Xubuntu 11.04 windows misconfigure

[paraquat]

I installed Xubuntu 11.04. Runs fine for a few days. Then one day boot it up and windows are seriously misconfigured. By "misconfigure," I mean the border around the windows disappears. Some windows (like Firefox) peg themselves to the upper left corner. Trying to open the drop-down menus in the windows with a mouse click fails - then menus open and immediately close, making it impossible to select anything. Basically, the entire desktop becomes unusable - almost no applications work as expected. I've seen this on two separate computers now, both with Xubuntu 11.04. I found that switching to the plain XFCE4 desktop finds the same bad behavior as Xubuntu desktop.

The problem occurs randomly, immediately upon user log-in. I found a way to "fix" it, but the fix is only good for maybe a few days and then it recurs. No pattern - it happens whenever it happens., and then won't go away until I apply my fix. So I installed Lubuntu desktop and am using that for now. The problem doesn't recur if I stick with Xubuntu, but if one day I switch back to Xubuntu, then it will happen again eventually.

My fix is a lousy one. I've got to log in as another user, open a terminal, su to root. Then cd to my home directory and delete all hidden files and directories. For example, if you are user "john" then log in as somebody else, open an xterm and do this:

su
cd /home/john
rm -fr .[a-zA-Z0-9]*

I can then log out, log back in as user john. Now my desktop works fine. Of course, I've blown away all my configuration files (Firefox bookmarks and extensions, for example). So I've gotten in the habit of saving my bookmarks file.

I haven't been able yet to narrow the problem down to a specific configuration file. I tried just deleting ~.config but that didn't solve the problem. It's probably just one broken file, but I don't know which one.

This launchpad bug reporting software only allows me to add one file attachment, but I wanted to send you three. So I uploaded the three screenshots to my own web site and have included the links below. Please view these. An explanation for each one:

Firefox pegged to upper left corner, no window borders
http://www.itmighthavebeen.com/graphics/bugs/pegged.png

Firefox and Xterm windows, no borders
http://www.itmighthavebeen.com/graphics/bugs/firefox-and-xterm.png

Normal view - what it looks like before the borders disappear
http://www.itmighthavebeen.com/graphics/bugs/normal.png

WORKAROUND:
Hit Alt+F2, type "xfwm4 &" without qotes, hit enter

[paraquat (robert-storey)]

"The problem doesn't recur if I stick with Xubuntu, ..."

damn typo. I meant:

"The problem doesn't recur if I stick with Lubuntu, ..."

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

Thanks for reporting this bug and any supporting documentation. Since this bug has enough information provided for a developer to begin work, I'm going to mark it as confirmed and let them handle it from here.

This is an issue in Xfce 4.8, and has been reproduced many times by users. Normally, simply restarting xfwm4 resolves this issue.

Thanks for taking the time to make Ubuntu better!