Buggy scrollbars when using GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS

[cgarre]

As stated by Adrian Wilkins:
The overlay scrollbar works just fine with Galileo on Natty, provided you remove this environment variable from the startup script (/usr/bin/eclipse):

  GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=true

This was originally a workaround for the problems mentioned in #443004 (and it's many dupes). As far as possible, I've tested for these problems and they no longer seem to occur.
--
Removing this variable fixes the scrollbar handles and visual glitches, present in Indigo.

[Andrea Cimitan (cimi)]

really? it should have been blacklisted!
which version of the library are you running? 0.1.9?

[cgarre (cgarre)]

ah interesting, i keep updated to what ubuntu repo gives me via updates. (i update every day).
So i checked an i guess i have 0.1-0 and my repo also shows that as the latest ! is there a 0.1-9 which i can get from somewhere ? I even checked natty-proposed didnt have anything new ...
overall, where ever it appears it is elegant and works well !

[cgarre (cgarre)]

ah my bad ! i saw something else ... here is the version 0.1.9-0ubuntu1 so yes its 0.1.9

[Andrea Cimitan (cimi)]

my eclipse is not using the overlay scrollbar... I don't know why yours is not blacklisted. I will ask on tuesday

[quent57 (quent57)]

Hello
When I use eclipse galileo from Ubunu packages ; i didn't have overlay scrollbar.

When I download eclipse helios, I have overlay scrollbar.

I love overlay scrollbar in eclipse !
It's a bit buggy (visual artefact, but it's cool).

[Andrea Cimitan (cimi)]

ok... so you're not running eclipse from the repositories?
I need a link to the version you have installed in your pc, so I can blacklist it

[quent57 (quent57)]

I run both.
(I need helios for some stuff, and helios is not in repository).
I manualy download eclipse here : http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages/eclipse-classic-362/heliossr2
And it's work fine with overlay scrollbar !

[Andrea Cimitan (cimi)]

which arch? i386 or 64 bit?

[quent57 (quent57)]

sorry, i386.

[Andrea Cimitan (cimi)]

I have no idea... as I said, eclipse should be blacklisted with 0.1.9

[Andrea Cimitan (cimi)]

how do you start eclipse?

[Andrea Cimitan (cimi)]

could you please do

xprop | grep CLASS

and click on the eclipse window?

[Andrea Cimitan (cimi)]

posting here the output

[quent57 (quent57)]

As I can't make a launcher, I have made a shortcut in my desktop.
So I launch eclipse helios with a link.
If I make a launcher, it launch the regular eclipse (the repository eclipse) instead.

[quent57 (quent57)]

$xprop | grep CLASS
WM_CLASS(STRING) = "Eclipse", "Eclipse"

[Andrea Cimitan (cimi)]

thanks, will see what's wrong

[Andrea Cimitan (cimi)]

does this package block eclipse from running the overlay scrollbars?

[cgarre (cgarre)]

I had installed eclipse from ubuntu repo's. Can you give me a 64 bit version of the lib, i can try with my version and see if it blacklists eclipse. Thanks.

[Andrea Cimitan (cimi)]

unfortunately I'm not running an amd64 system, if you want to build from source, I can tell you what you should try

[quent57 (quent57)]

Andrea Cimitan -> I still have overlay scrollbar with this package.
I'll try again on next reboot.

[Andrea Cimitan (cimi)]

I'll build another package that will print the info I need in the terminal quent, many thanks...

[Andrea Cimitan (cimi)]

this will print the program name on the terminal, used by the blacklist

[quent57 (quent57)]

this line :
  program: eclipse, g_get_prgname (): eclipse
?

And I have no longer overlay scroll bar on eclipse.
(no reboot since last time).

[quent57 (quent57)]

Yes ! I have !
When I launch eclipse from the original binary I have no scroll bar and this line :
  program: eclipse, g_get_prgname (): eclipse
When In launch eclipse from my link, I have scroll bar and this line :
  program: Link for Eclipse Helios , g_get_prgname (): Link for Eclipse Helios

This is the problem I think.

