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#1 2012-05-27 20:50:52

nuc
Member
Registered: 2012-04-28
Posts: 20

AWN causes freezes with xfwm4 as wm

Hi!
I use the latest xfce version on my Laptop and I' m experiencing an annoying issue: the xfce menu bar freezes quite often (note: mostly the rest of the taskbar works fine) - by freezing I mean that my mouse clicks are "ignored". I click but nothing happens. To temporary fix this problem I need to click on the Taskbar and re-click on the menu bar.
Then, it also happens that my window buttons freeze ( _ + x ) and I have to click wildy across my desktop to "reactivate" them.
The same goes for my desktop and sometimes even the whole desktop environment and I need to restart the system with the power ON/OFF button. Anyways, whatever happens, I am always able to move my mouse pointer, but my clicks are worthless.

I soppose it's some issue with my ATI Mobility Radeon HD5650 graphics card (is it?). I use the open source drivers for ATI on Arch Linux.

Those bugs are really annoying and hinder me from working effectivly. I hope you guys have got some tips for me.

best regards
nuc

Last edited by nuc (2012-10-08 22:31:02)


my system:
ArchLinux
xfce 4.10

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#2 2012-05-30 01:57:39

tashirosgt
Member
Registered: 2012-05-30
Posts: 7

Re: AWN causes freezes with xfwm4 as wm

You didn't say which version of XFCE you are using or what operating system you use.   

In Fedora Core 16, I had a lot of trouble with the XFCE 4.8  Desktop behaving like you describe.  In addition to random problems, one thing that was guaranteed to freeze the machine was to select the logout out icon (the one with the green man) and check the "Save session" box on it.  My solution was to upgrade to XFCE 4.10 and this also froze a few times until I learned how to find the "Save session" option (it was removed from the logout icon's menu)  and save a session from 4.10. (My speculation is that there was something wrong with the files used by 4.8 to save sessions.)

After reading some posts on this forum, I think my problem may have been the bug discussed in the thread http://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=5707 involving the window manager xfwm4.  I noticed in /var/spool/abrt that I had one core dump from xfwm4.  However, I haven't pursued understanding this issue since I no longer use XFCE 4.8.

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#3 2012-05-31 22:37:43

nuc
Member
Registered: 2012-04-28
Posts: 20

Re: AWN causes freezes with xfwm4 as wm

I'm using xfce 4.10 on ArchLinux.

I figured out that it's an issue of the "Avant Window Naigator"  ("AWN" . However, I'm not sure if it is the sole reason - I'll check that. Also notice that on my desktop PC AWN works just fine UPDATE: it works fine because I use compiz as window manager).

What I can definately say, is that when the AWN menu bar pops up, about 3cm of the left side of my screen is 'frozen' (yeah, I know this sounds silly).
Here a screenshot illustrating the behaviour:
screenawn51eeo.png

EDIT: This is always the case after leaving (closing/minimizing...) a maximized window. As already mentioned I can "reactivate" the Menu bar (not the rest of the frozen area!) by clicking once on the taskbar.
I suppose the problem is that AWN puts the left side of the screen (which is reserved for AWN) into the background and then forgets to put it back into the foreground when needed. So when I click on the taskbar, the whole taskbar gets into the foreground and works as expected.

Last edited by nuc (2012-10-08 22:20:02)


my system:
ArchLinux
xfce 4.10

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#4 2012-06-02 04:39:39

tashirosgt
Member
Registered: 2012-05-30
Posts: 7

Re: AWN causes freezes with xfwm4 as wm

If we use the analogy of auto repair, freezes are most often fixed by "replacing random parts" than by systematic diagnosis.  I wish it were otherwise.

I use Fedora, so I can't speak for Archlinux.  (In Fedora) you can read through the logs in the /var/log directory.  It helps to recreate the freeze and note the exact time (to the nearest second) when you do it because some of the logs (like /var/log/messages) have timestamped entries.  I haven't had much luck finding the causes of freezes in logs.  Crashes of applications often produce core dumps as directories in /var/spool/abrt.  The name of the directory includes the date and time of the crash. Some of the files in these directories are human readable.

