can't move file/directory by drag and drop by using touch monitor

[Yuan-Chen Cheng]

[ Impact ]

In the GNOME Wayland desktop session you can't move a file/directory by drag and drop using a touchscreen

[ Test Case ]

0. Log in to a GNOME Wayland desktop session
1. Launch the Nautilus file manager
2. Navigate to a directory with at least 1 directory and 1 file
3. Verify that using a touchscreen you're able to drag-and-drop the file into the directory

[ Where problems could occur ]

mutter is the Wayland compositor library that provides graphics and inputs for the GNOME desktop, thus is a critical component.
Problems could manifest with mouse/touch input not working anymore, or sudden log-out if gnome-shell crashes.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Unfortunately, we cannot work on this bug because your description didn't include enough information. You may find it helpful to read "How to report bugs effectively" http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html. We'd be grateful if you would then provide a more complete description of the problem.

We have instructions on debugging some types of problems at http://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingProcedures.

At a minimum, we need:

1. The specific steps or actions you took that caused you to encounter the problem.
2. The behavior you expected.
3. The behavior you actually encountered (in as much detail as possible).

Please also ensure that you include the release and flavour of Ubuntu that you are using.

Thank you!

[Yuan-Chen Cheng (ycheng-twn)]

video captured as running jammy, updated @ 2022/03/29, x11 mode. (It works on x11 mode, but it's not on Wayland mode)

To move a file by drag and drop in x11 mode, need to move fast. If you check the video, if the finger moves too slow, it will show the context menu, and no longer be able to move the file around.

[Yuan-Chen Cheng (ycheng-twn)]

The output of "dpkg -l" as capture video in #2.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

sorry but the description is unclear, you mention that it doesn't work in wayland, is that the issue you report? then you mention that hold the press opens the context menu, is that the issue or another one?

[Yuan-Chen Cheng (ycheng-twn)]

Yes, it's not working in Wayland mode, and that's the issue.

I don't know if gnome/nautilus have this feature (dnd file to move it by using touch monitor)

Maybe it's not and just happened to partially work on x11 mode (if you check the video I upload, which is x11 mode)

If gnome/nautilus does not have this feature, I think this is a good feature to have. (May need to think the proper way to)

For the context menu in Wayland mode for the directory, I create lp:1964091.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/2649 seems to describe a similar issue

[jeremyszu (os369510)]

After some checks, it seems because data_device_start_drag() doesn't support MetaWaylandTouch.

The fix will impact the mutter architecture and it's more likely a feature request in mutter so far.
It can be workaround by either sync MetaWaylandPointer motion and MetaWaylandTouch when meta_wayland_seat_update() or meta_wayland_seat_handle_event() with some tweaks. or some changes in meta_wayland_data_device_start_drag().

As maintainer mentions[1] the drag feature is refactoring

part.1: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/merge_requests/2068
part.2: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/merge_requests/2099
part.3: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/merge_requests/2100

and this issue might be fixed in part.5...

For both workaround look not suitable with the maintainer's design.
I prefer to wait until the refactoring completed by maintainer.

[1] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/2393#note_1532698

[Jay Chen (jay-ch)]

Understand this refactoring work is handled by the maintainer and no release date committed at this point.

Still want to add this in a wish list since this issue is really causing bad user experience in Wayland mode.

I am asking a fix could land by November '22 for PC OEM platforms with touch screen in production, if at all possible.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

See also bug 1813441 but that suggests it should have been working since the release of desktop-icons-ng.

[Rex Tsai (chihchun)]

Changed the bug importance of oem-priority to Critical, since it impacts the user experience on Wayland and failed on Ubuntu Desktop certification requirement.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

That's a lot of private proprietary bugs. Are you sure you can't close most of them as duplicates of each other?

[jeremyszu (os369510)]

They are used for different platform of different OEM. The OEM platform owner tracks specific platform bugs by platform tag in the private bug and we are not able to share the platform information cross OEM.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Even keeping one bug open per platform, I see no need for more than four of these:

1. bug 1993110, bug 2002265, bug 2000750, bug 1996495, bug 1981676, bug 1996036, bug 1997210, bug 1996155, bug 2033591, bug 2045839

2. bug 2006685

3. bug 1982904

4. bug 2003169, bug 2006547, bug 2007815, bug 2022991, bug 2021934, bug 2019935, bug 2033002

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

See also bug 2029416.

[Kent Lin (kent-jclin)]

Still fail on Ubuntu 23.10.01
nautilus: 45-rc

[Zorro Zhang (zorro-zhang)]

Confirmed it's workable under Ubuntu 24.04 GA release on XPS 13, Wayland mode.

[Leo Lin (0xff07)]

Hi @zorro-zhang. Could you share how you tested it? I tried on both Dell and HP platforms on Noble, and none of them seemed to work.

[Alessandro Astone (aleasto)]

Not a bug in Nautilus.

Mutter fix proposed upstream: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/merge_requests/4091

Verified the backport for noble which requires 2 additional fixes from upstream

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package mutter - 47.4-1ubuntu2

---------------
mutter (47.4-1ubuntu2) plucky; urgency=medium

  [ Alessandro Astone ]
  * Add proposed patch to fix tests on Ubuntu

 -- Marco Trevisan (Treviño) <email address hidden> Tue, 21 Jan 2025 19:41:56 +0100