[Andrea Cimitan (cimi)]

my guess is that something has been wrong with your package installation... try running
sudo apt-get install --reinstall liboverlay-scrollbar-0.1-0
and restart eclipse.
it shiuld now be blacklisted

[quent57 (quent57)]

Why not put blacklist in dconf ?

[Andrea Cimitan (cimi)]

overhead... linking every app to dconf is not optimal

[quent57 (quent57)]

I try reinstall many times, and I have always same behaviour than https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/overlay-scrollbar/+bug/769277/comments/24
.

[Andrea Cimitan (cimi)]

that's the problem I bet... symbolic links are breaking the rules... (damn)

[quent57 (quent57)]

If it's won't fix,
if we want by-pass the blacklist, there are a workaround !

[Florian W. (florian-will)]

This bug also affects me, and I'm not starting Eclipse through a link. I.e. pressing "super - e - c - l - enter" starts eclipse with small orange scroll bars, but no overlays appearing. Starting from the console won't work either.

It's 3.5.2 from the repos.
I can't install the .deb from above as I'm on 64 bit.

$ xprop | grep CLASS
WM_CLASS(STRING) = "Eclipse", "Eclipse"

Love the new scroll bars and hope that they will work properly for eclipse and firefox soon :)

[luc (luc-maisonobe)]

I strongly disagree with the wont'fix.
This is a bug and links are a central feature of debian-like systems with update-alternatives.

I CANNOT use eclipse Helios with this bug.
Using mousewheel works for vertical scrollbars but not for horizontal scrollbar that appear automatically when displaying long arrays in the debugger.

[mbelos (mbelos)]

I switched off Overlay Scrollbars for eclipse only using a small workaround found (link below). I then ran the executable via the command line, and when it started asked Unity to "keep in launcher" so that next time I can fire it up the same way.

http://askubuntu.com/questions/36448/is-there-a-way-to-blacklist-an-individual-application-from-using-overlay-scrollba

I made a small executable file (I called it eclipse-launcher) and added the following:

#!/bin/bash
UBUNTU_MENUPROXY=0 LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 eclipse

Don't forget to make the file executable!

[Florian W. (florian-will)]

Thanks mbelos, didn't know about that environment variable! And I was actually going to ask (before I read your comment) wheter an environment variable to disable overlay scrollbars exists.

Interestingly enough, /usr/bin/eclipse is a start script that already contains a workaround for a different bug that requires setting an environment variable. ("# work around for e#290395 / LP: #458703").

I simply added:

# work around for LP #769277
export UBUNTU_MENUPROXY=0
export LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0
# end work around

below the GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=true export. Fixed the problem for me.

Someone might want to file a bug against Eclipse in Ubuntu to get something like this included.

Still, I hope that there will be an Eclipse version w/ overlay scrollbars. Is that going to happen?

[Stephan (s-mehlhase)]

I'm also affected by this on 11.04 64bit using the eclipse version from the repositories. I solved it as it was done by #34.

[Matthias Andree (matthias-andree)]

Doesn't work for me either (running "Ubuntu Classic" because Unity is underfeatured as opposed to a regular GNOME 2 setup) with an AMD Radeon HD 3300 Chipset Integrated Graphics (running fglrx driver).

1. the blacklist must be user-editable, not hardcoded (and if it is, qsort() and bsearch() are your friends)

2. Ubuntu should stop imposing immature cosmetic fluff on users. I care about a properly functioning system, not about squeezing out five pixels at the price of screen artifacts and missing functionality.

3. Please consider either withdrawing this crap, or using a whitelist of applications instead (rather than a blacklist).

I am now purging overlay scrollbar (much simpler this way than to concoct workarounds). I'll not try again before user-editable blacklisting is in place, as I certainly do not care to play alpha tester in a distribution release version. The test burden is with those who want to change an existing working scrollbar system, not with the end users. This isn't Debian/unstable after all.

liboverlay-scrollbar-0.1-0:
  Installed: 0.1.12-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 0.1.12-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 0.1.12-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ natty-updates/main amd64 Packages
        500 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ natty-proposed/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     0.1.9-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ natty/main amd64 Packages

eclipse:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 3.5.2-8ubuntu3
  Version table:
     3.5.2-8ubuntu3 0
        500 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ natty/universe amd64 Packages

[Steve Holmes (bouncysteve)]

I'm affected by this using Eclipse from the repository (3.5.2-8ubuntu3) and liboverlay-scrollbar-0.1-0 (0.1.12-0-ubuntu1) on 64 bit.
Reinstalling liboverlay-scrollbar-0.1-0 doesn't fix it, but the workaround in #34 does.

