A Clue?

I started my non-root testing account in Trinity. The klipper icon appeared in the system tray, normal size, but I noticed there was no handler/grabber bar for klipper.

Curious I selected the panel menu and added klipper to the panel.

Big icon.

The hounds started howling.

I removed the applet from the panel. Exited Trinity and restarted. Klipper appeared in the system tray with a normal icon.

I looked at the klipperrc file.

[General]
Autostart=true

In root's klipperrc:

[General]
Autostart=false

For root I removed klipper as a panel applet and changed klipperrc autostart to true.

Normal size icon.

Long ago I must have set klipper to autostart=false as my default setting and then added klipper as an individual applet. I don't know why. I carried that setting over to my virtual machine accounts too.

The likely reason you don't see the problem is you have klipper autostart and do not have klipper inserted into the panel as an applet.

Perhaps you can set klipperrc autostart to false and then add klipper to the panel through the Add applet menu option. See whether you get a big icon too. If you do then we might be closer now to solving the puzzle.

As far as getting a normal sized icon, we now know how. But I would say a bug still exists for people who add klipper as an applet.