tint2 strange issues and freezing

12oclocker · 2016-01-18 00:57:44

I installed bunsenlabs amd64 on my Dell e1705 (Inspirion 9400) laptop.

After an hour or two of computer use... tint2 freezes or icons change...
clicking anything up on the top bar does nothing, I have to right click the desktop area and restart tint2.
But after I restart tint2 I loose my wifi, battery, speaker icon
Sometimes tint2 does not freeze, but icons will dissappear, or change...
for example my wifi icon changed to the iceweasel icon out of nowhere.

Does anyone have any troubleshooting tips for figuring out why this is happening?

update: I should probably note, my laptop battery is "not installed" because it is defective.
I noticed I do not have a battery icon at the top, just a blank space where it should be.
I suspect maybe the problem has something to do with this.

johnraff · 2016-01-18 02:41:48

Hi 12oclocker, welcome to BunsenLabs!

Occasional freezes are a known bug with the tint2 version in Debian Stable, unfortunately. If they are infrequent you can usually recover by using the "restart tint2" menu item, as you found. Missing icons usually reappear if you click somewhere on the tint2 bar. If they are frequent enough to be annoying, you can stop them by removing the top-left launcher section. (The bug is related to startup notification when launching from icons.) Choose 'Edit tint2s>'Default tint2rc' from the menu, find this line (~62):

panel_items = LTSC

and remove the L so you have

panel_items = TSC

Save the file, restart tint2 and see if that fixes your problem. (You'll have to live without the launchers though.)

The missing battery icon is a bug in the fdpowermon configuration, now fixed in the latest version of bunsen-configs. 'sudo apt-get update' and 'sudo apt-get dist-upgrade' should fix it.

Temetka · 2016-01-18 11:08:56

I've also noticed this begavior.

Is there a newer version of Tint2 in unstable we can try? Maybe it doesn't have this bug.

Just a thought.

tknomanzr · 2016-01-18 16:11:47

I believe ov9000 fixed this. We really need to backport tint2 and offer it to folks as he has steadily been making improvements to it. If not, it is easy enough to grab from git and compile from source. I am running the git version because I like those nifty mouseover hover effects he implemented for the launcher icons.

Temetka · 2016-01-18 21:01:32

This one?

https://gitlab.com/o9000/tint2

tknomanzr · 2016-01-18 21:46:29

That would be it. Sorry I didn't post the link.

12oclocker · 2016-01-18 22:16:52

johnraff wrote:

....The missing battery icon is a bug in the fdpowermon configuration, now fixed in the latest version of bunsen-configs. 'sudo apt-get update' and 'sudo apt-get dist-upgrade' should fix it.

thanks everyone for the help so far, I followed the instructions above, and tint2 seams more stable so far, but I am still missing my battery icon, the place is there for it, but it is blank. (note: my battery is removed from my laptop) What should I see with a removed battery on a laptop? thanks

Head_on_a_Stick · 2016-01-18 22:22:14

12oclocker wrote:

I am still missing my battery icon, the place is there for it, but it is blank. (note: my battery is removed from my laptop) What should I see with a removed battery on a laptop?

Well I presume you should see no icon.

The empirical evidence certainly seems to support this assertion.
8o

EDIT: I've just checked in a VM and if the battery is disconnected an icon for "fully charged" is shown.

I'm not sure if this would apply to a bare metal installation but I think so.

Did you run the "bl-welcome" script and accept the xfce4-power-manager backport?

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2016-01-18 22:27:22)

o9000 · 2016-01-18 22:54:57

Temetka wrote:

This one?
https://gitlab.com/o9000/tint2

Indeed. Here is the changelog: https://gitlab.com/o9000/tint2/blob/master/ChangeLog

@12oclocker:

If you feel adventurous enough to install from source, please let me know if the latest code from master solves these problems: https://gitlab.com/o9000/tint2/wikis/In … rom-source

Keep in mind that the new tint2 must be started from /usr/local/bin/tint2 and not /usr/bin/tint2. Normally I recommend against installing from source unless you know how to clean up manually in case of problems. There is also https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian

Last edited by o9000 (2016-01-18 23:13:58)

hhh · 2016-01-19 00:35:40

12oclocker wrote:

What should I see with a removed battery on a laptop? thanks

What are you using for your panel applet... default BL which uses xfce4-power-manager and fdpowermon (both from jessie)?

re: latest stable tint2 backport, I'll try this later tonight and report back using the Ubuntu Xenial dsc and my simple-backport tutorial...
http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/tint2
https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic.php?id=58

12oclocker · 2016-01-19 00:49:42

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

...Did you run the "bl-welcome" script and accept the xfce4-power-manager backport?

That fixed it, a reboot was required for it to work.
I turned off the quicklaunch icons too, I'm kind of a minimalist anyway.
I hope xfce4-power-manager ends up being the default for bunsenlabs, seems the other one has issues.

o9000, if the stability issues keep coming back, I may go ahead and try the source install next. I will update in a few days on if everything is stable. thanks everyone.

Last edited by 12oclocker (2016-01-19 00:55:51)

hhh · 2016-01-19 02:38:27

The Xenial version backports and installs with no problem. On my box, it flickers quite a bit at startup with the current BL configs.

hhh · 2016-01-19 02:41:42

12oclocker wrote:

I hope xfce4-power-manager ends up being the default for bunsenlabs, seems the other one has issues.

Our backport won't be the default. BL is going to stay with Debian stable OOTB wherever possible and then the user can do whatever they like, we'll gladly help you break it.

johnraff · 2016-01-19 02:57:15

12oclocker wrote:

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:
...Did you run the "bl-welcome" script and accept the xfce4-power-manager backport?
That fixed it, a reboot was required for it to work.

