[kind'a SOLVED] Ugpraded & can't load X, Openbox properly?

handy · 2011-08-17 06:53:56

I was using kernel 3.0, did an upgrade today & got the next kernel & other stuff; I'm using the mesa-full packages from Perry3D's AMD/ATi repo.

Anyway, for some reason, I can't get the Openbox desktop to work properly. I get a gray (instead of black) screen, with no xfce4-panel. The Openbox menu is available, but nothing will load from it.

I tried downgrading both the kernel & the mesa-full packages, but that made no difference.

I guess I should now downgrade Openbox & see what happens?

Anyone else having similar issues or know what is going on here?

Thanks in advance.

Last edited by handy (2011-08-17 15:36:41)

handy · 2011-08-17 07:16:48

I just downgraded Openbox & that solved the problem.

berbae · 2011-08-17 10:03:49

Hello handy
You marked that thread as solved, but I don't think that downgrading openbox, or any package for that matter, is a permanent solution.
Do you want to stay with an old openbox version from now on?
I think it's better to try to solve the problems and adapt to the new release.

With the old openbox, do you set a wallpaper or do you want a black screen as background?

You say that you use the xfce4-panel, how do you launch it?

If used as a stand-alone WM with the openbox-session command, the new openbox is launched with this command line:

/usr/bin/openbox --startup /usr/lib/openbox/openbox-autostart OPENBOX

If you look into the openbox-autostart script, you can find that it sets a background gray color as default, if it finds one of the tools hsetroot, esetroot or xsetroot. That background can then be changed in one of the autostart scripts.

After that it uses the script /etc/xdg/openbox/autostart for global configurations; this script does nothing in its default state from the package installation.

After that the $HOME/.config/openbox/autostart is launched as usual (the .sh extension is removed but still recognized).

Finally it uses the /usr/lib/openbox/openbox-xdg-autostart python2 script which will look into these directories:

/etc/xdg/autostart
$HOME/.config/autostart

for *.desktop files to run commands for OPENBOX, or if not restricted to other environments.

To check what will be launched and if it is wanted, run:

/usr/lib/openbox/openbox-xdg-autostart --list OPENBOX

I suggest that you try to solve your problems with the new openbox by adapting to that new approach to start it.

Have a good day.

Edit: changed pathes for the openbox 3.5.0-3 package.

Last edited by berbae (2011-08-18 14:54:52)

handy · 2011-08-17 14:34:01

berbae wrote:

Hello handy
You marked that thread as solved, but I don't think that downgrading openbox, or any package for that matter, is a permanent solution.

I agree. My understanding of Linux is quite limited. I was/am thinking that this may be a bug in Openbox that will disappear in the near future.

berbae wrote:

Do you want to stay with an old openbox version from now on?
I think it's better to try to solve the problems and adapt to the new release.

See previous reply?

berbae wrote:

With the old openbox, do you set a wallpaper or do you want a black screen as background?

I use a black screen, no wallpaper.

berbae wrote:

You say that you use the xfce4-panel, how do you launch it?

I call it from ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh

berbae wrote:

The new openbox is launched with this command line:
/usr/bin/openbox --startup /usr/libexec/openbox-autostart OPENBOX

I'm calling is from ~/.xinitrc with the following -> exec openbox-session

berbae wrote:

If you look into the openbox-autostart script, you can find that it sets a background grey color as default, if it finds one of the tools hsetroot, esetroot or xsetroot.

I set the colour to black in the autostart.sh script.

berbae wrote:

After that it uses the script /etc/xdg/openbox/autostart for global configurations; this script does nothing in its default state from the package installation.
After that the $HOME/.config/openbox/autostart.sh is launched as usual.
Finally it uses the /usr/libexec/openbox-xdg-autostart python2 script which will looks into these directories:
/etc/xdg/autostart
$HOME/.config/autostart
for *.desktop files to run commands for OPENBOX, or if not restricted to other environments.
To check what will be launched and if it is wanted, run:
/usr/libexec/openbox-xdg-autostart --list OPENBOX

I get "command not found" when I try that.

berbae wrote:

I suggest that you try to solve your problems with the new openbox by adapting to that new approach to start it.
Have a good day.

Thanks for your suggestions berbae, I'll look into it further.

ataraxia · 2011-08-17 18:25:09

autostart.sh should now be called just autostart (without .sh on the end). Upstream renamed it.

I'd also suggest comparing your rc.xml with the default one in case you're using some out-of-date config options. I know I found a bunch in mine to update. Thankfully, Openbox continued to understand the old options until I updated the config.

handy · 2011-08-18 00:25:09

Thanks for your reply ataraxia.

I tried with autostart but it made no difference.

As far as my rc.xml is concerned, I really only added a bit on the end to auto load 3 app's onto specific desktops when Ob starts.

Hopefully there will be another release of Ob before too long that cleans up a few of the problems that some people are currently experiencing with this upgrade.

BurntSushi · 2011-08-18 01:23:29

Can you start openbox with `openbox --debug > some-log-file 2>&1` and post the output here? Maybe that will tell us something... Also, are you sure you're using the '&' after each command in your autostart?

dharmabm · 2011-08-18 08:34:21

can you run autostart manually? ./.config/openbox/autostart
you might want to look at my answer here -> https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 64#p977864
k

handy · 2011-08-21 04:11:27

Thanks for your help guys.

I left the problem alone until today when I renamed autostart, copied environment over from /etc/xdg/openbox/ then I backed up my rc.xml & copied the rc.xml.pacnew over to use;- at this point there was still no improvement.

Then I took your suggestion dharmabm to edit out the ". $GLOBALAUTOSTART" line in autostart , which got me futher down the track . I too was getting the same error message that you were.

Then I went through the new rc.xml comparing it to my old one & edited the new to suit, which worked fine, including the auto starting of 3 app's onto specified desktops.