Don't understand why this is won't fix/invalid, it is a verifiable bug.

Re-opening in the hope of further consideration.

[Steve Holmes (bouncysteve)]

In os/os-utils.c the current program is compared to the blacklist in a case-sensitive manner. "eclipse" is in the blacklist, but the program is "Eclipse" (as seen in #31 above).

Suggest that the string comparison is made case-insensitive.

[Andrea Cimitan (cimi)]

No steve, the name is generated through g_get_prgname ();

Try the https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/overlay-scrollbar/+bug/769277/+attachment/2084867/+files/liboverlay-scrollbar-0.1-0_0.1.9-0ubuntu1_i386.deb

and tell me which is the name printed on your system. I will add it to the blacklist

[Pavel Rojtberg (rojtberg)]

the overlay scrollbars work as expected for me on eclipse 3.6 and 3.7. So I would like to use them, but they are blacklisted for me. As for now I create a symlink to get around your blacklist, but ideally it should be configurable somewhere..

[Louis (louisgag)]

Thanks mbelos,

#!/bin/bash
UBUNTU_MENUPROXY=0 LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 eclipse

solved the issue for me.

-Louis

[Collin Peters (collin-peters)]

From 779416 and Adrian Wilkins:

Removing this environment variable from the startup script /usr/bin/eclipse fixes this - the thumb is drawn and usable.

 export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=true

[Marius B. Kotsbak (mariusko)]

I still see this issue in Natty, using version 0.1.12-0ubuntu1 of liboverlay-scrollbar. Workaround in #34 works (giving the old scrollbar back).

[xykivo (dror-smolarsky)]

I also have this issue.
None of the workarounds mentioned above fixes this issue.

Although this is not a deal breaker it adds up to other annoying things in Unity.
I like Unity, but I wish UI bug fixes would come faster.

[Marius B. Kotsbak (mariusko)]

Well, if those workarounds do not work, you probably have another issue or don't do it properly. Try running in terminal window:

UBUNTU_MENUPROXY=0 LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 eclipse

[Brett Dworaczyk (brettdw)]

I have also been having the scrollbar issue in Ubuntu 11.04 64-bit with the repository package install of eclipse (3.5.2). Surprisingly, this bug also caused screen artifact issues when scrolling the screen on the project list. Lines would appear from elements previously rendered in that position, and disappear when I moused over them. Applying the fix from #34 not only brought back the scrollbars, but it also corrected the screen artifacts issue. I haven't heard anyone mentioning these artifacts before, so I though I would bring this up for anyone having this strange issue on top of not having scrollbars. Eclipse is usable again! Nice fix by the way.

[shay (shay-shay99)]

#34 fix worked for me on Natty 64 , IBM laptop

[Sjoerd Cranen (outis)]

On Ubuntu 11.04 amd64, I installed Eclipse as follows:
  apt-get install eclipse-platform eclipse-cdt
This installed Eclipse Galileo. Overlay scrollbars were apparently not blacklisted. I uninstalled overlay-scrollbar:
  apt-get remove overlay-scrollbar
Then found this thread, so though I would try again:
  apt-get install overlay-scrollbar
I now have overlay-scrollbar 0.1.12-0ubuntu1 installed, but still Eclipse is not blacklisted. Can't use the tool Andrea posted on amd64, so couldn't say what name should have been blacklisted.

[wigtime (philippe-brouillette)]

Fix #34 also worked out for my Dell XPS 15 laptop, running Natty 64bit. Thank you.

[Joachim Durchholz (jo-durchholz)]

I have to say I almost fully agree with #36, even if it's a rant.
First-time breakage of essential functionality with no easy way back was Upstart for me, and warrants a raised eyebrow.
Second-time breakage (this here) warrants a rant.
Third-time breakage and I'll vote with my feet.

