Arch Linux

zilverling

Member

From: Bennekom, Netherlands

Registered: 2009-08-19

Posts: 84

xfce4 panel not responding -- workaround available, but...

Since a few months the main panel (panel 0) on my xfce4 desktop does freeze at unpredictable occasions, no longer responding to mouse clicks. The rest of the desktop remains responsive to the mouse. The situation is well described here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/538560/x … pad-clicks and the solution is also given in that thread: Open a terminal (this is still possible via a right mouse click on the desktop and clicking "Open terminal here" in the pop-up menu) type

xfce4-panel -r

in the terminal window to restart the panel.

It's good to have a solution, but it would be better to address the root cause of this problem, so I would like to investigate what causes this freezing of the panel. Any ideas what I could do to investigate?

$ pacman -Qs xfce4
local/exo 0.10.7-1 (xfce4)
    Extensions to Xfce by os-cillation
local/garcon 0.4.0-1 (xfce4)
    Implementation of the freedesktop.org menu specification
local/gtk-xfce-engine 2.10.1-1 (xfce4)
    Xfce Gtk+-2.0 engine and themes
local/libxfce4ui 4.12.1-1
    Commonly used Xfce widgets among Xfce applications
local/libxfce4util 4.12.1-1
    Basic utility non-GUI functions for Xfce
local/ristretto 0.8.0-1 (xfce4-goodies)
    A fast and lightweight picture-viewer for Xfce
local/thunar 1.6.10-2 (xfce4)
    Modern file manager for Xfce
local/thunar-archive-plugin 0.3.1-5 (xfce4-goodies)
    Create and extract archives in Thunar
local/thunar-volman 0.8.1-1 (xfce4)
    Automatic management of removeable devices in Thunar
local/tumbler 0.1.31-1 (xfce4)
    D-Bus service for applications to request thumbnails
local/xfce4-appfinder 4.12.0-1 (xfce4)
    An application finder for Xfce
local/xfce4-datetime-plugin 0.6.2-4 (xfce4-goodies)
    A date and time display plugin for the Xfce panel
local/xfce4-mixer 4.11.0-2 (xfce4)
    The volume control plugin for the Xfce panel
local/xfce4-mount-plugin 0.6.7-3 (xfce4-goodies)
    Mount/umount utility for the Xfce4 panel
local/xfce4-notifyd 0.2.4-2 (xfce4-goodies)
    Notification daemon for the Xfce desktop
local/xfce4-panel 4.12.0-1 (xfce4)
    Panel for the Xfce desktop environment
local/xfce4-power-manager 1.4.4-1 (xfce4)
    Power manager for Xfce desktop
local/xfce4-screenshooter 1.8.2-2 (xfce4-goodies)
    Plugin that makes screenshots for the Xfce panel
local/xfce4-sensors-plugin 1.2.6-2 (xfce4-goodies)
    A lm_sensors plugin for the Xfce panel
local/xfce4-session 4.12.1-2 (xfce4)
    A session manager for Xfce
local/xfce4-settings 4.12.0-3 (xfce4)
    Settings manager for xfce
local/xfce4-taskmanager 1.1.0-1 (xfce4-goodies)
    Easy to use task manager
local/xfce4-terminal 0.6.3-2 (xfce4)
    A modern terminal emulator primarly for the Xfce desktop environment
local/xfconf 4.12.0-2 (xfce4)
    A simple client-server configuration storage and query system
local/xfdesktop 4.12.3-1 (xfce4)
    A desktop manager for Xfce
local/xfwm4 4.12.3-1 (xfce4)
    Xfce window manager
local/xfwm4-themes 4.10.0-2 (xfce4)
    A set of additional themes for the Xfce window manager

Last edited by zilverling (2015-09-17 20:02:14)

twelveeighty

Member

Registered: 2011-09-04

Posts: 1,456

Re: xfce4 panel not responding -- workaround available, but...

Any ideas what I could do to investigate?

From your description, it suggests that this is an upstream bug in the xfce4-panel code. I recommend looking in the XFCE bug tracker to see if there's a bug entered for this issue. If not, create a bug there. In terms of investigation, you could check the your X logs and/or journald logs. Also, check the change history on the xfce4-panel package and see if there was an update done around the time you starting seeing problems, that may make it easier to track down where the problem was introduced?

toz

Member

Registered: 2011-10-28

Posts: 513

Re: xfce4 panel not responding -- workaround available, but...

Any ideas what I could do to investigate?

You could run the panel in debug mode to grab debug messages from the panel. To do so, first quit the running panel:

xfce4-panel -q

...then start it up in debug mode in a terminal window:

PANEL_DEBUG=1 xfce4-panel

This will start displaying debug messages. You want to capture and review the ones that are occurring as the freeze starts. Since you state the freezing is unpredictable, you may need to run this for a while to get anything relevant.

alphaniner

Member

From: Ancapistan

Registered: 2010-07-12

Posts: 2,810

Re: xfce4 panel not responding -- workaround available, but...

You might try incrementally removing items from the panel, removing the panel through panel configuration and re-creating it, or deleting the panel config files (~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-panel.xml and ~/.config/xfce4/panel/) altogether and starting from scratch.

The only general thing I can think of is that it could be a compositing issue.

---

But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.
-Lysander Spooner

zilverling

Member

From: Bennekom, Netherlands

Registered: 2009-08-19

Posts: 84

Re: xfce4 panel not responding -- workaround available, but...

@twelveeighty @toz @alphaniner Thanks for your suggestions. I will use them in my further investigations and if I find something I will report back here.