[SOLVED] Applications invisible or disappear when launched from dmenu

loh · 2015-09-05 15:44:11

I recently performed a fresh install of Arch on a new laptop and I am having a few issues running certain applications from dmenu inside of dwm. I've had no such problems with an existing Arch install on an older laptop. When I attempt to launch the application (e.g. openttd) a new master window is generated but the application itself doesn't appear (I just see my desktop background in the space). The application is definitely running, since its name appears in the menu bar (and I can also hear music playing in the case of openttd). I've tested various versions of dmenu (dmenu, dmenu-xft, dmenu-extended) and see the same behaviour with each. I can get certain troublesome applications to run with dmenu_extended by appending a semicolon, i.e. requesting to run it in a terminal. However, this shouldn't be necessary since they aren't terminal applications.

I'm also having issues with passmenu, the dmenu interface to the pass password manager. Except for the first launch after booting, when passmenu is run the pinentry window immediately disappears. Things still work if I simply type my password and hit enter, and I also see it flash up again temporarily if I enter the password incorrectly. This happens for any pinentry frontend (gtk and qt).

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

Last edited by loh (2015-09-05 19:33:01)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-09-05 16:38:15

Post your config.h for dwm (& dmenu if you are configuring that at compile time).

Have you modified dwm.c (or dmenu.c) or any of the other source files?

loh · 2015-09-05 17:51:39

I use dmenu-xft and stock dwm with a few minor cosmetic customisations. The problem still occurs with all versions of dmenu that I've tested, and also using the dwm build from the community repo. It doesn't appear to be an issue with any of my customisations.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-09-05 18:03:09

Do you have an Intel graphics card?

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/In … SNA_issues

EDIT: Are any compositors running?

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2015-09-05 18:03:42)

loh · 2015-09-05 18:34:22

Aha, that seems to be the problem. I have both Intel and Nvidia cards, but I'm primarly using the integrated graphics with optirun used to offset heavy stuff to the dedicated card. I use xcompgr for compositing and launch the comp script described in the wiki from my xinitrc. This allows me to start and stop the compositor on demand. Disabling compositing fixes the problem and the hidden windows are now visible.

On my old laptop I had reverted to using UXA due to some other Intel issues following the xorg update last summer. However, if I switch to UXA on my new machine (which is Sandy Bridge architecture) I still experience missing windows when the compositing manager is running. Since I've got the compositor bound to a hot key it's easy for me to temporarily disable compositing, open the application from dmenu, then re-enable the compositor. The window remains visible afterwards.

This seems like a fine workaround, unless you know of a permanent solution (other than disabling compositing all together).

Thanks for your help.

Last edited by loh (2015-09-05 18:44:32)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-09-05 18:46:02

I suppose you could write a wrapper script for the application that kills the compositor then launches the program and restarts the compositor; this can then be called from dmenu.

Please add "[SOLVED]" to the thread title for the benefit of others.

loh · 2015-09-05 19:24:55

Okay, a proper solution is to add i915 to the MODULES array in mkinitcpio.conf, then create a new image and reboot. This enables early KMS start (see here for details). I'm not 100% sure why this fixes the problem, only I noticed that early KMS was active on my old laptop which hasn't experienced any composting issues.

EDIT: Actually, this only seems to fix the issue with certain applications. For example, vlc now works, but openttd is still invisible. Very strange indeed.

Last edited by loh (2015-09-05 19:28:00)

loh · 2015-09-05 20:53:16

An even better solution: use compton rather than xcompmgr. Everything works perfectly.

Arch Linux

#1 2015-09-05 15:44:11

[SOLVED] Applications invisible or disappear when launched from dmenu

#2 2015-09-05 16:38:15

Re: [SOLVED] Applications invisible or disappear when launched from dmenu

#3 2015-09-05 17:51:39

Re: [SOLVED] Applications invisible or disappear when launched from dmenu

#4 2015-09-05 18:03:09

Re: [SOLVED] Applications invisible or disappear when launched from dmenu

#5 2015-09-05 18:34:22

Re: [SOLVED] Applications invisible or disappear when launched from dmenu

#6 2015-09-05 18:46:02

Re: [SOLVED] Applications invisible or disappear when launched from dmenu

#7 2015-09-05 19:24:55

Re: [SOLVED] Applications invisible or disappear when launched from dmenu

#8 2015-09-05 20:53:16

Re: [SOLVED] Applications invisible or disappear when launched from dmenu

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