Arch Linux

Gumper

Member

From: U.S.A.

Registered: 2009-10-26

Posts: 132

[Solved] xfce window decorations disappeared

For some strange reason my window decorations used in XFCE have disappeared. I also noticed that when I go to the settings manager for xfce and select either of the two sections that deal with the windows, they both come up with blank windows. There are no options to adjust. They're just gone...

I'm also running Cairo-dock and the dock is no longer transparent. It has a black box behind it. This happened at the same time as when the window decorations disappeared.

So far I've tried rolling back xorg-server-common, xorg-server and gtk-xfce-engine as these were just recently upgraded to a new version. There are a couple of other packages that were also recently upgraded but I've yet to try rolling those back.

Anyone else seeing this issue? Any suggestions?

Last edited by Gumper (2011-09-22 01:05:21)

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ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 20,193

Re: [Solved] xfce window decorations disappeared

Any chance you are using something like compiz, cairo-compmgr or xcompmgr  ??  Check that they are not running.

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Gumper

Member

From: U.S.A.

Registered: 2009-10-26

Posts: 132

Re: [Solved] xfce window decorations disappeared

Any chance you are using something like compiz, cairo-compmgr or xcompmgr  ??  Check that they are not running.

No, I'm not running any of these. They're not even installed.

Another piece of information that I can give is that this problem appeared after logging out of xfce. When I tried to log out I received a message about session manager or something to do with the session be busy and it wouldn't log out.

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Ready yourselves, ready yourselves
Let us shine the light of Jesus in the darkest night
Ready yourselves, ready yourselves
May the powers of darkness tremble as our praises rise .... Casting Crowns-Until The Whole World Hears.

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 20,193

Re: [Solved] xfce window decorations disappeared

The reason I asked is because it is the normal behavior for Xfce4 to disable the setting managers as you describe when you use an alternate window manager.  I use Compiz to manage my window and see your exact behavior.

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Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature -- Michael Faraday
Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. -- Alan Turing
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How to Ask Questions the Smart Way

moetunes

Member

From: A comfortable couch

Registered: 2010-10-09

Posts: 1,033

Re: [Solved] xfce window decorations disappeared

Try running

xfwm &

in a terminal and see if the window decorations come back or any errors are produced.

Cheers

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Padfoot

Member

Registered: 2010-09-03

Posts: 381

Re: [Solved] xfce window decorations disappeared

Try running

xfwm &

in a terminal and see if the window decorations come back or any errors are produced.

Cheers

That should be xfwm4 &

Once you have done that, open the Session & Startup tool from your settings menu, go to the Session tab andas long as xfwm4 now shows in that list, click on the Save Session button.

Cheers.

vacant

Member

From: downstairs

Registered: 2004-11-05

Posts: 816

Re: [Solved] xfce window decorations disappeared

ISTR this happened to me a few weeks back.

In Settings->Window Manager, I had "automatically save session on log out" checked on the "General" tab.

I believe xfwm4 probably crashed when I logged out or shut down before the session got saved so next time I logged in the window manager didn't get started.

So I unchecked that automatic option (just in case it crashed on log out again), and on the "Session" tab, I clicked "Save Session" to manually save, making sure that xfwm4 was listed (with "immediately", under the "Restart Style" option).

Last edited by vacant (2011-09-21 07:28:00)

Larsson

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2010-03-22

Posts: 157

Re: [Solved] xfce window decorations disappeared

Had the exakt same problem on my sisters computer (although running Linux Mint, not Arch Linux).
xfwm4 is xfce4s window decorator and it craches sometimes when you let it handle composite effects (in my sisters case, also running docky). If you need composite (like transparency for cairo-dock) I would recommend that you deactivate xfwm4:s compositing and use xcompmgr instead.

Last edited by Larsson (2011-09-21 07:57:31)

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Gumper

Member

From: U.S.A.

Registered: 2009-10-26

Posts: 132

Re: [Solved] xfce window decorations disappeared

Running "xfwm4 &" and saving the session manually seemed to do the trick.

Thanks everyone!

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Ready yourselves, ready yourselves
Let us shine the light of Jesus in the darkest night
Ready yourselves, ready yourselves
May the powers of darkness tremble as our praises rise .... Casting Crowns-Until The Whole World Hears.

bernarcher

Forum Fellow

From: Germany

Registered: 2009-02-17

Posts: 2,281

Re: [Solved] xfce window decorations disappeared

Gumper, please mark this thread [SOLVED].

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