Preference to "Never remember passphrases" causes icon to stay in Notification Area, indefinitely.

Ok, apparently it doesn't store it, enigmail/ehunderbird/gnupg ask me for it again; however, the icon still gets put in the Notification Area and stays. It will stay forever if I don't get asked for my passphrase again. If I do get asked again, it will go away until after I enter my passphrase the subsequent time(s) - at which point it comes back again.

Why do you say "appearently it doesn't store it"? It is probably stored, but the programs don't make use of it. This might be, because the application cannot communicate with these programs or vice-versa or you haven't configured gnupg to use a password agent (--use-agent).

If the shown status by the icon really is wrong, then you should file your report against the program, which is repsonsible for it. And that's not gnupg.

So IMO your report is misplaced.

gnupg does not handle remembering of the passphrase or the notification area icon.

Thank you Daniel, I believe it is misplaced as well. Switched it to seahorse-plugins.

If it were to be stored, I'd assume the 'Ask before using a cached passphrase' option, which is active, would ask me to verify using the stored passphrase (as it does when I select 'Remember passphrases for X minutes'/'Always remember passphrases whenever logged in'. Since it does not, the only two outcomes are that it is not storing it or it is storing it, but removes it from cache as soon as the passphrase is needed again.

Either way, it is wrong. 'Never remember passphrases' should not start the notification area icon; furthermore, I should not have to/be able to 'Clear' the passphrase (from the icon) when it's "never remembered". Which program uses the passphrase should not matter, as it's seahorse/seahorse-plugins that handles the entering of and storing of the passphrase, if I am not mistaken.(?)

Assitionally, this happens with all applications. If I right-click > Encrypt a file/directory, the same results occur. I select the recipient and signer keys on the "Choose Recipients" window & hit OK; the passphrase window is shown (and occasionally the Encrypting window sneaks in behind it); I type in my passphrase and hit OK; the notification area icon is immediately visible; the Encrypting window takes over, does its work, and finishes; I right-click > Encrypt another file; select recipient and signer; at the same time, the passphrase window appears and the notification area icon disappears; I type in my passphrase and hit OK; the notification area icon is immediately visible again; encryption takes over, does its work, and finishes. The icon is still visible and stays indefinitely.

When I refer to the "Passphrase window", it is the window with the text:
You need a passphrase to unlock the secret key for user:
"Derek Ryan White <email address hidden>"
4096-bit RSA key, ID F816549A, created 2008-05-23

If that window is canceled, a second passphrase window comes up with the text:
Enter passphrase for 'Derek Ryan White <email address hidden>'

If I enter my passphrase in this second, "backup" window, the notification area icon never appears. It only happens with the first, main entry window. Therefore, a workaround is to hit Cancel on the first passphrase entry window and only use the second, backup window.

I have not tweaked gnupg or seahorse other than importing a few keys and making the selections mentioned earlier on the Encryption and Keyrings window (seahorse-preferences).

$ dpkg -l | grep seahorse
ii seahorse 2.26.1-0ubuntu1
ii seahorse-plugins 2.26.1-0ubuntu1

Thanks for reporting, that is already a known issue, see bug 228309