Unable to click items below notifications

[Chandru]

Binary package hint: notify-osd

After an update to Lucid Beta-1 I notice that I'm unable to click anything under notifications and since notifications don't have any option to close manually I'm having to wait till it times out.

Also, if a compositing window manager is not available notifications don't hide as before. Instead they become a black rectangle instead of the usual rounded rectangle.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu Mar 25 10:00:52 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
GtkTheme: Dust Sand
IconTheme: Humanity
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Beta i386 (20100318)
Lsusb:
 Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
MachineType: System manufacturer System Product Name
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: notify-osd 0.9.27-0ubuntu1
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-17-generic root=UUID=fcef00b5-bb3b-484f-9f13-f5a8a4d16590 ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_IN
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-17.26-generic 2.6.32.10+drm33.1
RelatedPackageVersions:
 xserver-xorg 1:7.5+3ubuntu1
 libgl1-mesa-glx 7.7-4ubuntu1
 libdrm2 2.4.18-1ubuntu2
 xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.9.1-1ubuntu17
 xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.12.191-1ubuntu2
SourcePackage: notify-osd
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-17-generic i686
WindowManager: compiz
dmi.bios.date: 06/21/2007
dmi.bios.vendor: Phoenix Technologies, LTD
dmi.bios.version: ASUS M2NPV-VM ACPI BIOS Revision 1001
dmi.board.name: M2NPV-VM
dmi.board.vendor: ASUSTek Computer INC.
dmi.board.version: 1.xx
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: 123456789000
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: Chassis Manufacture
dmi.chassis.version: Chassis Version
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnPhoenixTechnologies,LTD:bvrASUSM2NPV-VMACPIBIOSRevision1001:bd06/21/2007:svnSystemmanufacturer:pnSystemProductName:pvrSystemVersion:rvnASUSTekComputerINC.:rnM2NPV-VM:rvr1.xx:cvnChassisManufacture:ct3:cvrChassisVersion:
dmi.product.name: System Product Name
dmi.product.version: System Version
dmi.sys.vendor: System manufacturer
glxinfo: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
setxkbmap:
 Error: command ['xkbcomp', ':0', '-w0', '-'] failed with exit code 1: Error: Cannot open display ":0"
                   Exiting

[Ed Hewitt (edhewitt-deactivatedaccount)]

I am experiencing the same problem. Unable to click on anything which is below the notification bubble

[Detlef Lechner (detlef-lechner)]

I am affected too.
'~$ uname -a
Linux T42 2.6.32-17-generic #26-Ubuntu SMP Fri Mar 19 23:58:53 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux'

[Ricardo Pérez López (ricardo)]

+1. I have the same problem. I would like to help for resolving this issue.

[Jim Braux-Zin (j-brauxzin)]

Same for me, it greatly reduces the unobstrusiveness of those new notifications. I hope it can be fixed for release and I am ready to provide any log or anything that could help.

[Chris Halse Rogers (raof)]

Confirming the lack of click-through. I think this is a serious and easily-hit regression in notify-osd, triaging appropriately.

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

This seems to have broken since the 2.20.0 gtk update (running notify-osd with the 2.19.7 version works normally again)

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

Chris, it may be a gtk-related issue, but may nevertheless require
Mirco's attention.

Mark

[Mirco Müller (macslow)]

Am Freitag, den 26.03.2010, 06:27 +0000 schrieb Mark Shuttleworth:

> Chris, it may be a gtk-related issue, but may nevertheless require
> Mirco's attention.

I'm tackling this one atm.

Best regards ...

Mirco

[Mirco Müller (macslow)]

I found the upstream commit (gtk+) introducing this regression. Here's the URL to it...

http://git.gnome.org/browse/gtk+/commit/?id=996541d096d4d59e9baa384e5d5359a10567433e

... I'm now taking a look at how to fix that properly. Just reverting that commit is only a quick-fix solution.

[Andrzej Markiewicz (arialis111)]

I'm nearly sure it's not connected with gtk2, my version is: 2.18.9-2, and notify-osd (bzr): 0.4.5, although I'm not Ubuntu user.
Tried different version of notify-osd and it did't help.

[Lee Hyde (anubeon)]

I too am affected by this bug, and does make interaction with notify-osd and Ubuntu in general somewhat counter intuitive as notification bubbles often cover window controls (of maximised windows specifically) and other UI elements.

I would suggest however that implementation of click-through, while elegant is not a long term solution, as it precludes direct user interaction with notifications. For example it would be impossible, so far as I can see, to click on a new mail notification and open up said e-mail(s) in the default e-mail client or webmail provider. A more long term solution might be to implement a default user interaction (perhaps middle mouse button) to close the notification bubble. I admit that is not as elegant as click-through, but it does allow for future developments in notification user interactions.

