xfce4-panel activating Xconf via dbus every 10 minutes?

comanche_001 · 2023-01-14 11:14:21

Hi,

Since xfce 4.18 my systems log (on arch linux) is filled with these messages (every 10 minutes):

dbus-daemon[]: [session uid= pid=] Activating service name='org.xfce.Xfconf' requested by ':1.1215' (uid= pid= comm="xfce4-panel --display :0.0 --sm-client-id 23f7bc55")
jan 14 11:45:19 dbus-daemon[]: [session uid= pid=] Successfully activated service 'org.xfce.Xfconf'

Does anyone know why this is happening?

Thanks in advance!

Tamaranch · 2023-01-14 11:53:39

This is because since 4.18, xfconfd terminates itself after 5 minutes of inactivity, whereas before it stayed running all the time. So as the panel saves its settings every 10 minutes (it was already the case before 4.18), it restarts xfconfd at that time.

comanche_001 · 2023-01-14 16:16:29

Okay thanks.

This however raises another question. wink

Why is it smart to terminate xconfd after 5 minutes of inactivity if the panel needs it every 10 minutes?

Tamaranch · 2023-01-14 17:15:58

Because of the modular nature of Xfce. Xfconf can be used for other components, without the panel necessarily being present. In fact, this was originally implemented for the use of Xfconf in a flatpak (for Ristretto). Otherwise, xfconfd kept running indefinitely after the application was closed.

comanche_001 · 2023-01-14 20:05:44

Thanks!

patman5656 · 2023-04-14 19:10:53

Hello All!
Is there a way to stop this or at least suppress the logging?

My /var/log/messages files on filling up with this message, and it makes it hard to see the other entries.

-Thanks!

Last edited by patman5656 (2023-04-14 19:11:20)

MurdoMaclachlan · 2023-04-20 22:49:58

I'd like to throw a quick post in here to say this is also becoming quite annoying for me; every time I want to look for something in /var/log/messages, I have to wade through masses of these messages. It would be really nice to know if there's a way to stop the log messages at least.

ToZ · 2023-04-21 01:18:35

I believe its the dbus daemon that is generating those log entries (even though Xfconf is the generator). I can't find any info on blacklist capabilities with dbus logging.

patman5656 wrote:

...it makes it hard to see the other entries.

MurdoMaclachlan wrote:

every time I want to look for something in /var/log/messages, I have to wade through masses of these messages.

For /var/log/messages, you could use something like:

cat /var/log/messages | grep -v Xfconf | more

...to be able to review the contents with the Xfconf entries filtered out.

For systemd journals, you could use the -p parameter to specify a range of priorities to display (this message being informational), so something like:

journalctl --user -p emerg..info

...to filter out informational and debug message (see: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/System … rity_level).

I know this doesn't directly answer the question, but given that xfconf needs to operate in the this manner as discussed above and the dbus daemon doesn't appear to allow blacklisting of messages, this may be the best alternative.

MurdoMaclachlan · 2023-04-21 09:11:43

ToZ wrote:

For /var/log/messages, you could use something like:
cat /var/log/messages | grep -v Xfconf | more
...to be able to review the contents with the Xfconf entries filtered out.

Ah, thank you! I wasn't aware grep had an option to filter things out -- that works perfect for me.

PolaritonCondensate · 2023-07-11 21:00:11

Why not make xfconfd time-out after 11 minutes of inactivity?

PolaritonCondensate · 2023-07-20 12:18:20

For anyone else irritated by this tsunami of log spam, the timeout delay is defined by the SHUTDOWN_TIMEOUT_SECONDS constant near the top of xfconfd/xfconf-lifecycle-manager.c . I changed it to 1500 (25 minutes) and the spam is gone.

miceintherice · 2024-10-09 10:44:28

For those not able or willing to fix xfconfd/xfconf-lifecycle-manager.c there is another way to make these messages disappear, it is the "use a sledgehammer to kill a gnat" approach but it will stop those messages (and pretty much anything else that's not critical) from being written to the logs. What you do is edit /etc/systemd/journald.conf and add these lines at the bottom (under all the commented-out lines):

Storage=volatile
MaxRetentionSec=1week
ForwardToSyslog=no
ForwardToKMsg=no
ForwardToConsole=no
ForwardToWall=no
MaxLevelStore=warning
MaxLevelSyslog=warning
MaxLevelKMsg=warning
MaxLevelConsole=warning
MaxLevelWall=emerg

Explanation:

Storage=volatile causes logs to be stored in memory only, not on your device's hard drive or SSD or whatever.
MaxRetentionSec=1week only saves a week's worth of logs if your system has been up for over a week

ForwardToSyslog=no
ForwardToKMsg=no
ForwardToConsole=no
ForwardToWall=no
The above stop log messages from also being placed in other logs.

