[SOLVED] I think I broke my compositor - Hyprland and gdm

TySpicer · 2025-09-27 23:48:55

I just installed gdm (GNOME Display Manager), and things have been behaving a bit strange ever since. Ardour and Discord won't open.

I'm running GuitarPro through Wine, and it behaves differently. It used to default to floating, now it's tiled (which I prefer, anyway). It has an upper bar that looks like an old Windows OS. All of the internal dialogues are tiled, as well.

Everything else seems to be working fine, so this is not a system-breaking issue. I'd like to be able to use Ardour, at least.

What can I do to start diagnosing this issue?

Last edited by TySpicer (2025-09-28 19:49:14)

seth · 2025-09-28 07:47:07

GDM is what allows you to log in, it's not a desktop environment and absolutely should not have any impact on the behavior of the latter

loginctl session-status

I'm running GuitarPro through Wine, and it behaves differently. It used to default to floating, now it's tiled (which I prefer, anyway). It has an upper bar that looks like an old Windows OS. All of the internal dialogues are tiled, as well.

hyprland is primarily a tiling WM - did you maybe simply shred its config?

Also

Ardour and Discord won't open.

Please don't paraphrase, https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=57855
What happens if you run them from an interactive shell?
Do they leave https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Core_d … _core_dump

TySpicer · 2025-09-28 18:10:15

seth wrote:

GDM is what allows you to log in, it's not a desktop environment and absolutely should not have any impact on the behavior of the latter

That makes sense. Maybe it's something to do with Hyprland? I also installed Hyprland plugins and enabled `hyprexpo`, I don't know if that could have done something.

Output of `loginctl session-status`:

3 - tyspicer (1000)
  Since: Sat 2025-09-27 18:01:52 CDT; 3h 40min ago
  State: active
 Leader: 990 (gdm-session-wor)
   Seat: seat0; vc2
    TTY: tty2
 Remote: no
Service: gdm-password
   Type: wayland
  Class: user
   Idle: no
   Unit: session-3.scope
         ├─  990 "gdm-session-worker [pam/gdm-password]"
         ├─ 1092 /usr/lib/gdm-wayland-session --register-session Hyprland
         ├─ 1104 Hyprland
         ├─ 1167 hyprsunset
         ├─ 1169 hyprpaper
         ├─ 1171 hypridle
         ├─ 1175 waybar
         ├─ 7802 /usr/lib/thunderbird/thunderbird
         ├─ 7930 /usr/lib/thunderbird/thunderbird -contentproc -isForBrowser -prefsHandle 0:14475 -prefMapHandle 1:281057 -jsInitHandle 2:223632 -parentBuild>
         ├─ 7935 /usr/lib/thunderbird/thunderbird -contentproc -parentBuildID 20250923204541 -prefsHandle 0:14475 -prefMapHandle 1:281057 -sandboxReporter 2 >
         ├─11938 /opt/brave-bin/chrome_crashpad_handler --monitor-self --monitor-self-annotation=ptype=crashpad-handler "--database=/home/tyspicer/.config/Br>
         ├─11940 /opt/brave-bin/chrome_crashpad_handler --no-periodic-tasks --monitor-self-annotation=ptype=crashpad-handler "--database=/home/tyspicer/.conf>
         ├─11946 "/opt/brave-bin/brave --type=zygote --no-zygote-sandbox --crashpad-handler-pid=11938 --enable-crash-reporter=7f2a9929-8189-4efa-98c0-d5fad19>
         ├─11947 "/opt/brave-bin/brave --type=zygote --crashpad-handler-pid=11938 --enable-crash-reporter=7f2a9929-8189-4efa-98c0-d5fad198968f, --change-stac>
         ├─11949 "/opt/brave-bin/brave --type=zygote --crashpad-handler-pid=11938 --enable-crash-reporter=7f2a9929-8189-4efa-98c0-d5fad198968f, --change-stac>
         ├─11980 "/opt/brave-bin/brave --type=gpu-process --ozone-platform=wayland --render-node-override=/dev/dri/renderD128 --crashpad-handler-pid=11938 -->
         ├─11981 "/opt/brave-bin/brave --type=utility --utility-sub-type=network.mojom.NetworkService --lang=en-US --service-sandbox-type=none --render-node->
         ├─12026 "/opt/brave-bin/brave --type=utility --utility-sub-type=storage.mojom.StorageService --lang=en-US --service-sandbox-type=utility --render-no>
         ├─12038 "/opt/brave-bin/brave --type=renderer --crashpad-handler-pid=11938 --enable-crash-reporter=7f2a9929-8189-4efa-98c0-d5fad198968f, --enable-di>
         ├─12135 "/opt/brave-bin/brave --type=renderer --crashpad-handler-pid=11938 --enable-crash-reporter=7f2a9929-8189-4efa-98c0-d5fad198968f, --extension>
         ├─14111 "/opt/brave-bin/brave --type=renderer --crashpad-handler-pid=11938 --enable-crash-reporter=7f2a9929-8189-4efa-98c0-d5fad198968f, --enable-di>
         ├─14120 "/opt/brave-bin/brave --type=renderer --crashpad-handler-pid=11938 --enable-crash-reporter=7f2a9929-8189-4efa-98c0-d5fad198968f, --extension>
lines 1-34

seth wrote:

hyprland is primarily a tiling WM - did you maybe simply shred its config?

No, my `hyprland.conf` file looks fine. Most things look the same: window borders, colors, transparency, animations, etc.