Unfortunately there are two issues mixed up with the missing battery icon thing.

1) Even with the default BL install the fdpowermon icon should appear OK, but for a bug in ~/.config/fdpowermon/theme.cfg which holds the wrong path for the icon directory. An upgrade of bunsen-configs will now bring in the correct file to /usr/share/bunsen/skel and new users will get the fix, but existing users' personal config files will remain unchanged. (For the system to mess directly with peoples' personal configs would be rather rude.)

To fix it, either open ~/.config/fdpowermon/theme.cfg and edit line 3 to read

dir = /usr/share/icons/Faenza-Dark/status/22/

or else delete ~/.config/bunsen/bl-setup , log out and in again. All your config files will be reset to the defaults defined in bunsen-configs, but backup copies will be kept of any that are different.

2) The default version of xfce4-power-manager puts no icon in the system tray (that's why we use fdpowermon) but if you upgrade to the backports version it will put an icon there OK. This makes fdpowermon redundant, and the icon path issue irrelevant.

ppk · 2016-02-26 09:06:31

I am also having the same freezes with tin2 panel in RC2. They are too frequent to ignore. For time being, I will edit tint2rc as suggested in this post.

And also, though it was said in this topic that "Missing icons usually reappear if you click somewhere on the tint2 bar.", for me the missing icons (network manager icon, clipit icon etc) are not reappearing at all until I logout and login again.

However, as 'panel' is such a crucial thing dictating the over all stability of a desktop and thus the distro itself, why don't BL team backport the latest tint2 ? I am not any expert in programming, but I only want to know if there is any major challenge in backporting the latest 'tint2' ?

Last edited by ppk (2016-02-26 09:09:53)

o9000 · 2016-02-26 09:35:03

There is always a trade-off when updating software:

The version from debian stable is a few years old, and indeed has a few problems, but they are known.

The newer version fixes those problems, but may have other problems that are not yet known. It has not been tested thoroughly yet, except for those who compile from source and the usual poor souls in Arch and Fedora .

An alternative to backporting is cherry-picking some fixes for the more serious issues. This is quite time-consuming, which is why I haven't done it. I think the hang might not be that difficult to fix. Still, it is unlikely that debian stable will accept the changes.

Yet another alternative is to use BunsenLabs tracking debian testing. I don't have any experience with this, but sounds like a good thing to do for long-term.

johnraff · 2016-02-26 09:42:52

ppk wrote:

the missing icons (network manager icon, clipit icon etc) are not reappearing at all until I logout and login again.

Have you tried "Preferences">"Tint2">"Restart tint2" from the menu? That usually fixes it for me. Otherwise you'll just have to edit tint2conf and live without the launcher icons on the left. There are plenty of other ways to launch apps.

ppk · 2016-02-26 10:33:19

@johnraff : Yes. I've tried restarting the tin2 panel several times but I didn't get the missing items back untill I logged out and logged in again. At the moment, I've removed the launcher icons from panel as you have suggested in this post. But either way, it complicates life for other people (like my wife and kid) who occasionally use my laptop and gives them a feeling that my 'linux' is unstable/unpredictable.

Is there any hope of getting a backported 'tint2' in future ?

Last edited by ppk (2016-02-26 10:34:17)

tknomanzr · 2016-02-26 14:07:32

Whether the dev team decides to backport or not, tint2 is really easu to build from source. I have provided a link that has the instructions to do so. Please note, the latest stable tint2 will have some functionality not in the version that is in stable. I actually have hover effects on the launcher icons, thanks to o9000.

https://gitlab.com/o9000/tint2

Last edited by tknomanzr (2016-02-26 14:07:46)

ppk · 2016-02-26 15:36:50

@tknomanzr : Thanks. I've compiled and installed from the link you gave. I've to check whether it's any stable. And by the way, after installing from source, I've locked the version of existing package i.e., at version 0.11, in synaptic. Is it the correct way to protect my local installation-from-source from any future updates from debian stable ? Or can I safely remove it from synaptic without disturbing my local installation from source ?

Edit : Any way, thanks. I've safely removed tint2 version 0.11 from synaptic. All is well for now.

Last edited by ppk (2016-02-26 15:43:07)

#1 2016-01-18 00:57:44

tint2 strange issues and freezing

#2 2016-01-18 02:41:48

Re: tint2 strange issues and freezing

#3 2016-01-18 11:08:56

Re: tint2 strange issues and freezing

#4 2016-01-18 16:11:47

Re: tint2 strange issues and freezing

#5 2016-01-18 21:01:32

Re: tint2 strange issues and freezing

#6 2016-01-18 21:46:29

Re: tint2 strange issues and freezing

#7 2016-01-18 22:16:52

Re: tint2 strange issues and freezing

#8 2016-01-18 22:22:14

Re: tint2 strange issues and freezing

#9 2016-01-18 22:54:57

Re: tint2 strange issues and freezing

#10 2016-01-19 00:35:40

Re: tint2 strange issues and freezing

#11 2016-01-19 00:49:42

Re: tint2 strange issues and freezing

#12 2016-01-19 02:38:27

Re: tint2 strange issues and freezing

#13 2016-01-19 02:41:42

Re: tint2 strange issues and freezing

#14 2016-01-19 02:57:15

Re: tint2 strange issues and freezing

#15 2016-02-26 09:06:31

Re: tint2 strange issues and freezing

#16 2016-02-26 09:35:03

Re: tint2 strange issues and freezing

#17 2016-02-26 09:42:52

Re: tint2 strange issues and freezing

#18 2016-02-26 10:33:19

Re: tint2 strange issues and freezing

#19 2016-02-26 14:07:32

Re: tint2 strange issues and freezing

#20 2016-02-26 15:36:50

Re: tint2 strange issues and freezing

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