unity gets stuck in 'expose' mode when you drag an icon over a launcher icon and hold it there

[Alistair Buxton]

Steps to reproduce:

1. Have an image file or similar saved on the desktop.
2. Open firefox then minimize it.
3. Drag the image file from the desktop to the firefox icon on the launcher.
4. Wait until you see the firefox window.
5. Release the mouse button.

The image file will open in the firefox window, but you will no longer be able to interact with windows using the mouse. At this point you have to alt-tab to a terminal (which won't initially be visible), then click in a *different* window. For some reason this gives focus to the terminal. Now 'unity --replace'.

Steps to reproduce under Oneiric:

1. Have an image file or similar saved on the desktop.
2. Open firefox then minimize it.
3. Drag the image file from the desktop to the firefox icon on the launcher and immediately release it - the image will load in firefox.
4. Drag the image file from the desktop to the firefox icon on the launcher again, this time wait until you see the firefox window shrink down and the desktop darken.
5. Release the mouse button.

Impact: Users who aren't developers will probably have to power off the machine to recover from this bug.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: unity 3.8.16-0ubuntu1~natty1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-10.46-generic 2.6.38.7
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-10-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: [core,bailer,detection,composite,opengl,decor,mousepoll,vpswitch,regex,animation,snap,expo,move,compiztoolbox,place,grid,imgpng,gnomecompat,wall,ezoom,workarounds,staticswitcher,resize,fade,unitymtgrabhandles,scale,session,unityshell]
Date: Sun Aug 14 01:52:46 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release amd64 (20110422)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: unity
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to natty on 2011-07-27 (17 days ago)

[Alistair Buxton (a-j-buxton)]

I can also reproduce using applications other than firefox, eg gedit and a text file.

[Hassan Williamson (hazrpg)]

I can confirm this bug affects me too using the steps outlined above.

Just as a side note, I can also confirm that this bug also happens with several other icons too, for example dragging a song file to MusicBrainz Picard, trying to drag text to a terminal, etc.

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

This is not an image in Oneiric Ocelot Alpha-3 atleast on a fully updated system

[Hassan Williamson (hazrpg)]

IIRC, Oneiric Ocelot (11.10) has just disabled Drag & Drop for the unity bar... this does not mean that its been fixed, it just means that the bug won't happen because it was disabled.

Surely being able to Drag & Drop things into application icons should allow you to open them up with that application, this is a feature I'm sure many have gotten use to with any operating system. Alternatively, it should allow the application to bring focus to itself to allow you to drag to that application.

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

Drag and Drop is working just fine on launcher in Oneiric and it was
not disabled just a bug.

[Alistair Buxton (a-j-buxton)]

Bug or not, drag and drop does not work at all under oneiric at the time of this post, so it is impossible for me to determine if this bug has been fixed there or not.

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

Drag n drop works just fine for the test case that you mentioned in
your bug description, please check you have unity 4.6.0 or not.

[Alistair Buxton (a-j-buxton)]

No current version on Ubuntu uses unity 4.6.0. Natty is on 3.8.10 and Oneiric is now updated to 4.8.0. Since the update to 4.8.0 drag and drop has started working again, and I can confirm that this bug is still reproducable.

[Alistair Buxton (a-j-buxton)]

Here is a video of me reproducing the bug under Oneiric:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEdXXXI_dXo

[Alistair Buxton (a-j-buxton)]

Updated Oneiric today and can no longer reproduce this bug. Did not retest Natty etc.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

thank you, closing the bug then

[Alistair Buxton (a-j-buxton)]

reopening because this bug still affects the current release of ubuntu

[Alistair Buxton (a-j-buxton)]

OK, this needs to be SRU'd not reopened.

Rationale: Bug can directly cause loss of user data if it happens while work is unsaved.

[Hassan Williamson (hazrpg)]

Just did an update of my natty install. I can confirm, this bug is still reproducible on natty. This should not be closed, because as Alistair mentioned a user can lose unsaved data. I know, because my sister is the one that mainly uses the natty machine and she's already lost unsaved data at least 4 times since this bug was filled.

[Andrea Azzarone (azzar1)]

@Alistair can you still reproduce it on Oneiric using the last unity?

[Alistair Buxton (a-j-buxton)]

@Andrea see comment 11.

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It has been fixed in the latest development version - Oneiric Ocelot.

This is a significant bug in Ubuntu. If you need a fix for the bug in previous versions of Ubuntu, please do steps 1 and 2 of the SRU Procedure [1] to bring the need to a developer's attention.

[1]: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates#Procedure

---
Ubuntu Bug Squad volunteer triager
http://wiki.ubuntu.com/BugSquad

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

I believe we are not aware of which commit fixed this issue, if anyone
could find that out I would be happy to work on the SRU (I doubt it
will be easy to find).

[Alistair Buxton (a-j-buxton)]

I am attempting to do a bisect to find it now

[Alistair Buxton (a-j-buxton)]

I have compiled back to 4.8.2 and cannot reproduce the bug, so fix is either somewhere between 4.8.2 and 4.8.0, or it is in a different package (nux?)