Conky background uses gtk_color_scheme's window background color, at random

[Vish]

Binary package hint: conky

In Karmic the background of the conky turns grey[random] , this does not happen when i dual boot into Jaunty and use the same .conkyrc
I ran conky from terminal ,but there is no error when this happens.

It returns to normal transparent background,at random or when i either restart it , or when if_mounted triggers a refresh of the conky size.

I'v attached the screenshot of the greying of the background.

Also, the same behavior is noticed when desktop effects are turned OFF.

All other essential info are in Bug #405188.

[Michalxo (michalxo)]

Same problem here.
Karmic too
Conky 1.7.1.1 compiled Thu Jun 11 08:15:59 UTC 2009 for Linux 2.6.24-23-server (x86_64)
My .conkyrc http://pastebin.org/4566

[Cesare Tirabassi (norsetto)]

I suspect this could be a bug in the new libgtk+ client side code, I doubt it is conky, as a matter of fact conky runs fine in a karmic chroot. Could somebody try to downgrade to an older libgtk+ (previous to 2.17) and check?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

did you get the issue before today's gtk update?

[Vish (vish)]

@Cesare Tirabassi : you had asked on a different bug if today's update solved the problem ,Nope...

@Sebastien Bacher : Yes , this existed from the time I installed Alpha3.

Trying to downgrade, but, since gtk uses a lot of other dependencies, i'd like to know the exact [aptitude]command to cover all packages.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

it's easier to download libgtk2.0-0, unpack it using dpkg-deb -x .deb and run the software using LD_LIBRARY_PATH then

[Matthieu Baerts (matttbe)]

Hi !

This bug affects me too on Karmic.

Personally, I suspect that this could be a bug in Nautilus ! When I copy something, or when I make a right click on the Desktop and after 2 seconds I have a white background !

No special message with "conky -D".

If I can help you, don't be shy !

[nochka85 (nochka85)]

Hello,

I have EXACTLY the same issue with conky that Matthieu Baerts explained ... And I also notice that sometimes it happens while rotating the compiz cube or switching to another cube face....

[Cesare Tirabassi (norsetto)]

Conky windows are not truly transparents. Conky reads the background of the root window and then changes it's own background in accordance. Perhaps what we see is the side effect of Gnome doing something with the root background?

[Matthieu Baerts (matttbe)]

I made a screencast of this bug yesterday : http://www.videobin.org/+ag/cg.html

In fact it take the color of the background of windows. If I open the menu Appearance in System / Preferences / : I can change the color of my theme. If I change the color of windows' background in red, the conky background is now in red with the bug !

I have notified nautilus dev here : http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=590068
I hope they can help us !

[Cesare Tirabassi (norsetto)]

Downgrading just libgtk2.0-0 to 2.16.1-0ubuntu3 is enough to solve the problem, so, looks like as this could indeed be some change in the client side code.

[Cesare Tirabassi (norsetto)]

There is an updated conky package (1.7.2~rc2-0ubuntu5) in my PPA (https://launchpad.net/~norsetto/+archive/ppa) which I would like people to test against this issue. Brenden coded a workaround re-factoring the pseudo-transparency code which should solve this problem on conky's side.

[Matthieu Baerts (matttbe)]

Thanks a lot Cesare ! Your workaround works well !

But I hope that this bug in libgtk can be solved "quickly" !

[Michalxo (michalxo)]

Cesare Tirabassi : Thank you! Workaround works so far so good ;)

[Vish (vish)]

Seems good for me too... i havent noticed any glitches. the ppa works great. thanx .

@Cesare Tirabassi : when can we expect this to be pushed in to the regular karmic repos ?
[do kindly inform before you'll be pushing any test patches which might break conky, thank you]

[Cesare Tirabassi (norsetto)]

Setting the conky task to fix committed then. This will get published when 1.7.2 is out (rc3 should be out today and if everything is fine 1.7.2 will be released within a fortnight).

