Missing libappindicator3-1 installing Slack

Question

Here's the output when I try to install Slack.

$ sudo dpkg -i slack-desktop-4.12.2-amd64.deb 
Selecting previously unselected package slack-desktop.
(Reading database ... 155664 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack slack-desktop-4.12.2-amd64.deb ...
Unpacking slack-desktop (4.12.2) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of slack-desktop:
 slack-desktop depends on libappindicator3-1; however:
  Package libappindicator3-1 is not installed.

dpkg: error processing package slack-desktop (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.26-1) ...
Processing triggers for mailcap (3.68) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 slack-desktop

Then I try to install the dependencies

$ sudo apt install -f
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  slack-desktop
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 148 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] 

I can't figure out why this happens. I've already run

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get clean
apt-get autoclean

Here's some information that may be useful:

$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free

$ cat /etc/*release*
PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux bullseye/sid"
NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
ID=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://www.debian.org/support"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.debian.org/"

---

Also, I have another laptop running Debian testing with libappindicator3-1 installed:

$ apt policy libappindicator3-1
libappindicator3-1:
  Installed: 0.4.92-8
  Candidate: 0.4.92-8
  Version table:
 *** 0.4.92-8 100
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Answer 1

I had such issue with new version of Debian 11 (2021-09-07). Here is what I did to install Slack desktop app on Debian. I will use slack-desktop-4.19.2-amd64.deb file for the example

dpkg-deb -x slack-desktop-4.19.2-amd64.deb unpack
dpkg-deb --control slack-desktop-4.19.2-amd64.deb unpack/DEBIAN

Open the file ./unpack/DEBIAN/control and replace libappindicator3-1 with libayatana-appindicator3-1

After that do

dpkg -b unpack slack.deb

Now you should have slack.deb file.

The last step is sudo apt install ./slack.deb

Or you can use below script

#!/bin/bash

package="$1"
name="$(basename ${package} .deb)"

dpkg-deb -x "$package" "$name"
dpkg-deb --control "$package" "$name"/DEBIAN
sed -i -- 's/libappindicator3-1/libayatana-appindicator3-1/g' ./"$name"/DEBIAN/control
new="${name}-debian.deb"
dpkg -b "$name" "$new" 
rm -rf "$name"
sudo apt install ./"$new"

like this:

apt-install-libayatana BreakTimer.deb

Source is here https://github.com/rofrol/dotfiles/blob/master/bin/apt-install-libayatana

Answer 2

For Debian 11 (Bullseye), you can manually download the Debian 10 (Buster) version of the missing dependencies:

• Debian -- Package Download Selection -- libappindicator3-1_0.4.92-7_amd64.deb
• Debian -- Package Download Selection -- libindicator3-7_0.5.0-4_amd64.deb

You can then install these together with Slack:

sudo apt install \
     ./libappindicator3-1_0.4.92-7_amd64.deb \
     ./libindicator3-7_0.5.0-4_amd64.deb \
     ./slack-desktop-4.20.0-amd64.deb