MaxLevelStore=warning
MaxLevelSyslog=warning
MaxLevelKMsg=warning
MaxLevelConsole=warning
MaxLevelWall=emerg
The above are the most important, they keep anything that is not considered to be at least a warning from being written to the log (the last line is the default setting).

References:
journald.conf man page
How To Use Journalctl to View and Manipulate Systemd Logs

Note that I am just a user of Debian and XFCE on one specific machine that is used for a specific purpose but since it uses NVMe storage I was not happy about unnecessary persistent logging, so I don't mind that this disables all logging that's not at least a warning. I can always back this out if I need to but I am not a compulsive reader of log files, and I probably would never have known this was happening had I not read a suggestion to run journalctl to possibly diagnose another unrelated issue (which it didn't).

Oh, forgot to mention this will not kill any existing logs. To do that, go to /var/log/journal/ and in that directory there will be another directory with a long hexadecimal number, go into that and the old log files are stored there and can be removed or archived so they no longer take up space on your drive.

Last edited by miceintherice (2024-10-09 10:49:35)

ToZ · 2024-10-09 10:52:57

See: https://gitlab.xfce.org/xfce/xfce4-panel/-/issues/767.

xfce4-panel was auto-saving its settings every 10 minutes causing xfconf to be re-activated. This auto-saving has been removed since version 4.18.5, This should cut down on some of those log messages.

However, whenever any xfce application saves to xfconf you would still get log entries created if xfconf needs to get re-activated.

miceintherice · 2024-10-09 15:28:05

Unfortunately Debian 12 with the XFCE desktop must still be using a pre-4.18.5 version of xfce4-panel, because I was still getting those messages every 10 minutes until I made the changes shown in my previous post. And from what I hear, Debian is really slow to update things like that,

jiyahana · 2024-10-25 10:28:23

The "Activating service name='org.xfce.Xfconf'" logs appear because xfce4-panel saves its settings every 10 minutes, triggering xfconfd. To reduce these logs, update to xfce4-panel version 4.18.5 or newer. If you can't update, try changing journald settings to filter out lower-priority logs.

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#1 2023-01-14 11:14:21

xfce4-panel activating Xconf via dbus every 10 minutes?

#2 2023-01-14 11:53:39

Re: xfce4-panel activating Xconf via dbus every 10 minutes?

#3 2023-01-14 16:16:29

Re: xfce4-panel activating Xconf via dbus every 10 minutes?

#4 2023-01-14 17:15:58

Re: xfce4-panel activating Xconf via dbus every 10 minutes?

#5 2023-01-14 20:05:44

Re: xfce4-panel activating Xconf via dbus every 10 minutes?

#6 2023-04-14 19:10:53

Re: xfce4-panel activating Xconf via dbus every 10 minutes?

#7 2023-04-20 22:49:58

Re: xfce4-panel activating Xconf via dbus every 10 minutes?

#8 2023-04-21 01:18:35

Re: xfce4-panel activating Xconf via dbus every 10 minutes?

#9 2023-04-21 09:11:43

Re: xfce4-panel activating Xconf via dbus every 10 minutes?

#10 2023-07-11 21:00:11

Re: xfce4-panel activating Xconf via dbus every 10 minutes?

#11 2023-07-20 12:18:20

Re: xfce4-panel activating Xconf via dbus every 10 minutes?

#12 2024-10-09 10:44:28

Re: xfce4-panel activating Xconf via dbus every 10 minutes?

#13 2024-10-09 10:52:57

Re: xfce4-panel activating Xconf via dbus every 10 minutes?

#14 2024-10-09 15:28:05

Re: xfce4-panel activating Xconf via dbus every 10 minutes?

#15 2024-10-25 10:28:23

Re: xfce4-panel activating Xconf via dbus every 10 minutes?

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