A problem I had left after that was that I couldn't get xfce4-panel to load? I tried using .xinitrc instead of autostart, I tried giving it a delay, but it still wouldn't load. I'm sure there is a way.

I ended up installing tint2, & configuring it to suit me. It has some strengths & weaknesses in comparison to xfce4-panel, I don't think I'll have much trouble learning to live it.

The only problem I have now is Firefox is complaining, it takes longer to start & is giving me DBus errors as follows, (I doubt that this is connected to the Openbox upgrade or to the installation of tint2, I'll go & look at the wiki re. DBus & see if I can sort it out):

Failed to contact configuration server; the most common cause is a missing or misconfigured D-Bus session bus daemon. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: Error connecting: Connection refused)
Failed to contact configuration server; the most common cause is a missing or misconfigured D-Bus session bus daemon. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: Error connecting: Connection refused)
Failed to contact configuration server; the most common cause is a missing or misconfigured D-Bus session bus daemon. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: Error connecting: Connection refused)
Failed to contact configuration server; the most common cause is a missing or misconfigured D-Bus session bus daemon. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: Error connecting: Connection refused)
Failed to contact configuration server; the most common cause is a missing or misconfigured D-Bus session bus daemon. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: Error connecting: Connection refused)

Last edited by handy (2011-08-21 04:13:42)

handy · 2011-08-21 04:41:16

I just added the @dbus to the DAEMONS line in rc.conf, & stuck the following half a dozen lines (suggested in the wiki) of script into my .xinitrc to be sure that a dbus session is initiated when I load Openbox:

# Source scripts in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/
if [ -d /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d ]; then
    for f in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/*; do
        [ -x "$f" ] && . "$f"
    done
    unset f
fi

This solved this new Firefox problem. Actually, Firefox has NEVER loaded so fast.

Last edited by handy (2011-08-21 09:51:21)

BurntSushi · 2011-08-21 13:03:53

You should start Openbox with this command:

exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch openbox-session

Which should fire up dbus for you.

Also, if xfce4-panel isn't loading, could you run it from a terminal while Openbox is running and see if it gives any helpful error messages?

handy · 2011-08-21 14:10:07

BurntSushi wrote:

You should start Openbox with this command:
exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch openbox-session
Which should fire up dbus for you.

Thankyou, that looks like a much tidier way to do it.

BurntSushi wrote:

Also, if xfce4-panel isn't loading, could you run it from a terminal while Openbox is running and see if it gives any helpful error messages?

Another great idea! Yes I could run it & I'll post the errors below:

handy ~  $  xfce4-panel
xfce4-panel: Failed to connect to session manager: Failed to connect to the session manager: SESSION_MANAGER environment variable not defined

(xfce4-panel:22473): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: value "0" of type `guint' is invalid or out of range for property `length' of type `guint'
libpager-Message: Setting the pager rows returned false. Maybe the setting is not applied.

(xfce4-panel:22473): Wnck-WARNING **: Unhandled action type _OB_WM_ACTION_UNDECORATE

(xfce4-panel:22473): Wnck-WARNING **: Unhandled action type _OB_WM_ACTION_UNDECORATE

(xfce4-panel:22473): Wnck-WARNING **: Unhandled action type _OB_WM_ACTION_UNDECORATE
(xfce4-mixer-plugin:22476): xfce4-mixer-plugin-DEBUG: mixer_plugin->track_label = 'Volume'

thisoldman · 2011-08-21 23:15:14

The gray wallpaper comes from /usr/lib/openbox/openbox-autostart. I just commented out lines 3 through 12 in that file and that no longer bothers me.

handy · 2011-08-22 13:28:52

thisoldman wrote:

The gray wallpaper comes from /usr/lib/openbox/openbox-autostart. I just commented out lines 3 through 12 in that file and that no longer bothers me.

Had you tried editing out the ". $GLOBALAUTOSTART" line in the file ~/.config/openbox/autostart ? That's what did the trick for me really. I might have had to install PyXDG.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-08-17 06:53:56

[kind'a SOLVED] Ugpraded & can't load X, Openbox properly?

#2 2011-08-17 07:16:48

Re: [kind'a SOLVED] Ugpraded & can't load X, Openbox properly?

#3 2011-08-17 10:03:49

Re: [kind'a SOLVED] Ugpraded & can't load X, Openbox properly?

#4 2011-08-17 14:34:01

Re: [kind'a SOLVED] Ugpraded & can't load X, Openbox properly?

#5 2011-08-17 18:25:09

Re: [kind'a SOLVED] Ugpraded & can't load X, Openbox properly?

#6 2011-08-18 00:25:09

Re: [kind'a SOLVED] Ugpraded & can't load X, Openbox properly?

#7 2011-08-18 01:23:29

Re: [kind'a SOLVED] Ugpraded & can't load X, Openbox properly?

#8 2011-08-18 08:34:21

Re: [kind'a SOLVED] Ugpraded & can't load X, Openbox properly?

#9 2011-08-21 04:11:27

Re: [kind'a SOLVED] Ugpraded & can't load X, Openbox properly?

#10 2011-08-21 04:41:16

Re: [kind'a SOLVED] Ugpraded & can't load X, Openbox properly?

#11 2011-08-21 13:03:53

Re: [kind'a SOLVED] Ugpraded & can't load X, Openbox properly?

#12 2011-08-21 14:10:07

Re: [kind'a SOLVED] Ugpraded & can't load X, Openbox properly?

#13 2011-08-21 23:15:14

Re: [kind'a SOLVED] Ugpraded & can't load X, Openbox properly?

#14 2011-08-22 13:28:52

Re: [kind'a SOLVED] Ugpraded & can't load X, Openbox properly?

Board footer