and instead treated as black. I see the same issue here.

wolfi323 wrote:Try updating to 5.6.0, there have been some improvements in this area.

I'm currently on 5.5.5, I will try updating to 5.6 and let you know how it works. Thank you for the suggestion

wolfi323, this is fixed the problem. Updating KDE fixes the black spots around the tray icons. Some icons are still a little bit blurry and could be better but this works fine. Thanks.