Lee.

[Chandru (chandru-in-deactivatedaccount)]

Lee's point is actually a good one. When I get a new chat notification for example it would be convenient to click that notification and have the corresponding chat window opened up rather than going to the relatively small messaging icon and then clicking the appropriate menu item (again relatively small click area) of the person who messaged me.

[Jonathan Rothwell (jrothwell97)]

Also getting it here, and it kind of defeats the point of being able to mouse under the notifications in the first place.

[James Gregory-Monk (jamgregory)]

If this bug could be fixed in time for Lucid release, I think that the click under is probably the best way to go (as that is the default behaviour of notify-osd as far as I'm aware).

If it can't be fixed, then could the behaviour be modified to make it clickable?

[Sune Keller (sune-keller)]

No point in making it clickable as many notifications don't have a default action to be executed when clicked. Besides, the specification of notify-osd, https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NotifyOSD#Interaction, explicitly states that "Other than that hover effect, bubbles should not directly respond to input devices in any way."

Considering that notify-osd is already integrated in Ubuntu according to that specification, there is no point in further discussing alternatives in a bug report about a regression in living up to the specification.

[Jonathan Rothwell (jrothwell97)]

Agreed.

Let's just fix the regression, and any discussion about notification click-throughs can go on in Brainstorm, blueprints and the Forums.

[Lee Hyde (anubeon)]

Hmm, explicitly prohibiting direct user interaction with notifications does seem like shooting oneself in the foot. For example it puts notify-osd at an immediate disadvantage when compared to many application-specific implementations. A case in point being Thunderbird; libnotify pop-ups are not nearly as useful to me as the default notifications displayed by Thunderbird, which allow left-click access to the inbox.

Anyhow, this is dangerously off-topic so I shall refrain from waffling on.

Lee.

[Mirco Müller (macslow)]

I've a fix for notify-osd creating the "empty" input-mask in another way, so its not affected by the change in gtk+. I'm preparing a branch for upload and review.

[Mirco Müller (macslow)]

The branch for fixing this in notify-osd I put up for review here: https://code.edge.launchpad.net/~macslow/notify-osd/fix-546650/+merge/22469

This keeps the changes within notify-osd. I don't fully understand why only this works and the old way for creating the "empty" input-mask failed, because the resulting input-mask in both cases is a 1x1 pixel "large" bitmap in the top left corner of a notification-bubble's window.

This will also still work with older version of gtk+. You can give that a try. Seb, if you want you can use the diff from that branch as a distro-patch for the moment until I rolled a new notify-osd release later this week. Still have to fight some other notify-osd bugs I want to put in this weeks release.

[Tom Jaeger (thjaeger)]

On 03/30/2010 01:03 PM, Mirco Müller wrote:
> The branch for fixing this in notify-osd I put up for review here:
> https://code.edge.launchpad.net/~macslow/notify-
> osd/fix-546650/+merge/22469
>
> This keeps the changes within notify-osd. I don't fully understand why
> only this works and the old way for creating the "empty" input-mask
> failed, because the resulting input-mask in both cases is a 1x1 pixel
> "large" bitmap in the top left corner of a notification-bubble's window.
>
> This will also still work with older version of gtk+. You can give that
> a try. Seb, if you want you can use the diff from that branch as a
> distro-patch for the moment until I rolled a new notify-osd release
> later this week. Still have to fight some other notify-osd bugs I want
> to put in this weeks release.
>

This seems awfully complicated. Why don't you just use
gdk_window_input_shape_combine_region on an empty region?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank to Mirco the fix has been uploaded to lucid now

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

seems greasemonkey and launchpad hates each other today, really reassigning and closing now

notify-osd (0.9.27-0ubuntu3) lucid; urgency=low

  * Backported change from Mirco Müller to fix click through being broken since
    the gtk update (lp: #546650)

[Leonid Selivanov (bravebug-deactivatedaccount)]

#20
I patch notify-osd 0.9.27 and it fix a bug of "unable to click anything under notifications", but it don't fix a bug that I get together with first. It sound like "notification bubble in non-composite mode (I use openbox with turned of xcompmgr) don't have transparency when mouse over"

I don't know what to do? Probably this bugs linked or not. Can anybody to reproduce it?

uname -a
Linux hog 2.6.32-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Mon Mar 15 20:08:25 UTC 2010 i686 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T8100 @ 2.10GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

notify-osd 0.9.27
gtk2 2.18.9

[Mirco Müller (macslow)]

