Arch Linux

JeanLucJ

Member

Registered: 2019-03-08

Posts: 59

[Solved] Gnome : Problem between memory/clipboard management and wine

Hello,

A couple of monthes back, there was a lot of upgrades from Gnome and some system libs.
I detected a regression, but as things are usually fixed quickly, I took no action believing it would not last.

I am using Microsoft Office through wine.
In the current state, Office has problems with the clipboard (for example, when I try to copy with CTRL-C, the first time it works, the second time I have "Cannot empty the clipboard" error, or when I try to open a document > 5 Mo, it states I have not enough memory ressources, which of course I have).

As clipboard is shared with the rest of the system (I mean, CTRL-C in gedit, CTRL-V in Excel or Word works, and vice-versa), and as downgrading Wine to an old version does not correct the problem, I suspect a problem with the Gnome or system library responsible for the clipboard.
[Edit] I tested with awesome instead of Gnome, and it seems to work. I can copy vast amount of data and open big files again. At least I have a workaround... yeahhh [/Edit]

I did some research, but cannot find which lib it would be.

Could you tell me which lib it is, or, at least, some candidates ?

Thanks in advance!

Regards,

Last edited by JeanLucJ (2019-12-26 09:21:54)

mmolch

Member

Registered: 2019-12-19

Posts: 1

Re: [Solved] Gnome : Problem between memory/clipboard management and wine

I have the same clipboard problem with wine on gnome shell (I'm running X since I'm on NVidia, does it work properly on Wayland?). The copy command (via Ctrl-C or copy entry in context menus) alternatively empties the clipboard or copies to the clipboard. I now installed CopyQ and enabled the notifications to alleviate the problem a little since I now see when it copied to the clipboard or cleared it, but I really hope that someone has the time and finds out what's wrong with it.

JeanLucJ

Member

Registered: 2019-03-08

Posts: 59

Re: [Solved] Gnome : Problem between memory/clipboard management and wine

does it work properly on Wayland?

No.
Both my main computer, on Xorg, and my laptop, on Wayland, have the same problem with Gnome.

I'm surprised at the lack of knowledge and documentation about the clipboard management under Gnome.
I don't know if you spotted my edit : This is Gnome related. No problem when you use awesome (which I do for now), I would bet it also works with KDE, xfce and so on.

glitsj16

Member

Registered: 2015-04-26

Posts: 116

Re: [Solved] Gnome : Problem between memory/clipboard management and wine

I did some research, but cannot find which lib it would be

Likely that mutter is the culprit here. Lot's of reported clipboard-related issues I'm afraid, but at least you can check if something sounds familiar. If you want to test any merged fixes, I'd recommend looking at the mutter-performance PKGBUILD for details on how to cherrypick etc.

JeanLucJ

Member

Registered: 2019-03-08

Posts: 59

Re: [Solved] Gnome : Problem between memory/clipboard management and wine

I did some research, but cannot find which lib it would be

Likely that mutter is the culprit here. Lot's of reported clipboard-related issues I'm afraid, but at least you can check if something sounds familiar. If you want to test any merged fixes, I'd recommend looking at the mutter-performance PKGBUILD for details on how to cherrypick etc.

Thanks a lot.
I will do some test (the first one will be a downgrade) probably tomorrow and post results here.
I don't know how you found it, the package description being "A window manager for GNOME", it's far from obvious, but indeed there are 2 (that's not a lot ) issues containing the word clipboard, and the first was reported 3 monthes ago, so I'm pretty confident you are right.

Regards,

JeanLucJ

Member

Registered: 2019-03-08

Posts: 59

Re: [Solved] Gnome : Problem between memory/clipboard management and wine

Unfortunately, downgrading came to nothing :

mutter-3.34.0+14+g0e69fe078-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz    19-Sep-2019 19:51
=> Problem still present, and it's probable I had the bug around that time

mutter-3.32.2+43+gb7f158811-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz    02-Aug-2019 10:07
=> Previous version as far as I can see. Breaks Gnome

All in all, I have been using Arch since around a year, and am very found of the distro. OTOH, the only problems I had were ... with gnome.
In a previous topic I did here, someone qualified Gnome a (quoting) "bloated mess" I'm beginning to see the point.

Trying various PR on the mutter git page is a lot of trouble, while switching windows manager is an easy fix.

Regards and merry christmas!

Edit :
This issue is clearly the same problem, and there are some fixes, including, it seems, a fix for Arch. I'll dig in a bit more

More edit :
Arch bug details how to rebuild mutter or points to mutter performance as suggested by glitsj16

I'll mark that as solved as this thread now points to a reportedly working solution.

Last edited by JeanLucJ (2019-12-26 11:15:24)