SOLVED?run dialogs (alt-f2 etc) close w/out running anything

[fitzhugh]

As the title says I'm having trouble with the run dialog brought up by pressing alt-f2 or from the menu by choosing "run". Unlike some other posts I saw my problem isn't a lack of a run dialog... I do get one and my rc.xml and lxde-rc.xml include the key binding to "lxpanelctl run", but the one I get doesn't work.
Instead it closes after I type just a letter or two, or more accurately, it closes, the taskbar disappears for a moment then returns, and no app is launched.
After looking again I noticed it closes once I've entered enough letters that there is only one choice left. For example, it disappears this way once I type "fir" because firefox is the only item in the list it shows that matches all three letters, though it waits to fail until the "r" is typed because there are a number of things with "fi" there, like find.

I swapped it out and swapped in gmrun in lxde-rc.xml but would really like to see it work. Any ideas?

Thanks!

[Marty Jack]

I can't reproduce this on 0.5.4.1. As a note to everyone, it would be really helpful if problem reports included the version of the component you are complaining about.

[fitzhugh]

I can't reproduce this on 0.5.4.1. As a note to everyone, it would be really helpful if problem reports included the version of the component you are complaining about.

Marty Jack is right, of course - here are the versions:
lxde 0.5.0-2
lxpanel 0.5.4.1

EDIT: I just found via tail -f syslog:
Feb 13 09:41:58 Machine1 kernel: [239054.606464] lxpanel[32161]: segfault at 0 ip b71bbc05 sp bff3a6b8 error 4 in libc-2.10.2.so[b7148000+141000]

I should be more specific about what is happening... I've installed the same system (AV Linux 3r1) on two machines at the same time. I've installed different additional programs on each, and this problem only occurred on one and only after a couple of days had passed. I had not directly changed anything I knew to be related to this problem until afterward, when I edited lxdc-rc.xml to change the keybindings to gmrun to get around the problem.

These behaviors might help diagnose the problem:
It does list the applications I would expect it to as I type.
It only fails when I type the first letter that makes what I'm typing match only a single item in the list, for example it is fine as I type
l
... LOTS of options, and still fine as I continue and type
li
... fewer options, still fine ...
lis
... fewer still,and...
list
... down to just four: listplugins, list_audio_tracks, list-unreleased, and listres.
... But when I type
listp
...it fails.
d
Also, when it fails it doesn't just close and not launch something, the panel itself along the top of the screen (in my case) actually disappears momentarily, all icons on the desk shift up as if the panel disappearing cleared up real estate, sometimes (apparently depending upon what I try to run) a small box about the size of a desktop icon flickers extremely briefly on the desktop in what seems a random place, and then the panel is redrawn, the icons are pushed back to their normal place, and I see no other errors. I've tried running "lxpanelctl run" from the shell and don't see any output there - no error messages there.

Having found the segfault error I'm not sure how to proceed.

[Marty Jack]

First off, the blink is what you would expect to see when the panel fails and restarts. It is lxsession that takes care of doing that.

That is an excellent observation that you found the segfault. I will look into whether I can see anything that might cause that in the Run code. If you happen to be a developer with the equipment to do this, the way we debug lxpanel is to ssh in from another machine, kill the lxpanel that got started when you logged in, and run it under the debugger (with the argument --profile LXDE) until it fails.

[Marty Jack]

We do have a "feature request" tracker on the Sourceforge pages at http://sourceforge.net/projects/lxde/develop if you wanted to put an idea there so it isn't lost.

Thinking about a UI for this, how about a panel applet that puts up a thin area you can hover over with the mouse to hide the panel and then you could unhide it by touching the edge the same way that autohide works.

[fitzhugh]

We do have a "feature request" tracker on the Sourceforge pages at http://sourceforge.net/projects/lxde/develop if you wanted to put an idea there so it isn't lost.

Thinking about a UI for this, how about a panel applet that puts up a thin area you can hover over with the mouse to hide the panel and then you could unhide it by touching the edge the same way that autohide works.

I'll put in the request on the tracker - thanks! As for UI, I like the idea of a place to hover over, if I understand correctly - basically on the far right or left of the panel (assuming horiz. orientation). Buttons take up space on the always-crowded panel, though buttons are nice because they say "you can click here, try it!" I'm used to kde's approach: let user choose whether to autohide, not hide, or show buttons - and which side to show them if shown. That might be overkill since this is not kde.

I'm not a developer but am happy to see what I get when ssh'ed in as suggested. I'll post here what I find.
Thanks!

[fitzhugh]

OK, here are the results...

john@Studio:/etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE$ export DISPLAY=:0.0
john@Studio:/etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE$ export XAUTHORITY=/home/john/.Xauthority
john@Studio:/etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE$ lxpanel --profile LXDE
** (lxpanel:14747): DEBUG: cache file_name = /home/john/.cache/menus/8ee9cbaa190888694876f62889f53d6f
** (lxpanel:14747): DEBUG: flags: 15

# lots more of these as it starts...

** (lxpanel:14747): DEBUG: flags: 15

(lxpanel:14747): Gdk-CRITICAL **: gdk_x11_screen_supports_net_wm_hint: assertion `GDK_IS_SCREEN (screen)' failed

(lxpanel:14747): Gdk-CRITICAL **: gdk_x11_screen_supports_net_wm_hint: assertion `GDK_IS_SCREEN (screen)' failed
lxpanel : X error: BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)

(lxpanel:14747): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_path_is_absolute: assertion `file_name != NULL' failed
Segmentation fault

I left the first part as a reminder of syntax to set correct display (assuming it is :0.0) in case I forget again

lxpanel : X error: BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)

Was from closing gedit, not the actual problem discussed here...

(lxpanel:14747): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_path_is_absolute: assertion `file_name != NULL' failed
Segmentation fault

This is what happened when I tried "run" from the menu, same as other calls to "lxpanelctl run"

No idea why this happens, of course, but I hope this helps

[Marty Jack]

I found where it is, which I will make a code change to prevent. However, it is a "should never happen" situation. Why don't you try deleting the files with very long names in .cache/menus, log in again, and see if that helps.

[fitzhugh]

I found where it is, which I will make a code change to prevent. However, it is a "should never happen" situation. Why don't you try deleting the files with very long names in .cache/menus, log in again, and see if that helps.

I'm glad you fixed it, wonder what I did to break it - not sure if I should feel proud or embarrassed

That seems to have fixed it as well.

Thanks for such quick help !