Oh, and I globally disabled those scrollbars via the fix described on http://askubuntu.com/questions/39743/naughty-narwahl-has-eaten-my-eclipse-scrollbars . Ubuntu came with the promise of "works for end users", but currently, it doesn't.

[Joachim Durchholz (jo-durchholz)]

Here's the relevant excerpt from https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/eclipse/+bug/779416 (#42 just gives the fix but left out source of fix and description of what was tested):

----

Removing this environment variable from the startup script /usr/bin/eclipse fixes this - the thumb is drawn and usable.

 export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=true

Where possible I tested the problems listed in #443004 (and it's dupes) and they no longer seem to occur - I presume that the bug in GTK which provoked this workaround has been fixed.

Suggest removal of the workaround from the startup script

[Marius B. Kotsbak (mariusko)]

Joachim: remember to test the alpha/betas before next release. This bug might have been release critical, but less serious after release. I probably did not see it because not testing work stuff on the beta or using a newer Eclipse than included.

[Vinicius Seixas (vipseixas)]

#51 fix seems to work for me.

[Iuri Diniz (iuridiniz)]

 fix #34 works but with old scroolbar

 fix #51 works too with overlay scroolbar :D

[Sven Bendel (ubuntudroid)]

I remember removing GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS = true resulted in sometimes not-clickable buttons, at least this was the reason why I always added it when I downloaded eclipse from their webpage...

[Collin Peters (collin-peters)]

I also had originally added that to my custom launcher script for Galileo. I haven't noticed any problems with clickable buttons on 64bit Jvm and 64 Bit Helios.

[cgarre (cgarre)]

i am on helios too finally for a long time, and there is no problem. somehow it was a problem with galelio from ubuntu repo. I installed helios directly from eclipse and never had any issue , the ayatana scrollbars work great on helios.

[tar (samohttsor)]

i had the same problem.

# 42 fixed it.

[Matt C (proteus400)]

I am using Helios installed into a home folder (several versions, actually, each a different dev platform and with specific versions).

Version: Helios Service Release 2
Build id: 20110301-1815

Disabling overlay-scrollbar stops the random crashes, using the aforementioned workaround of running the eclipse binary with a script:
#!/bin/bash
UBUNTU_MENUPROXY=0 LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 eclipse

This is only a workaround.

I don't see how this bug can be closed as invalid !

overlay-scrollbars are nice and innovative (although too thin IMHO and I can't hover at any point on the scrollbar any more only the central bar, grmbl), but overlay-scrollbars has marred my 11.04 experience.

Numerous day to day work apps including Firefox, Evolution and Eclipse crash randomly after my recent Ubuntu upgrade and I'm starting to save every 5 minutes like I have to on Windows.

I agree with comment #50.

[Andrea Cimitan (cimi)]

I don't have any crashes with eclipse (indigo), just tested with the latest version of overlay scrollbars from trunk.
On oneiric, the situation will be completely different.

[Wayne Rodrigues (waynerod10)]

Still have the same problem with Galileo (3.5). Gonna update soon and see if its fixed. The repository really should be updated.

[dronus (paul-geisler)]

Why trying to blacklist eclipse and not try to solve the problem and get them working with eclipse?

[Adrian Wilkins (adrian-wilkins)]

Agreed - as mentioned in my comment on #779416 reproduced above in comment #51 ;

The overlay scrollbar works just fine with Galileo on Natty, provided you remove this environment variable from the startup script.

  GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=true

This was originally a workaround for the problems mentioned in #443004 (and it's many dupes). As far as possible, I've tested for these problems and they no longer seem to occur.

It would seem the original GTK bug that caused these problems has been resolved.

I REALLY LIKE the new scrollbars for Eclipse - because it has so many panels, overlay scrollbars mean you gain quite a lot of space that would otherwise just be full of scrollbar obscuring useful information.

I was annoyed when I tried out Eclipse on Oneiric and discoverer that it's been blacklisted for the scrollbars.