Output of `ardour8`:

WARNING: Your system has a limit for maximum amount of locked memory!
         This might cause Ardour to run out of memory before your system runs
         out of memory. You can view the memory limit with 'ulimit -l', and it
         is normally controlled by /etc/security/limits.conf

Ardour8.12.0 (built using 8.12 and GCC version 15.1.1 20250425)
Ardour: [INFO]: Your system is configured to limit Ardour to 524288 open files
Ardour: [INFO]: Loading system configuration file /etc/ardour8/system_config
Ardour: [INFO]: Loading user configuration file /home/tyspicer/.config/ardour8/config
Ardour: [ERROR]: ** ERROR ** VSTFX: Failed opening connection to X
Ardour: [ERROR]: could not initialize Ardour.

(ardour-8.12.0:14447): Gtk-WARNING **: 13:05:29.950: cannot open display:

Output of `discord`:

Discord 0.0.111
[14471:0928/130553.271452:ERROR:ozone_platform_x11.cc(246)] Missing X server or $DISPLAY
[14471:0928/130553.271537:ERROR:env.cc(257)] The platform failed to initialize.  Exiting.

Edit - I just remembered, GDM gave me a few options, so maybe I picked the wrong one. I could mess with that later. The options were GNOME, Hyprland, and Hyprland (uwsm managed).

For more context - Before installing GDM, I was logging in with the tty, and running `Hyprland`. Pretty early, I figured out how to start Hyprland automatically, although I don't remember how I did it.

Last edited by TySpicer (2025-09-28 18:49:21)

TySpicer · 2025-09-28 19:50:05

Update - I uninstalled GDM, and that fixed the problem instantly. Everything is back to normal now. Maybe I'll try to figure out a login window in the future, but I don't really care at the moment.

seth · 2025-09-28 20:00:06

Before installing GDM, I was logging in with the tty, and running `Hyprland`.

Gonna be interesting whether other DMs indeed behave differently.

Ardour: [ERROR]: ** ERROR ** VSTFX: Failed opening connection to X
Ardour: [ERROR]: could not initialize Ardour.
(ardour-8.12.0:14447): Gtk-WARNING **: 13:05:29.950: cannot open display:

Does ardour now run as native wayland client?
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Waylan … plications

The only way GDM can have impact here is by high-handedly exporting some environment variables into the session when starting it (which, yeah, sounds gnome-style)
You'd compare "printenv" between runs for that.

LuxFerre · 2025-09-28 22:34:07

TySpicer wrote:

Update - I uninstalled GDM, and that fixed the problem instantly. Everything is back to normal now. Maybe I'll try to figure out a login window in the future, but I don't really care at the moment.

Maybe try Ly instead of gdm. But Seth is probably right about the environment variables.

TySpicer · 2025-09-29 20:03:47

seth wrote:

Does ardour now run as native wayland client?

I installed `xorg-xwininfo` and ran `xwininfo`:

xwininfo: Window id: 0xa00309 "Church practice - Ardour"

  Absolute upper-left X:  1928
  Absolute upper-left Y:  8
  Relative upper-left X:  1928
  Relative upper-left Y:  8
  Width: 1904
  Height: 1064
  Depth: 24
  Visual: 0x42
  Visual Class: TrueColor
  Border width: 0
  Class: InputOutput
  Colormap: 0x41 (installed)
  Bit Gravity State: NorthWestGravity
  Window Gravity State: NorthWestGravity
  Backing Store State: NotUseful
  Save Under State: no
  Map State: IsViewable
  Override Redirect State: no
  Corners:  +1928+8  -8+8  -8-8  +1928-8
  -geometry 1904x1064-8+8

The wiki article said it wouldn't do anything with a native Wayland window, so I guess this means it doesn't run as a native Wayland client.

seth · 2025-09-29 20:19:27

Oh - ardour uses gtk2…
https://ardour.org/faq.html#gtk3

And apparently using gdm somehow lead to xwayland not being used by hyprland??

TySpicer · 2025-09-29 20:22:03

Yeah, I don't know. That does seem odd. My intuition tells me a login screen shouldn't affect what happens once you're logged in, but I also don't know anything about display managers.

seth · 2025-09-29 20:24:02

Check the different environment, "cannot open display:" means $DISPLAY isn't set but hyprland should™ set that and it should™ not matter how it was started.
If you're going back to GDM, also check xwininfo from there.

TySpicer · 2025-09-29 20:27:34

I don't plan to go back to GDM, at least for a while. I only installed it because I misunderstood a response to my post about hyprsunset on the Hyprland wiki: https://forum.hypr.land/t/solved-hyprsu … nded/899/3

I wouldn't mind having a login window, but I have a huge list of other things to look into, and it's a pretty low priority.

Arch Linux

#1 2025-09-27 23:48:55

[SOLVED] I think I broke my compositor - Hyprland and gdm

#2 2025-09-28 07:47:07

Re: [SOLVED] I think I broke my compositor - Hyprland and gdm

#3 2025-09-28 18:10:15

Re: [SOLVED] I think I broke my compositor - Hyprland and gdm

#4 2025-09-28 19:50:05

Re: [SOLVED] I think I broke my compositor - Hyprland and gdm

#5 2025-09-28 20:00:06

Re: [SOLVED] I think I broke my compositor - Hyprland and gdm

#6 2025-09-28 22:34:07

Re: [SOLVED] I think I broke my compositor - Hyprland and gdm

#7 2025-09-29 20:03:47

Re: [SOLVED] I think I broke my compositor - Hyprland and gdm

#8 2025-09-29 20:19:27

Re: [SOLVED] I think I broke my compositor - Hyprland and gdm

#9 2025-09-29 20:22:03

Re: [SOLVED] I think I broke my compositor - Hyprland and gdm

#10 2025-09-29 20:24:02

Re: [SOLVED] I think I broke my compositor - Hyprland and gdm

#11 2025-09-29 20:27:34

Re: [SOLVED] I think I broke my compositor - Hyprland and gdm

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