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package conky - 1.7.2-0ubuntu1

---------------
conky (1.7.2-0ubuntu1) karmic; urgency=low

  * New upstream release:
    - Improved Lua API (lua_read_parse has been removed in favour of the
      conky_parse() Lua API call).
    - Cairo and Imlib2 bindings for Lua.
    - Built-in weather support.
    - Added own_window_type panel.
    - Added border_inner_margin and border_outer_margin.
      The border_margin config option is now deprecated.
    - Added format_human_readable option.
    - Added fancy new 'temperature gradients'.
    - Several new variables such as $blink, $curl, $desktop, $entropy_perc,
      $swapfree, $to_byte and $top_io.
    - Comments in TEXT section are now possible.
      If necessary the comment character (#) can be escaped with a
      backslash (\#).
    - Added a different default configuration file for builds without X11.
    - Added io_perc, io_read and io_write to $top.
    - Alignment special variables can now be used with objects that span
      multiple lines.
    - Enhanced Imlib2 cache control.
    - $battery_short can now also display F (full), N (not present),
      E (empty) or U (unknown).
    - Counteless bug fixes (LP: #405701, LP: #405340, LP: #405188).
  * Complete overhaul of the packaging (LP: #294933, LP: #387209):
    3 binary packages are now created: conky-cli, conky and conky-all.
    conky-cli is a basic package that could be used in servers
    or piped with dzen2,
    conky supports the most commonly used variables,
    conky-all includes almost all of the available support.
    Use conky-all if you are not sure of your needs.
    Some of the packaging changes include:
    - copyright is now in line with the new format specification
    - rules has been overly simplified
    - short/long descriptions have been updated
    - TODO is not installed anymore, lua.html is installed
    - README.Debian has been obsoleted
    - no change bump of Standards-Version
    - added NEWS and README.source
    - changed automake from automake1.10 to automake1.11, since the former
      has been obsoleted.

 -- Cesare Tirabassi <email address hidden> Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:27:23 +0200

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

The bug has been fixed in karmic now

[Kradziej (kradziej666)]

I dont know if it would be here by i think its similar -> all desktop goes grey not only conky background

[Paul V. Stodghill (paul-stodghill)]

I do not believe that this bug is actually fixed in Karmic.

[Cesare Tirabassi (norsetto)]

Try the latest conky from my ppa (https://launchpad.net/~norsetto/+archive/ppa). Its a testing version which uses true transparency and it should definetively solve the issue.

[Paul V. Stodghill (paul-stodghill)]

The version in your ppa works like a champ under Karmic. Thanks!

[Paul V. Stodghill (paul-stodghill)]

This bug seems to be fixed under Lucid without having to resort to the PPA.

[ngc2997 (ngc2997-deactivatedaccount)]

This issues still seems to be around on Ubuntu 12.10 - conky would randomly turn its background into some light grey. Most of the time this happens shortly after logging into the desktop, with conky being autostarted through a ~/.config/autostart entry. In very rare occasions though, the grey background returns to "normal" after some time, without any noticeable trigger.

Conky window is configured as:

own_window yes
own_window_type override
own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager

[kenneth hsu (kennethhsu)]

This also occurs for me in 12.10.

[Ricardo Vizcaya (ricardovizcaya)]

This happens to me in 12.10 as well. The background changes to light-grey "randomly" and then changes back to transparent after a while. I will try to see if there is a pattern in these changes not to call them random any more!

[Ricardo Vizcaya (ricardovizcaya)]

Not mentioning it is a bit hard to start conky up correctly (I have the famous run after x seconds bash script so it doesn't appear on top of everything), the background problem appears on opening Nautilus the first time. I still haven't figured out how to make it disappear by itself, so what I have to do is pkill conky and and start it again.

[d7rk (d7rk)]

Same issue here with ubuntu 12.10.
It usually happens with opened applications running (nautilus, synapse...).
My understanding was that it took the color of the app when it overlapped with it t(they are grey on my config). Just a supposition.

[Alex Lewis (alexlewis-deactivatedaccount)]

I'm seeing this issue in 13.04, exactly as the screenshot shows in #26