Please

 * Don't blacklist Eclipse for the overlay scrollbars - they work just fine IF you do the next thing
 * Remove the GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=true variable from the startup script on Natty (and other supported revisions)
 ** I note that on Oneiric, the startup script for Eclipse has been replaced by the normal Eclipse binary loader. I think this is why the Oneiric release of Eclipse sees the return of the main major annoyance with Eclipse on Ubuntu - no update sites configured. But that's a job for another bug. But you can't remove the env variable from the Oneiric startup script, because there isn't one now.

[周成瑞 (e93b5ae3)]

Great, this works for me!

[Craig Hewetson (craighewetson-deactivatedaccount)]

Just installed Oneiric and I'm running Eclipse 3.7.0 and the scrollbars work for all the views, except for the vertical scrollbar on the text/java Editor and Console View.

The scrollbar doesn't display the "thumb" size correctly as one scrolls up/down the view. I've attached an image and drawn a red rectangle region to the left of where the thumb of the scrollbar should be shown.

[Kenneth Venken (kenneth-venken)]

I can confirm that removing GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=true works.

[Craig Hewetson (craighewetson-deactivatedaccount)]

Ignore comment #65 ... the size seems fine ... guess its just me getting used to it all ...

[Sunil K Chopra (sunil-sunilkchopra)]

I'm running 11.10 64-bit with Eclipse 3.7.0 and the problem still exists. Actually, it came back because I had this fixed before I did the dist-upgrade. In 11.04, I modified the startup script so that eclipse would use the old-fashioned scrollbars, but now it's using overlay scrollbars again. And, as has been mentioned, the overlay scrollbars do not work properly in Eclipse.

[Sunil K Chopra (sunil-sunilkchopra)]

my apologies. I see that commenting the "export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=true" line makes the new scrollbars work. that's cool. Shouldn't this be fixed in the package or something, though?

[Axel Pospischil (apos)]

I like to mention something:

Eclipse is such an important tool for software development.
AND: it is also a platform for creating rich client apps.
You won't even be able to know every app which uses eclipse as basis and therefore is affected by this bug. So I think this should be solved within the eclipse community that is responible for the GTK-bindings of the eclipse SWT-based GUI framework.

I am developing java applications with e.g. spring source tools suite, that probably will never be part of any linux distribution and therefore ever will be affected by this bug ;)

I am starting eclipse / sts with a wrapper like this:

#!/bin/sh
cd /local/share/springsource/sts-2.7.1.RELEASE/
export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=true
export UBUNTU_MENUPROXY=0
export LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0
./STS

I HAVE to use "export" .

#41 helped me with the scrollbar problem

Greets Axel

[Adrian Wilkins (adrian-wilkins)]

Axel, as far as we can tell, the GTK bug that provoked the GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS fix has gone - could you try removing

export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=true
export LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0

.. and seeing if that works ok for you? I'm having no problems with the overlay scrollbars on Indigo / Oneiric.

I agree that it would be best if it all worked - menu included. I'm not sure what to tweak to remove Eclipse from the menu blacklist to see if it works though

[Michael Nagel (nailor)]

i am running precise and this is not sorted out in a standard install yet, see the attached screenshot to see see that i cannot grab the slider and that scrolling with the mouse wheel results in visual corruption for the package explorer (not for the main text edit, though).

[PeteJ (pj08)]

On Oneiric 11.10, with Eclipse 3.7.0 Indigo, commenting out

#export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=true

in

/usr/bin/eclipse

allowed me to use the overlay scrollbars again.

[Nick Rhodes (ngrhodes)]

I can confirm PeteJ's fix/work around works in 11.10 .

Cheers, Nick

[Adrian Wilkins (adrian-wilkins)]

As per sources page for eclipse package in Precise : https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/eclipse/3.7.1-1

  * Removed GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=true workaround

So it looks like this has now been fixed for the 12.04 release.

[Alessio "Spinus" Moscatello (spinus)]

Is it possible to backport this fix to Oneiric?

[Kenneth Venken (kenneth-venken)]

Seems to be fixed in 12.10 for eclipse 3.8. Overlay bars work like they should.