There is a "secret method" for recovering freezes that I myself have not tried yet.  It's describe in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_SysRq_key

In Fedora, you can determine if this option is compiled into the kernel you use by looking at the relevant /boot/config.... file and seeing whether it has

CONFIG_MAGIC_SYSRQ=y

Then you must enable the feature by editing /etc/sysctl.conf and change the line
kernel.sysrq = 0
to
kernel.sysrq = 1

Enabling this feature is said to be insecure for machines on a network.  I don't know the details of that.

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#5 2012-06-03 13:23:05

tashirosgt
Member
Registered: 2012-05-30
Posts: 7

Re: AWN causes freezes with xfwm4 as wm

I notice in Fedora that freezes in Xfce versions 4.8 and 4.10 can be fixed (at least temporarily) by saving an "empty" session.  Login, close all the applications that are automatically open (the ones whose icons appear on the top menu bar between the logout icon on the left and the terminal window icon on the right) then save the session by using Applications Menu->Settings->Session snd Startup - Session "Save Session" 

In Fedora Core 17, afer one freeze of Xfce 4.8,  I did find an ~/.xsession-errors log that seems to indicate some sort of infinite loop going on.  Perhaps someone can interpret it.  I logged in.  A session began where one terminal was a saved as a minimized application.  I opened the file manager by clicking on the icon at the bottom of the desktop.  The desktop froze in the sense that it stopped responding to the keyboard and mourse.  The mouse cursor was visible.  The time on the clock display on the upper right of the terminal continued to advance.  I was able to get to a console by Ctrl-Alt-F2.

The .xsession-error log begins:

(imsettings-check:1154): GLib-WARNING **: (gerror.c:390):g_error_new_valist: runtime check failed: (domain != 0)

(imsettings-check:1164): GLib-WARNING **: (gerror.c:390):g_error_new_valist: runtime check failed: (domain != 0)

(imsettings-check:1185): GLib-WARNING **: (gerror.c:390):g_error_new_valist: runtime check failed: (domain != 0)

(imsettings-check:1194): GLib-WARNING **: (gerror.c:390):g_error_new_valist: runtime check failed: (domain != 0)
/usr/bin/startxfce4: X server already running on display :0
ssh-agent is already running; starting gpg-agent without ssh support
xfdesktop[1242]: starting up
xfce4-settings-helper: Another instance is already running. Leaving...

** (process:1256): WARNING **: Trying to register gtype 'GMountMountFlags' as enum when in fact it is of type 'GFlags'

** (process:1256): WARNING **: Trying to register gtype 'GDriveStartFlags' as enum when in fact it is of type 'GFlags'

** (process:1256): WARNING **: Trying to register gtype 'GSocketMsgFlags' as enum when in fact it is of type 'GFlags'
WARNING: gnome-keyring:: couldn't connect to: /run/user/cosmo/keyring-pYdIRl/pkcs11: No such file or directory
** Message: applet now removed from the notification area
** Message: applet now embedded in the notification area

(xfce4-panel:1241): Gdk-CRITICAL **: IA__gdk_window_get_events: assertion `GDK_IS_WINDOW (window)' failed

(xfce4-panel:1241): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_ref: assertion `G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

(xfce4-panel:1241): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_unref: assertion `G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

(xfce4-panel:1241): Gdk-CRITICAL **: IA__gdk_window_get_events: assertion `GDK_IS_WINDOW (window)' failed

(xfce4-panel:1241): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_ref: assertion `G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

(xfce4-panel:1241): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_unref: assertion `G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

(xfce4-panel:1241): Gdk-CRITICAL **: IA__gdk_window_get_events: assertion `GDK_IS_WINDOW (window)' failed

The pattern of messages at the end of the log then repeats itself many times.

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#6 2012-10-08 22:27:40

nuc
Member
Registered: 2012-04-28
Posts: 20

Re: AWN causes freezes with xfwm4 as wm

I found a bug report concerning this issue: https://bugs.launchpad.net/awn/+bug/550019
It's a bit strange that this bug has already been marked as solved, but apparently it is again an issue.

But what's important:
I figured out that the problem only occurs on xfwm4 - xfces default wm.
With compiz as wm it works just fine.

Last edited by nuc (2012-10-08 22:31:42)


my system:
ArchLinux
xfce 4.10

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