Cannot add applets to second X server display in 11.04

[Joseph Coffland]

Binary package hint: gnome-panel

Adding any applet on the second screen of a dual X server configuration yields the following error:

  "<Applet Name>" has quit unexpectedly
  If you reload a panel object, it will automatically be added back to the panel.

Applets work fine on the first display. Adding applets on the second display worked fine in 10.10 and earlier.

I have a single dual-head Nvidia card which is configured for dual X servers. I.e. not TwinView. TwinView does not work well with my monitors.

[Joseph Coffland (jcoffland)]

Correction, this seems to occur only for certain applets. Specifically I'm having trouble with the following:

  Window List
  Window Selector
  Workspace Switcher

Perhaps it is only applets that deal with windows on the second display.

[Marco Piraccini (marco-piraccini)]

The very same behaviour. Also the Clock applets does not work.

[Joseph Coffland (jcoffland)]

Anyone know how to view any gnome-panel applet error logs other than the fairly uninformative pop-up error?

[Ofer Chen (oferchen)]

this is the only way I found...
gnome-session-remove gnome-panel
gdb gnome-panel
run

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report, that seems similar to https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=632369 and http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-panel/commit/?id=cb969e989477e2671d1e0cdd1519866d61d0c98c would anyone be able to try the git commit to see if it's working?

[Joseph Coffland (jcoffland)]

I rebuilt my gnome-panel with the patches at https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=632369. I can now add those applets on the second display and they seem to work. The only remaining problem is that when I right click on these applets in the second display the popup menu shows on the first display.

[Fabien Chéreau (xalioth)]

What about raising the Importance to high? This bug is really extremely annoying for dual screen users :(

[Ofer Chen (oferchen)]

raising the importance will not help fixing the bug
it was reported yesterday and there is already a draft of a patch to solve the issue, be patient it will solved in a few days.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Accepted gnome-panel into natty-proposed, the package will build now and be available in a few hours. Please test and give feedback here. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Thank you in advance!

[Ofer Chen (oferchen)]

yes the fix works fine with one exception applet context menu appears in the primary monitor

[Ofer Chen (oferchen)]

looks like a fix has been suggested for the context menu issue
http://bugzilla-attachments.gnome.org/attachment.cgi?id=179797

can someone test if it works?

[Joseph Coffland (jcoffland)]

@Ofer Chen That patch does not fix the context menu issue. I applied it earlier.

[Ofer Chen (oferchen)]

sorry I meant this
http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-panel/commit/?id=8261b19d008b92ab614ca6e3797b65ca125cec34

[Joseph Coffland (jcoffland)]

@Ofer Chen, sorry that patch didn't work either. I'm building the Ubuntu 11.04 version of gnome-panel which already contained an exact copy of the function panel_context_menu_check_for_screen(), only further down in the file. I had to delete one copy of the function to get it to compile. There was no noticeable change in behavior.

I checked and found that panel_context_menu_check_for_screen() was already in the original gnome-panel-2.32.1 source at gnome-panel/panel-context-menu.c:61. The calls added by your patch were new.

[Ofer Chen (oferchen)]

maybe Vincent Untz have some insight since this has been fixed by him before..

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

As the proposed package improves the situation, I'll mark this verification-done. Please feel free to reopen for the remaining issue.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package gnome-panel - 1:2.32.1-0ubuntu6.5

---------------
gnome-panel (1:2.32.1-0ubuntu6.5) natty-proposed; urgency=low

  * debian/patches/92_git_calendar_day.patch:
    - gtk_calendar_get_date returns the month between 0 and 11, so add +1
      to the month being passed to Evolution (LP: #760523)
  * debian/patches/92_git_fix_applets_in_multiscreen.patch:
    - Add upstream patch to fix addition of applets in multiscreen (LP: #774427)
 -- Rodrigo Moya <email address hidden> Mon, 02 May 2011 12:59:50 +0200

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Copied to oneiric as well.

[Joseph Coffland (jcoffland)]

I've opened a new bug for the popup menu issue:

  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-panel/+bug/780652