Xfce Forum

Fragrant1470

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2025-03-01

Posts: 44

Autostarted scripts/commands behaving differently than manual CLI exec

System Information:

System:
Host: debian Kernel: 6.12.38+deb13-amd64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64
Desktop: Xfce v: 4.20.1 Distro: Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie)

The Problem:
I am experiencing a consistent issue where commands/scripts added to Session and Startup -> Application Autostart do not function as expected, despite running perfectly when executed manually in a terminal immediately after login.

Case 1: DavMail
Command: davmail ~/.config/davmail/davmail.properties
Symptoms: The process starts, but it ignores the specified ports in the config file and uses defaults instead.
Verification: ps shows the process is running with the correct arguments:

kamil 2033 0.5 1.0 5037428 158248 ? Sl 12:50 0:05 /usr/bin/java ... -jar /usr/share/davmail/davmail.jar ~/.config/davmail/davmail.properties

Case 2: Wacom Setup Script
Command: /home/kamil/.local/bin/wacom-setup.sh
Symptoms: This script uses xsetwacom and includes a sleep 2 at the start. When autostarted, the top button (mapped to Ctrl+Z) does not work. When run manually, it works perfectly. It seems like the settings are either not applied or are being overridden by the session/apps.

Observations:

- I use absolute paths for scripts.
- Manual execution (copy-pasting the exact string from the Autostart entry into Alacritty) works 100% of the time.
-  have had similar "fighting" issues with Redshift in the past (infinite restart loops when autostarted).
- The processes are spawning, but their behavior is divergent from a standard shell execution.

Is there a known issue with the environment or timing in Xfce 4.20 autostart that would cause applications to ignore configuration files or X11 input settings?