In all versions of Ubuntu up until now it's been fine. Suddenly in 11.04 in Ubuntu Classic (standard gnome instead of unity) VLC doesn't show its icon in the notification area panel when opened. If I click very close to the last visible icon up there, I get VLC options - so it's obviously there - just the picture isn't showing (ie it just looks as if there's nothing there) and the hit area is only a few pixels wide.
As with every version of Ubuntu I restored settings in my home directory after the upgrade so VLC would have kept its preferences from 10.10 if this helps.
In the preferences 'Show systray icon' is checked. I attempted to uncheck and recheck it but this had no affect.