Am Dienstag, den 30.03.2010, 17:26 +0000 schrieb Tom Jaeger:
> On 03/30/2010 01:03 PM, Mirco Müller wrote:
> > The branch for fixing this in notify-osd I put up for review here:
> > https://code.edge.launchpad.net/~macslow/notify-
> > osd/fix-546650/+merge/22469
> >
> > This keeps the changes within notify-osd. I don't fully understand why
> > only this works and the old way for creating the "empty" input-mask
> > failed, because the resulting input-mask in both cases is a 1x1 pixel
> > "large" bitmap in the top left corner of a notification-bubble's window.
> >
> > This will also still work with older version of gtk+. You can give that
> > a try. Seb, if you want you can use the diff from that branch as a
> > distro-patch for the moment until I rolled a new notify-osd release
> > later this week. Still have to fight some other notify-osd bugs I want
> > to put in this weeks release.
> >
>
> This seems awfully complicated. Why don't you just use
> gdk_window_input_shape_combine_region on an empty region?

That's a very good question, since...

        region = gdk_region_new ();
        gdk_window_input_shape_combine_region (window->window, region, 0, 0);
        gdk_region_destroy (region);

... works just fine and is leaner. I'll update the patch/branch tomorrow.

Best regards ...

Mirco

[James Gregory-Monk (jamgregory)]

Just to confirm this is now working for me in notify-osd (0.9.27-0ubuntu3).

[Chandru (chandru-in-deactivatedaccount)]

Re-opening because only part of the original bug report is fixed. With the new update I'm able to click items below notifications.

However, when compiz is off the notification does not hide as before. So I'm unable to see anything below the notifications though I can click them if I know what is present.

[Mirco Müller (macslow)]

Looking into the non-composited case atm.

[Mirco Müller (macslow)]

I've updated the branch lp:~macslow/notify-osd/fix-546650 fixing the "hide on mouse-over" for the non-composited case. Works now as before. Still have to test it with older gtk+-versions (and on karmic). But if anybody is impatient, they can pull from that branch.

[Mirco Müller (macslow)]

Ok, the branch has been reviewed and approved. It's commited to lp:notify-osd/lucid now. I'm about to roll a new notify-osd tarball (0.9.28).

[ooze (zoe-gauthier)]

I confirm that the fix is available and works in notify-osd 0.9.27-0ubuntu3 (which has the fix backported). Fantastic! Thanks a lot.

[scrawl (scrawl-deactivatedaccount)]

Is this now fixed in notify-osd bzr? Or has it just been patched in ubuntu? The status indicates neither of these...

[David Barth (dbarth)]

The fix is available in trunk, but not released in Lucid beta-2. seb128 is waiting for a RB fix to get a release tarball with both issues corrected. Or will distro-patch the click-thru fix if the RB fix doesn't arrive on time.

[Mirco Müller (macslow)]

With notify-osd 0.9.29 this is fixed upstream. See https://edge.launchpad.net/notify-osd/trunk/ubuntu-10.04-beta-2

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package notify-osd - 0.9.29-0ubuntu1

---------------
notify-osd (0.9.29-0ubuntu1) lucid; urgency=low

  * New upstream version:
    - change the way the "empty" 1x1 pixel large input-mask is created
    - fixed the masking out of the bubble on mouse-over for the non-composited
      desktop (lp: #546650)
    - reset the stored filename (or path) of an icon, when an icon is passed
      via a hint (lp: #451086)
    - added C-example testing updating the icon of a notification
      using all three possible approaches
      (image_path hint, image_data hint, icon-parameter)
 -- Sebastien Bacher <email address hidden> Thu, 08 Apr 2010 12:47:50 +0200

[Jim Rorie (jfrorie)]

Fix confirmed under Ubuntu. Border is gone and notification disappears on mouseover.

[robket (robket)]

The bug fix in notify-osd-0.9.29-0ubuntu1 has created even more problems for me.

The notification does disappear correctly on mouseover, most of the time. However:

* New notifications flash in the top left corners before moving to the top right, which is quite distracting.
* If multiple notifications appear simultaneously, the second notification will stay in the top left corner and DOES not dissapear with mouseover. This is far worse as it is covering very important buttons (Main menu, window close/maximise, Your standard file menu's etc. etc.)

I think the only reason I noticed this was that I have facebook with pidgin and hence I have a lot of contacts signing on and off. Please note I also have compiz off.

[Chandru (chandru-in-deactivatedaccount)]

robket, I use Empathy and I have never noticed the behavior you mention. Have you tried any other application which produces notifications (like rhythmbox) and seen if this behavior is present there too?

[Mirco Müller (macslow)]

robket, check #559109, which sounds very much like the issue you have. It's a different bug.

[robket (robket)]

Chandru I tried by having banshee and rhythmbox change songs at the same time and I get the same issue. Mirco I thought it would be best to report it here seeing as it was the fix to this bug that resulted in this new error. But seeing as bug #559109 describes my problem exactly, i should probably report it there.