Metacity and Compiz fight to be "compositing manager"

[CatKiller]

If the GConf key /apps/metacity/general/compositing_manager is set to true, Compiz cannot start. This makes it impossible to use gnome-appearance-properties to turn on the visual effects, even on a system that can use these visual effects. When selecting anything other than "None" in the Visual Effects tab of gnome-appearance-properties this key should first be set to false to actually enable the effects.

The error message when the process fails is
/usr/bin/compiz.real (core) - Error: Could not acquire compositing manager selection on screen 0 display ":0.0"
/usr/bin/compiz.real (core) - Fatal: No manageable screens found on display :0.0

Discovered in Hardy.

[Joachim Nilsson (troglobit)]

Yep, confirmed. This one hit me too.

Once I disabled /apps/metacity/general/compositing_manager I could, once again, enable Compiz.

Running with the latest hardy-proposed (not hardy-backports) on a cheap Lenovo ThinkPad T61 (6646-5WG) with Intel 965GM chipset.

[xrayA4T (xraya4t)]

Just had the same issue (thanks for the fix) on my Dell Inspiron 6000 with intel 910m

[Daniel (daniel123+launchpad)]

I just had this too. Thanks so much for the fix. That was a bit tricky. Without CatKiller writeup, fixing it would have been very difficult.

[kazulius (capetao666)]

I've confirmed this bug today.
But I have another problem here: My Compiz starts with the session and I want it working almost every time because of his effects and other stuffs (cube, window effects, etc.)... but... when I want to play some game in fullscreen (bug from Compiz), I use to disable it (metacity --replace). When I do it, I receive an error message from AWN (Avant Window Navigator): "Screen isn't composited. Please run compiz (-fusion) or another compositing manager". Some help here?

[Azhari Harahap (back2arie)]

thanks for the report, it's happen to me.
just run gconf from terminal and set /apps/metacity/general/compositing_manager to false, logout and login again.

running 8.04.2 from Acer 4520....

[Azhari Harahap (back2arie)]

i mean gconf-editor...