Grey (root) window only when launched via X2GO on SID
There are 4 machines in question:
Reference:
NUC: (An Intel NUC, Running "Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS")
YBOX: (A Tiny PC with Intel(R) Celeron(R) Running "Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)"
SILVER: (Tower PC, AMD Athlon Running "Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)"
REAL: (Tower PC, Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770 Running "Debian GNU/Linux bookworm/sid")
The normal usecase is the physical screen&keyboard is connected to NUC and X2GO is used to access the others (There is a HDMI & USB Switch to also allow access)
Using xfce4-about -V and x2goversion
NUC: KDE (Kubuntu), x2goserver: 4.1.0.3 and all others, bar . x2goserver-x2goagent: 3.5.99.26
YBOX: xfce4-about 4.16.0 , x2goserver: 4.1.0.3 and all others, bar x2goserver-x2goagent: 3.5.99.26
SILVER: xfce4-about 4.12.1 , x2goserver 4.1.0.3 and all others, bar x2goserver-x2goagent: 3.5.99.22
REAL: xfce4-about 4.16.1 , x2goserver: 4.1.0.3 and all others, bar x2goserver-x2goagent: 3.5.99.26
FIXES (N.B. all Debian based systems):
FIX1:
$ diff ~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfwm4.xml.orig ~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfwm4.xml
75c75
< <property name="use_compositing" type="bool" value="true"/>
---
> <property name="use_compositing" type="bool" value="false"/>
Fix2:
$ cat /etc/x2go/Xsession.d/98xfwm4-no_compositing
/usr/bin/xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p /general/use_compositing -s false
Description:
YBOX on initial install suffered 100% loop when accessed from NUC via x2go. Fix1 was applied and it now works fine SILVER: Just worked from 1st install seems to have setting use_compositing="true" NOTE1 (which is ignored? in that version) REAL: The one with problems :-)
On initial install, REAL almost worked. There were issues with redraws such that the screen started OK but was not updated consistently, eventually became unreadable.
Found: #551
Applied FIX2. Now the entire X-Screen is just grey (I see a flash of the "correct" desktop, but it redraws as grey immediately).
Now it looks to me as iff FIX1 & FIX2 are supposed to do the same thing.
Removing FIX2: ---> Oddly the screen remains grey (rebooted REAL)
Curiously , the effect of FIX1 seems to come pre-applied in SID
graeme@real:~$ grep compositing ~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfwm4.xml
<property name="use_compositing" type="bool" value="false"/>
So I'll try setting it to "true" ....didn't help, set back to false
To be clear, settings are now back to their starting values, however the behaviour has changed, now I just see a brief flash of a normal XFCE desktop then it goes to a grey window. This looks like the X root window, so:
$ DISPLAY=:50 XAUTHORITY=/home/graeme/.Xauthority /usr/bin/xclock -update 1
The clock appears and updates fine on the grey (so it IS the X root window)
There are a lot of errors in: ~/.xsession-x2go-real-errors
In answer to the obvious question, WRT lightdm:
graeme@real:~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml$ ps -ef | grep lightdm
root 853 1 0 16:31 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/lightdm
root 874 853 0 16:31 tty7 00:00:00 /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg :0 -seat seat0 -auth /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -novtswitch
root 940 853 0 16:31 ? 00:00:00 lightdm --session-child 17 20
lightdm 944 1 0 16:31 ? 00:00:00 /lib/systemd/systemd --user
lightdm 945 944 0 16:31 ? 00:00:00 (sd-pam)
lightdm 972 944 0 16:31 ? 00:00:00 /usr/bin/pipewire
lightdm 976 944 0 16:31 ? 00:00:00 /usr/bin/wireplumber
lightdm 978 944 0 16:31 ? 00:00:00 /usr/bin/pipewire-pulse
lightdm 981 940 0 16:31 ? 00:00:01 /usr/sbin/lightdm-gtk-greeter
lightdm 982 944 0 16:31 ? 00:00:00 /usr/bin/dbus-daemon --session --address=systemd: --nofork --nopidfile --systemd-activation --syslog-only
lightdm 986 944 0 16:31 ? 00:00:00 /usr/libexec/gvfsd
lightdm 992 944 0 16:31 ? 00:00:00 /usr/libexec/gvfsd-fuse /run/user/115/gvfs -f
lightdm 1040 944 0 16:31 ? 00:00:00 /usr/libexec/at-spi-bus-launcher
lightdm 1050 1040 0 16:31 ? 00:00:00 /usr/bin/dbus-daemon --config-file=/usr/share/defaults/at-spi2/accessibility.conf --nofork --print-address 11 --address=unix:path=/run/user/115/at-spi/bus
root 1087 853 0 16:31 ? 00:00:00 lightdm --session-child 13 20
lightdm 1089 944 0 16:31 ? 00:00:00 /usr/libexec/at-spi2-registryd --use-gnome-session
lightdm 1094 944 0 16:31 ? 00:00:00 /usr/libexec/tracker-miner-fs-3
lightdm 1112 944 0 16:31 ? 00:00:00 /usr/libexec/gvfs-udisks2-volume-monitor
lightdm 1117 944 0 16:31 ? 00:00:00 /usr/libexec/gvfs-afc-volume-monitor
lightdm 1122 944 0 16:31 ? 00:00:00 /usr/libexec/gvfs-gphoto2-volume-monitor
lightdm 1126 944 0 16:31 ? 00:00:00 /usr/libexec/gvfs-goa-volume-monitor
lightdm 1131 944 0 16:31 ? 00:00:00 /usr/libexec/goa-daemon
lightdm 1143 944 0 16:31 ? 00:00:00 /usr/libexec/goa-identity-service
lightdm 1148 944 0 16:31 ? 00:00:00 /usr/libexec/gvfs-mtp-volume-monitor
graeme 21585 5995 0 17:15 pts/5 00:00:00 grep lightdm
And XCFE is not just dead:
graeme@real:~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml$ ps -ef | grep xfwm
graeme 4545 4081 1 16:37 pts/2 00:00:41 emacs /home/graeme/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfwm4.xml
graeme 20258 20016 0 17:13 ? 00:00:00 xfwm4
graeme 26811 5995 0 17:39 pts/5 00:00:00 grep xfwm
graeme@real:~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml$ ps -ef | grep xfce
graeme 4545 4081 1 16:37 pts/2 00:00:41 emacs /home/graeme/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfwm4.xml
graeme 9680 856 0 16:54 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xfce4/xfconf/xfconfd
graeme 19891 1 0 17:13 ? 00:00:00 /bin/bash /usr/bin/x2goruncommand 50 19774 graeme-50-1668100420_stDXFCE_dp24 34071 xfce4-session nosnd D
graeme 20016 20014 0 17:13 ? 00:00:00 xfce4-session
graeme 20165 1 0 17:13 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xfce4/xfconf/xfconfd
graeme 20312 20016 0 17:13 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xfce4/notifyd/xfce4-notifyd
graeme 20315 20016 0 17:13 ? 00:00:00 xfce4-power-manager
graeme 26829 5995 0 17:39 pts/5 00:00:00 grep xfce
graeme@real:~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml$
=====================================================================================
*NOTE1*
-*- mode: grep; default-directory: "~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/" -*-
grep --color -nH -e compositing *
xfwm4.xml:72: <property name="use_compositing" type="bool" value="true"/>
=====================================================================================
I'll attempt to attach (a rather fulsome) .xsession-x2go-real-errors
dot-xsession-x2go-real-errors.txt