diff --git a/client/ui/tray_watcher_other.go b/client/ui/tray_watcher_other.go
index aa8fc8ac7..23adc6d4d 100644
--- a/client/ui/tray_watcher_other.go
+++ b/client/ui/tray_watcher_other.go
@@ -2,5 +2,16 @@
 
 package main
 
-// startStatusNotifierWatcher is a no-op on non-Linux platforms.
-func startStatusNotifierWatcher() {}
+// startStatusNotifierWatcher is a no-op on non-Linux platforms (and on
+// linux/386, which excludes the cgo XEmbed host).
+//
+// The in-process org.kde.StatusNotifierWatcher + XEmbed bridge in
+// tray_watcher_linux.go only exists to rescue the tray on minimal Linux WMs
+// that ship no SNI watcher of their own. macOS and Windows have a native
+// system tray that Wails talks to directly, so there is nothing to register
+// here — the function body is intentionally empty rather than missing so
+// main.go can call startStatusNotifierWatcher() unconditionally across all
+// build targets.
+func startStatusNotifierWatcher() {
+	// Intentionally empty: see the doc comment above.
+}