Bug 20733

Summary: XFCE window manager not providing close/minimize buttons
Product: Mageia Reporter: William Shields <william.shields>
Component: RPM PackagesAssignee: Jani Välimaa <jani.valimaa>
Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME QA Contact:
Severity: major    
Priority: Normal CC: bittwister2, marja11
Version: Cauldron   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: i586   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Source RPM: CVE:
Status comment:

Description William Shields 2017-04-23 20:18:49 CEST
Description of problem:
- When starting an XFCE session the desktop icons never appear
- Application windows do not have close/minimise buttons
- Application windows do not have handles to be able to drag expand them
- Not all of the display is used by windows that should come up as full screen


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
Mageia6 STA2 32 bit

How reproducible:
Happens all the time since receiving an update a few days ago which contained a couple of libxfce4* (sorry can't remember exactly which ones) packages. Similar updates not seen on 64 bit version which continues to work OK.

Steps to Reproduce:
I have uninstalled/reinstalled task-xfce-minimal a couple of times but the problem still occurs. I have successfully installed Mate which works fine.
Comment 1 William Shields 2017-04-24 09:25:32 CEST
Just to clarify, the whole of the top bar containing the close/minimise buttons is missing. Thunar allows windows to be drag expanded but Libre Office & Claws Mail do not.

Omitted from the original report, keyboard short cuts such as Alt/F4 to close a window do not work.
Comment 2 Marja Van Waes 2017-04-24 09:53:23 CEST
(In reply to William Shields from comment #0)

> 
> 
> Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
> Mageia6 STA2 32 bit
> 
> How reproducible:
> Happens all the time since receiving an update a few days ago which
> contained a couple of libxfce4* (sorry can't remember exactly which ones)
> packages. Similar updates not seen on 64 bit version which continues to work
> OK.
> 

Can you try to find the updated XFCE and other packages from that day with e.g.

  rpm -qa --last | head -n100

(increase or decrease 100 so that the Xfce packages are included + all other packages that were updated on the same day), and then _attach_ that list to this bug report?
_

CC: (none) => marja11
Assignee: bugsquad => jani.valimaa

Comment 3 William Shields 2017-04-25 18:20:36 CEST
I cannot remember the exact date but all of the XFCE packages now appear on the date of my last reinstall (Sun 23 Apr 2017 17:50 BST). Here are other packages received (and as yet have not been replaced) during the period the problem started:

libcaja-extension1-1.18.2-1.mga6.i586         Wed 19 Apr 2017 07:09:55 BST
caja-schemas-1.18.2-1.mga6.noarch             Wed 19 Apr 2017 07:09:54 BST
mate-polkit-1.18.0-3.mga6.i586                Sun 16 Apr 2017 08:58:48 BST
mageia-release-Default-6-0.17.mga6.i586       Sun 16 Apr 2017 08:58:47 BST
mageia-release-common-6-0.17.mga6.i586        Sun 16 Apr 2017 08:58:47 BST
libaudit1-2.7.5-1.mga6.i586                   Sat 15 Apr 2017 07:30:30 BST
libgusb2-0.2.10-1.mga6.i586                   Sat 15 Apr 2017 07:30:29 BST
libappstream-glib8-0.6.12-1.mga6.i586         Sat 15 Apr 2017 07:30:28 BST
appstream-glib-i18n-0.6.12-1.mga6.noarch      Sat 15 Apr 2017 07:30:28 BST

I hesitate to throw this into the mix as I cannot reliably recreate it but it might ring some bells with someone. I have managed to get a fully working XFCE session on 3 occasions, the sequence being,
- Boot the machine (laptop)
- Start a MATE session and run some applications
- Logout of the MATE session
- On the LightDM screen change to an XFCE session
- Login - Error 'Session failed to start'
- Try again and a working XFCE session starts

If no one else has had this problem perhaps it is something peculiar to my set up. Would you like me to reinstall STA2 XFCE from the live DVD and see whether I still have the problem?
Comment 4 Bit Twister 2017-04-25 21:32:29 CEST
(In reply to William Shields from comment #3)

> If no one else has had this problem perhaps it is something peculiar to my
> set up. Would you like me to reinstall STA2 XFCE from the live DVD and see
> whether I still have the problem?


Before doing that, might I suggest creating a test account, say junk, and log out of your account and into junk just to prove it is not a system wide problem but just a user problem.

If junk has the same problem as your user account you know it is a system wide problem.

CC: (none) => bittwister2

Comment 5 William Shields 2017-04-26 17:42:54 CEST
Thank you for that suggestion. Logging in from a different account does start a proper XFCE session. So, a problem with the configuration in my usual account then.

I have copied the ~/.config/xfce4 directory from my other laptop running 64 bit XFCE and hey presto my account now starts a proper XFCE session.

I have not had a chance yet to look at the differences in set up but I am pretty sure that I have not explicitly changed any configuration settings myself recently. Is there anywhere in particular I should look?
Comment 6 Bit Twister 2017-04-26 22:42:51 CEST
(In reply to William Shields from comment #5)

> I have copied the ~/.config/xfce4 directory from my other laptop running
> 64 bit XFCE and hey presto my account now starts a proper XFCE session.

I would not recommend that unless Xfce release/version are the same.

> I have not had a chance yet to look at the differences in set up but I am
> pretty sure that I have not explicitly changed any configuration settings
> myself recently. Is there anywhere in particular I should look?

It is possible you did not make any changes but the problem was caused when you did not wipe ~/.config as requested by an Xfce update. 

Your Xfce Desktop can also become corrupt by something in ~/.cache. I always turn off save session yet upon login previous autostart applications would be launched even though I had wiped ~/.config.
Comment 7 William Shields 2017-05-01 09:40:58 CEST
Both my laptops were rebuilt completely from STA2 live ISOs so hopefully they will be same XFCE release/version.

I have reinstated my original ~/.config/xfce4 and now XFCE works perfectly with that set up. Unless you have any other suggestions I do not think any more useful information can be gleaned as to what might have originally caused the problem. Thank you for your assistance.

Status: NEW => RESOLVED
Resolution: (none) => WORKSFORME