Maximized windows disappear

[Gabriele Tassoni]

Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Netbook Remix daily (as of today april, 22 2009)

Hardware: eeeBox b206

Not using compiz, but tried to enable it, then I disabled it, I don't know if this all started because of this tryout... before that I managed to use the freshly installed distro for about 30minute without hiccups.

Whenever I click on an application that can be maximized (click performed using the netbook-launcher), I can se it's automatically maximized, but, just after that, the window and the upper panel both disappear, I can see a faded netbook-launcher, I cannot click on anything on the netbook-launcher, but it seems the maximized window is focused since I noted I can click on it (even without seeing it), i.e. if the window is a terminal, I can write in it even if I can't see it...
If I click on the area where normally the go-home applet is located, the netbook-launcher, and the panel, both reappear at full opacity, If i click on the maximized application (using the window switcher applet next to the go-home one), the app won't appear and, again, the netbook-launcher fades to almost 40%, and the panel disappears) and the application gains focus (but still remains transparent) again.
If I click on the go-home (to see the application icon) button, the right click on the application button and select Demaximize on the context menu, then I can see the demaximized aapplication window (it appears above the netbook-launcher where it would have been in the maximized shape).
If in gconf-editor I disable the auto maximize option in maximus, I can always see the applications window (demaximized, of course), if I maximize it again, the window disappears again.

[Neil J. Patel (njpatel)]

Thanks for reporting this bug. Could you please check to see if the /apps/metacity/general/compositing_manager gconf key is set to false. Also, can you confirm that windows don't have shadows. The behaviour you describe seems to indicate a compositing manager is running, which the default Intel drivers don't support (compositing + launcher don't work together in Intel graphics).

[Gabriele Tassoni (gabriele-tassoni)]

Well! As soon as I reach home I can give you the answer about shadows, but the card is not an intel one... the eeebox b206 seems to have a fglrx (AMD) one.. since the restricted hardware manager detected it and installed those drivers (without fglrx drivers installed I could barely use the gui, since the netbook-launcher was really really slow... with the fglrx accelerated drivers the system has a good speed...)

[Gabriele Tassoni (gabriele-tassoni)]

Confirmed it's an ATI radeon HD3450 as per asus web site: http://www.asus.it/products.aspx?l1=24&l2=165&l3=0&l4=0&model=2728&modelmenu=2

Just have to go home to have a glance at that gconf key.

[Gabriele Tassoni (gabriele-tassoni)]

Checked, the gconf key, it's set on False and I can't see shadows around windows.

[Gabriele Tassoni (gabriele-tassoni)]

Made some more tries:

1) Reinstalled to see if the former tryout to enable desktop effects could have troubled something, fresh reinstallation, just installed xorg-driver-fglrx, rebooted and the beahviour was the same... thus... could it be a matter of interaction between fglrx drivers and the launcher? Could I try tweak something in the relevant section in xorg.conf (that it's correctly almast empty, these days)?
2) Tried to enable/disable the maximus options in gconf to no_maximize and to un-decorize, the only way I can get a usable desktop is by never maximize and never undecorize the windows...

Sometimes, if the app is already open, and I hit the maximize button, the windows maximizes as it should... but, if I (even with maximus instructed not to maximize windows) open a program that starts already maximized (because I closed it from a maximized state) the problem still occours... this leads me to guess that's not a maximus issue, but generally an interaction issue between metacity's maximized windows and what appens to netbook-launcher when an app starts maximized (or gets maximized by hand, because, as told, sometimes, even when I maximize it by hand, the bug shows up!)

Another, related IMHO, issue is that, whenever I run an app that needs sudo password (like synaptic), I have to be really fast in writing the password, since the box would disappear in few seconds, but it's still interactive, actually, since if I hit return, it performs the right action (if I entered the right password, without watching the dialog, it opens the app, if I hitted the wrong one, it tells me to retry..), in this case, however, the only difference with disappearing windows is that the netbook-launcher is never faded, but remains full color (probably becuase the dialog is not considered a window...)

[Gabriele Tassoni (gabriele-tassoni)]

More.. (don't know if it's relevant, whatever...)

Ran fglrxinfo and glxinfo both tells me that the pc has direct rendering (ATI), but if I open the qt based Control Center, it lists MESA as rendering engine, who lies?

[Gabriele Tassoni (gabriele-tassoni)]

I tried to remove netbook-launcher, and re-enable maximization and undecoration by maximus, without the launcher it works all as expected, I ran (from the gnome menu I added to the panel) any program I wish, it starts maximized and without decoration, without fading to transparent!

Thus, the problem looks like in the interaction between launcher, maximus and (possibly) the fglrx drivers?

[Gabriele Tassoni (gabriele-tassoni)]

hmmm! I don't think this bug report is still considarable Incomplete.. I gave even more infos than the one I was asked for...

[Neil J. Patel (njpatel)]

Can someone confirm if this still occurs with Karmic UNR? The launcher is sized to be one pixel wider than the screen, skipping over special-case code in fgrlx which gives GL windows which are the size of the screen preference while drawing. I'm pretty sure this bug should be fixed in Karmic.

[Gabriele Tassoni (gabriele-tassoni)]

I will try it using the livecd.. then report here.

[Paul Larson (pwlars)]

We'd like to figure out what's causing this bug for you, but we haven't heard back from you in a while. Could you please provide the requested information? Thanks!

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!