Xfce Crashes When Choosing Theme "Wildbush"

[Salix]

Binary package hint: xfce4

I've just upgraded Xubuntu 9.10 to 10.4 and tried to change the theme with the Settings Manager. I could easily change the themes several times but for the "Wildbush" theme the screen turned into black and I was throughn out to the login screen. I tried to log in several times but I couldn't. I got back the login screen every time.

At last I logged in with a different wm (fluxbox) and deleted the ~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml directory. It helped me to log into XFCE again.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: xfce4 (not installed)
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-21.32-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-21-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun May 2 10:28:22 2010
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=hu_HU:hu:en_GB:en
 LANG=hu_HU.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: xfce4

[Jack Beckitt-Marshall (jack-pictura)]

XFCE won't log in after I applied the 'Wildbush' theme either.

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. We need some more information from you before we can start working on this bug.

Please add the following information (pay attention to lspci's additional options):
First run the following commands:
1) uname -a > uname-a.log
2) dmesg > dmesg.log
3) sudo lspci -vvnn > lspci-vvnn.log
then attach the files separately to the bug report (not pasted into comments or tar/zip-ed).

I did attempt to reproduce this issue using an amd64 2.2GHz cpu, with an nVidia video card. It did not black out, nor was my login blocked. Using the above attachments, perhaps we can see if it is a specific video card causing the issues.

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

Thanks for reporting this bug and any supporting documentation. Since this bug has enough information provided for a developer to begin work, I'm going to mark it as confirmed and let them handle it from here. Thanks for taking the time to make Ubuntu better!

[Nikola M (nikolam)]

I just wonder how in the world changing WM theme can kill even Wm itself, not to mention, whole X?? are not ther some architectural checkings in place to stop such things from happening?

I was changing WM themes Xubuntu (10.04 64-bit) - and puff. X died and was logged out. (and all apps died of course)
After that was not able to log in and was logged out every time (I suppose because there was still ¨Wildbush¨ inside
 ~.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfwm4.xml

Also xfapplet (one that is used to start Gnome applets inside xfce) was using 100 percent cpu time after X died, it survived logging out (?)

I edited xfwm4.xml with ¨Albatross¨ in it (thanks mr_pouit, ) and now being able to log in.
I wonder how many themes for Xfce kills X theese days. and how they manage to do that..

uname-a:
Linux nx12 2.6.32-22-generic #36-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jun 3 19:31:57 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[Raumkraut (raumkraut)]

Had the same thing happen while prettifying up my fresh install of Xubuntu 10.04.
Notable differences:
1. I'm using i686, not x86_64
2. I'm using an nVidia card with the Nouveau driver, no ATI anything.

$ uname -a
Linux urist 2.6.32-23-generic-pae #37-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jun 11 09:26:55 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux

[stefano (rospolosco)]

I've just installed xubuntu 10.10. Same problem on my box. I googled and came here and I was surprised that this bug was known from May. This is a serious bug, it's something that crashes X. As a security fix you should repackage the themes without 'Wildbush' or at least running a script to delete Wildbsuh. It's just a theme. It's not smart let the user risk a crash for a theme.

[stefano (rospolosco)]

Here's attachments.
P.S. info: I did'nt install Nvidia proprietary drivers.

[Vesa P. (vesa33)]

Hi Stefano,

Thanks for your insight -- yeah, it's a good idea to drop the theme
until it's fixed. However, I'm not a developer of Xfce, so you should
ask someone else to repackage the themes... Thanks for you work in
highlighting the importance of this bug.

Best Regards,
   Vesa Paatero

13.10.2010 18:41, stefano wrote:
> I've just installed xubuntu 10.10. Same problem on my box. I googled and
> came here and I was surprised that this bug was known from May. This is
> a serious bug, it's something that crashes X. As a security fix you
> should repackage the themes without 'Wildbush' or at least running a
> script to delete Wildbsuh. It's just a theme. It's not smart let the
> user risk a crash for a theme.
>
>

[Lionel Le Folgoc (mrpouit)]

That will only hide the bug, not fix it. Someone should provide a backtrace if possible (because it is still unknown if the bug is in xfwm4 or xorg).

[Lionel Le Folgoc (mrpouit)]

See also https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingXorg

Oh, and you need a driver using exa (e.g. nouveau/radeon) to reproduce the issue (intel uses uxa, that's why I've never been able to reproduce this bug…)

[Vesa P. (vesa33)]

OK... do you mean something specific by "backtrace" ? I mean, do you
have in mind some suitable tool or log file that could give you the
information needed?

