gnubg freezes desktop after analysing match

[Rutger Kroon]

Problem seems the same as what happened in 11.10: after analysing a game or match in gnubg everything freezes. The only way to get out is Ctrl-Alt-F1 and use the killall command (killall gnubg). Modifiying the gnubg.desktop file won't work this time (Exec=env LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 gnubg -w) as described in bug #932455.

Reproducing the bug is easy: just analyse a game in gnubg and everything stops responding (except for the mouse cursor).

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: gnubg 0.90+20091206-4.1 [modified: usr/share/applications/gnubg.desktop]
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-24.37-generic 3.2.14
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-24-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu7
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun May 20 22:57:58 2012
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release amd64 (20120425)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=nl_NL.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnubg
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Michael Petch (mpetch)]

Can you verify that the gnubg.desktop doesn't resolve it. I have 12.04 installed here, the issue is present by default, however when I modify /usr/share/applications/gnubg.desktop it does work. Thanks

[Michael Petch (mpetch)]

On a technical note regarding this bug:

I have a long term solution for this bug that I will commit to CVS, but it can't be made mainstream until one high priority bug is resolved in the fix itself. GNUBG still uses a deprecated GTKList object, and I have found the scrollbar issues are resolved when we stop using the deprecated GTKList and replace it with GTKTreeView .

[Rutger Kroon (kroon-rj)]

I verified three times, once after modifying gnu.desktop, after logging out and back in and after a reboot.

Problem is I can't verify again, because I went back to 11.10. It could be the freezes were affected by weird behaviour of 12.04 itself, which is also the reason I went back to 11.10: high cpu load, slow responding computer, especially mouse cursor and keyboard. Almost unworkable.

[Rutger Kroon (kroon-rj)]

Well.... in 11.10 the performance was almost as bad as in 12.04. After installing the nouveau driver instead of the nvidia driver everything is responding normaly again. I upgraded then to 12.04 and can't reproduce the freeze anymore, so it might not have been gnubg, but the nvidia-driver causing the freezes.

[Rutger Kroon (kroon-rj)]

And it's there again... desktop freezes after any analyse. Upgraded to gnubg_0.9 [phone] but that makes no difference (with Exec=env LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 gnubg -w in the gnubg.desktop file).

[Michael Petch (mpetch)]

Using a stock 12.04 AMD64 debian system I installed gnubg_0.9 [phone] . Without the modification to the gnubg.desktop file it fails as you describe. If I use a version with LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 it functions properly.

This could be an environmental issue of some sort. First off where is the gnubg.desktop file you are modifying? Is it the one in your user directory or one in /usr/share/applications ?

When it runs (or you think it runs) with LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 how do the scrollbars appear? Do they appear as standard scroll bars or do they pop out at the edge as you pass over them? I'm asking this question since how they will appear tells me whether LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 was actually working.

What desktop environment do you use? Gnome3? Unity? KDE? etc?

[Rutger Kroon (kroon-rj)]

Hello, and thanks a lot for your quick respons.

The gnubg.desktop file is in /usr/share/applications. There is no
gnu.desktop file in ~/.gnubg/ or whatsoever.

My gnubg.desktop file:

> [Desktop Entry]
> Name=GNU Backgammon
> GenericName=Backgammon
> Comment=GTK or console backgammon program with analysis
> Exec=env LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 gnubg -w
> Terminal=false
> Icon=gnubg
> Type=Application
> Categories=Game;BoardGame;GTK;

As you can see in the screenshot (attachment) the scrollbars pop out at
the edge. There you also see the DE is Unity

I installed gnubg from source - same thing appeared.

Thanks again.

Op 27-06-12 00:18, Michael Petch schreef:
> Using a stock 12.04 AMD64 debian system I installed gnubg_0.9
> [phone] . Without the modification to the gnubg.desktop file it
> fails as you describe. If I use a version with LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 it
> functions properly.
>
> This could be an environmental issue of some sort. First off where is
> the gnubg.desktop file you are modifying? Is it the one in your user
> directory or one in /usr/share/applications ?
>
> When it runs (or you think it runs) with LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 how do
> the scrollbars appear? Do they appear as standard scroll bars or do they
> pop out at the edge as you pass over them? I'm asking this question
> since how they will appear tells me whether LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 was
> actually working.
>
> What desktop environment do you use? Gnome3? Unity? KDE? etc?
>

[Michael Petch (mpetch)]

Can you do me a favor. Can you remove your GNUBG program from Unity launcher (on the left hand side of the screen) and then find GNUBG again in unity's search and then drag it back onto the launcher.

[Michael Petch (mpetch)]

I should point out that based on the screenshot, overlay scrollbars are still turned on, which means that GNUBG is not being launched with them off. This was why I have requested the procedure above. If that still doesn't work there is the possibility that there is a gnubg.desktop file in your user folder under ~/.local/share/applications . Anything in there will override what is in /usr/share/applications from what I remember. If there is a file there for GNUBG, remove it or make sure that it is a copy of the one in /usr/share/applications.

On my system here under 12.04 w/unity it does work.

[Rutger Kroon (kroon-rj)]

Thanks, I guess it's working that way!

No gnu.desktop file in ~/.local/share/applications btw.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package gnubg - 1.01.003-1

---------------
gnubg (1.01.003-1) unstable; urgency=low

  * New upstream release.
    - Now correctly finds GTKGLEXT. (Closes: #713503)
    - Disable overlay scroll bars on Ubuntu, which works around a problem
      with GtkCList on current Ubuntu. (LP: #1002063)
    - Use stronger default settings for the computer opponent.
    - Update neural nets for better play.
    - Various improvements to the Python interface.
    - Multiple bug fixes.
  * Drop the override in gnubg.desktop to disable overlay scroll bars.
    This should now be handled by the build system.
  * Drop special per-architecture handling of --enable-sse. Upstream now
    probes for this during configure and at runtime and should do the right
    thing.
  * Move query_player.sh to /usr/share/doc/gnubg/examples since it
    requires editing before it can be used.
  * Add some keywords to the desktop file. (It's quite hard to tell what
    would be useful here. Backgammon is already covered by GenericName.)
  * Simplify debian/rules handling of suppressing bearoff database builds
    now that the buildds use build-arch and build-indep properly.
  * Move the tools for building the documentation to Build-Depends-Indep.
    Pre-build versions of the documentation will be used by the upstream
    build system and then discarded during a binary-only build, so this
    saves some work installing packages on the buildds.
  * Remove the beta software warning from the description. GNU Backgammon
    has been quite stable for years and now has a 1.0 release.
  * Use xz compression for the binary packages.
  * Update watch file for new upstream release naming.
  * Remove get-orig-source target since the upstream source no longer
    requires repacking and there are now regular release tarballs.
  * Rewrite debian/copyright into copyright-format 1.0.
  * Update standards version to 3.9.4 (no changes required).

 -- Russ Allbery <email address hidden> Sun, 21 Jul 2013 18:39:36 -0700