notify-send hangs or does nothing depending on notification daemon

bmarques · 2017-07-11 11:23:05

Hi,

I can't get notify-send to show anything, no matter which notification daemon I try. I am running arch linux with openbox as WM, and have no DE. I don't know if it is of any use (could it draw over the notifications?), but I run compton, nitrogen and few conky scripts on startup:

I first tried xfce4-notifyd:
- Running "notify-send 'test' displays nothing, and command hangs indefinitely in terminal until I Ctrl-C
- running "xfce4-notifyd-config" and then clicking on Show Preview makes the whole program freeze until I get the following message:

    Notification Preview failed
    Error calling StartServiceByName for org.fredesktop.Notifications: Timeout was reached

I then uninstalled xfce4-notifyd and tried dunst:
when running the daemon, I get the following messages:

Warning: Unknown keyboard shortcut: ctrl+grave
(process:8387): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_variant_unref: assertion 'value->ref_count > 0' failed

I managed to get rid of the warning by commenting this line in my .config/dunst/dunstrc

 history= ctrl+grave

But still get the GLib-CRITICAL
Running notify-send with dunst daemon launched gives me nothing: command is ran, but nothing shows up and command exits immediately (no hanging like with xfce4-notifyd though)

I also tried notify-osd, though I'm not sure I know the proper way of launching this one:
- I ran /usr/lib/notify-osd/notify-osd in a terminal and then on another terminal I typed:
- notify-send 'test'
Got this message in the terminal running the daemon:
/usr/lib/notify-osd/notify-osd

** (notify-osd:14594): WARNING **: dnd_is_screensaver_active(): Got error "The name org.gnome.ScreenSaver was not provided by any .service files"
** (notify-osd:14594): WARNING **: dnd_is_idle_inhibited(): got error "The name org.gnome.SessionManager was not provided by any .service files"

And still no popup showing up

I tried statnot also, with no more success than previous attempts.
Any idea what's going wrong?

EDIT: (also I always made sure I uninstalled and stopped previously installed daemons before installing and starting another one)

Thanks in advance

Last edited by bmarques (2017-07-11 12:00:13)

berbae · 2017-07-11 14:49:17

notify-send 'test' works here.
I use also openbox with this line in ~/.config/openbox/autostart file:

/usr/lib/notification-daemon-1.0/notification-daemon &

$ LANG=C pacman -Qo /usr/lib/notification-daemon-1.0/notification-daemon
/usr/lib/notification-daemon-1.0/notification-daemon is owned by notification-daemon 3.20.0-1

adesh · 2017-07-11 16:09:35

There might be issues with your session. How do you start openbox?
Possibly related - https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=203164

Last edited by adesh (2017-07-11 16:10:47)

mrunion · 2017-07-11 17:35:43

I had this issue a couple of days ago. I run Openbox as well. I had installed Deepin-screenshot many weeks ago, but a recent update seems to have pulled in deepin-notifications. I normally use the XFCE Notify service as well, but I noticed that Deepin Notifications was always running. I uninstalled everything to do with Deepin and my notifications came back.

mrunion · 2017-07-12 14:34:00

I re-check my information and I;d like to clarify:

I have two laptops I can test from:

The first one of them loses notifications when deepin-screenshot and it's 8 dependencies -- one of which is deepin-notifications -- gets installed. When I remove deepin-screenshot from that machine, notifications return.

The second laptop has deepin-screenshot, and the same 8 dependencies (including deepin-notifications) installed and notifications DO work on that machine. However, you cannot use the Notification"styler" to change the style of notifications -- you know, default, smoke, etc.

I have dug no deeper than this because screenshotting is not a huge part of my life. But maybe this will help you.

cirrus · 2017-07-12 18:05:39

If not done so already try remove everything notify related except libnotify, reboot and try

notify-send 'foo' 'bar'

mrunion · 2017-07-12 19:04:43

I did some more digging and the second laptop doesn't work Right(TM ). For example, I can use the Notifications settings GUI from XFCE to test notifications and see them (without proper formatting), but using:

notify-send Test

results in no notifications being shown.

I removed only the deepin-* stuff and notifications work again. I suspect the issue is that for some reason deepin-notifications hijacks XFCE notifications, and the problem starts there. I just removed deepin-notifications for now. If I ever get the time and interest, I will revisit this.
will not send anything.

Last edited by mrunion (2017-07-12 19:05:12)

mrunion · 2017-07-12 19:05:38

I did some more digging and the second laptop doesn't work Right(TM ). For example, I can use the Notifications settings GUI from XFCE to test notifications and see them (without proper formatting), but using:

notify-send Test

results in no notifications being shown if the terminal I run form is on the Primary monitor. If I run from a terminal on the secondary monitor notifications are shown there. In fact, it can be the same terminal, but dragging it to the primary monitor and executing notify-send shows no notifications. Dragging the same terminal to the secondary monitor and ruinning notify-send shows notifications on the secondary monitor. (Note: Xfce notifications are configured to show on the primary monitor at all times.)

All of this is on the second laptop referenced above. The first laptop has only one screen so I can;t test the "second screen" theory.

The laptop being tested is an old Dell Core 2 Duo with an nVidia Quadro card in it -- but I'm not using the nVidia drivers. I'm on Openbox.

I removed only the deepin-* stuff and notifications work again. I suspect the issue is that for some reason deepin-notifications hijacks XFCE notifications, and the problem starts there. I just removed deepin-notifications for now. If I ever get the time and interest, I will revisit this.
will not send anything.

Last edited by mrunion (2017-07-12 19:11:36)

Arch Linux

#1 2017-07-11 11:23:05

notify-send hangs or does nothing depending on notification daemon

#2 2017-07-11 14:49:17

Re: notify-send hangs or does nothing depending on notification daemon

#3 2017-07-11 16:09:35

Re: notify-send hangs or does nothing depending on notification daemon

#4 2017-07-11 17:35:43

Re: notify-send hangs or does nothing depending on notification daemon

#5 2017-07-12 14:34:00

Re: notify-send hangs or does nothing depending on notification daemon

#6 2017-07-12 18:05:39

Re: notify-send hangs or does nothing depending on notification daemon

#7 2017-07-12 19:04:43

Re: notify-send hangs or does nothing depending on notification daemon

#8 2017-07-12 19:05:38

Re: notify-send hangs or does nothing depending on notification daemon

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