-Vesa

20.10.2010 17:21, Lionel Le Folgoc kirjoitti:
> That will only hide the bug, not fix it. Someone should provide a
> backtrace if possible (because it is still unknown if the bug is in
> xfwm4 or xorg).
>
> ** Changed in: xfwm4-themes (Ubuntu)
> Status: Triaged => Incomplete
>
>

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

The procedure to obtain the backtrace is
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Backtrace

Please read that page and attach the log file it produces to this report.

[stefano (rospolosco)]

Well. I found a clue. I just browsed the Wildbush theme directory and noticed that some *inactive* .xpm files were only totally transparent pictures. So, I did copy the relative *pressed* xpm pictures over the correspondent *inactive* pictures, when missing, e.g. cp close-pressed.xpm close-inactive.xpm or cp hide-pressed.xpm hide-inactive.xpm and so on. Then I reset the win decoration to wildbush and the bug was gone. Before that
I managed to see xsession log or xorg log, but didn't see any clue. Hope that helps. Regards.

[Vesa P. (vesa33)]

Hi again,

I got a backtrace. However, it doesn't seem to provide very much benefit - I couldn't find debugging symbols for the xfwm4-settings program itself, although I sought to install -dbg versions of all relevant-looking packages.

Without debugging symbols, the backtrace provides the benefit of one error message:

xfwm4-settings: Fatal IO error 11 (Resurssi ei tilapäisesti ole käytettävissä) on X server :0.0.

The text in parentheses is localized, translating back to English: "resource is temporarily unavailable".
A search by the error message brings a lot of relevant-looking hits.

Regards,
   Vesa

PS. My previous messages may look a bit funny because I was replying at emails in my mailbox, not knowing that they would show up here. At first I thought I was replying to a personal email because it showed me as the only recipient.. :-/

[peter f (emme09)]

I just wish to confirm this bug.
I upgraded Xubuntu from 10.04 to 10.10 today and then played with the theme settings.
Choosing Wildbush causes a serious crash, preventing further logins.
I got out of the pickle by logging in to the console and then went:
cd /usr/bin and running xfce4-panel.
That gave me the panels with access to the menus.
In Settings>Settings Editor I found :
xfwm4 > general/theme with the value = Wildbush [which I had set before].
I then used the 'Revert' button, which seemed to delete that theme entry.
It was a lucky try, because it reset the theme to default as I found out on re-boot and [the now possible] login!
Perhaps my post may help someone who was unlucky also to fall into the 'Wildbush-thicket'

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

http://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6672 has been marked a duplicate of http://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5966

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

From the Xfce developers comments on http://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6672 :

The X server crashes with:

Fatal server error:
exaGetPixmapFirstPixel called for invalid bpp 1

That is a bug in the X server or the Xorg driver and definitely not an
application issue, this should be reported and tracked with Xorg.

It is reported here https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=24703

Xorg devs are looking for a backtrace of the X server, from gdb.

http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg/2010-January/048821.html may also be
of interest.

[Rena Kunisaki (i-am-inuyasha)]

Same happens to me on a fresh install. Seems like this bug should have higher importance as it provides a very easy way for new users to accidentally "completely break" their system and the only way to get back in requires manipulating files in text mode (not ideal for someone who just switched to Linux). Definitely at least remove the file until it stops causing trouble.

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

This has been fixed in https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=24703 .

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. However, I am closing it because the bug has been fixed in the latest development version of Ubuntu - Natty Narwhal. This should be fixed in xorg 7.1, natty has 7.5.

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

[Buzz (mpknz)]

I easily fixed it without text manipulation by going into Low Graphics Mode and logging into xfce normally then changing the WM theme to something else. I didnt know this was a known problem, i thought i crashed Xubuntu on my first day of using it.

[Nikola M (nikolam)]

Why fix was not landed in LTS or other supported releases of Ubuntu and Xubuntu?

I still suffered this bug today, trying to change theme and could not log in again.

This bug is Not fixed, since it still affects Ubuntu/Xubuntu 10.04 and 10.10 (not sure about 11.04) and they are supported releases or they should be.

How fixing a bug in newer/newest release fix a bug in supported release, without actually back porting fix to supported release?

[Lionel Le Folgoc (mrpouit)]

Because this is a xorg bug (cf. comments on the upstream bug), and so you're complaining to the wrong people?

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Nikola, this has nothing to do with xorg-edgers (unsubscribing them). You should rather assign the bug (under Affects) to the right package, not subscribe other people or groups.