[SOLVED] conky: 'unknown' tty session running

ArchyLife · 2025-12-11 01:11:14

Hi,

When I run conky I am seeing this message logged;

conky: 'unknown' tty session running

I don't understand why this is being shown, like what does a tty session, this have to do with running conky under X.

I'm starting conky as;

conky -d -c /home/foo/.conky/conky

This is my config file

conky.config = {
override_utf8_locale = false,
background = true,
use_xft = true,
font = 'noto sans:size=12',
xftalpha = 0.8,
out_to_console = false,
out_to_stderr = false,
update_interval = 3.0,
total_run_times = 0,
draw_shades = false,

own_window = true,
own_window_class = 'Conky',
own_window_type = 'panel',
own_window_transparent = true,
own_window_hints = 'undecorated,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager,below',

own_window_argb_visual = true,

minimum_width = 2250,
maximum_width = 2250,

double_buffer = true,
default_color = '58c2c4',
color1 = 'ffffff',

alignment = 'top_middle',
gap_y = 0,
no_buffers = true
}

conky.text = [[
${alignc}${color}CPU1: ${color1}${cpu cpu0}%   \
${color}CPU2: ${color1}${cpu cpu1}%   \
${color}CPU3: ${color1}${cpu cpu2}%   \
${color}CPU4: ${color1}${cpu cpu3}%   \
${color}CPU5: ${color1}${cpu cpu4}%   \
${color}CPU6: ${color1}${cpu cpu5}% - ${freq cpu0} MHz - ${hwmon 0 temp 1} °C   \
${color}GPU: ${color1}${nvidia gpuutil}% - ${nvidia temp} °C   \
${color}GPU Fan: ${color1}${execi 60 nvidia-settings -q [fan:0]/GPUCurrentFanSpeed -t}%   \
${color}RAM: ${color1}${mem} - $memperc%   \
${color}NVMe: ${color1}${fs_free /}   \
${color}LAN: ${color1}${addr enp6s0} - ${downspeed enp6s0} down - ${upspeed enp6s0} up   \
${color}UP: ${color1}$uptime_short \
]]

Any help to resolve this would be greatly appreciated!

THANKS

Last edited by ArchyLife (2025-12-12 03:52:30)

jsov · 2025-12-11 08:26:16

Hi,

It would be wonderful if you could provide just a little more information about what's going on. First, give the link in my signature a read. It's extremely important to learn how to ask questions.

After that, let's get a little more information out of this.

In the source code for conky, this function exists:

void get_system_details() {
  char *session_ty = getenv("XDG_SESSION_TYPE");
  if (session_ty == nullptr) {
    info.system.session = conky::info::display_session::unknown;
  } else if (std::strcmp(session_ty, "x11") == 0) {
    info.system.session = conky::info::display_session::x11;
  } else if (std::strcmp(session_ty, "wayland") == 0) {
    info.system.session = conky::info::display_session::wayland;
  } else {
    info.system.session = conky::info::display_session::unknown;
  }

  info.system.wm_name = getenv("XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP");
  if (info.system.wm_name == nullptr) {
    info.system.wm_name = getenv("XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP");
  }
  if (info.system.wm_name == nullptr) {
    info.system.wm_name = getenv("DESKTOP_SESSION");
  }
  if (info.system.wm_name == nullptr) {
    info.system.wm_name = getenv("GDMSESSION");
  }

  if (info.system.wm_name != nullptr) {
    NORM_ERR("'%s' %s session running", info.system.wm_name, session_ty);
  } else {
    NORM_ERR("unknown %s session running", session_ty);
  }
}

As you can see, at the bottom, the error is printing "unknown tty session running" because it could not find a name for your window manager, and finds that your session type is tty.

Speaking of this, can you please provide more information on your system? If you do this, I am sure I can help you more. However, right now, I'm not even sure there is an issue. Is this message stopping conky from opening? Are you just curious? Is there something else going on?

Get back to me whenever you can,

Thanks
J

Last edited by jsov (2025-12-11 08:27:07)

seth · 2025-12-11 08:28:56

loginctl session-status

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Getty#Virtual_console

The output is probably related to some X11/wayland environment guess, https://man.archlinux.org/man/conky.1#q

ArchyLife · 2025-12-11 23:53:40

@jsov I screwed up, I didn't give a lot of information, that was my bad.

Please don't assume the user who just recently joined that someone is a newbie. I'm not new to Linux, you telling me about how extremely important how it is to ask questions and giving me this link to learn wasn't needed at all, I found it to be a condescending assumption towards me as some noob cause I screwed up and didn't give better info. Hey we all make mistakes.

So, don't take me the wrong way, I greatly appreciate the help, after all who knows everything.

I was under the assumption for some reason I can't remember, that using i3 in the ENV VAR for XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP was not used/recognized in Linux.

Settiing this ENV VAR worked - (for fish users)

set -x XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP i3

Now the log output of conky

conky: 'i3' tty session running

THANKS

Last edited by ArchyLife (2025-12-12 03:50:55)

Arch Linux

#1 2025-12-11 01:11:14

[SOLVED] conky: 'unknown' tty session running

#2 2025-12-11 08:26:16

Re: [SOLVED] conky: 'unknown' tty session running

#3 2025-12-11 08:28:56

Re: [SOLVED] conky: 'unknown' tty session running

#4 2025-12-11 23:53:40

Re: [SOLVED] conky: 'unknown' tty session running

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