#1 2019-11-02 13:07:39

msoutopico

Member

Registered: 2018-11-23

Posts: 10

Issues when running dmenu

Dear all,

I have a VM running Bunsenlabs (BL is the guest, WIndows 10 is the host).

I have started having a weird issue with dmenu. WHenever I press the shortcut Alt+F3, some things block. dmenu doesn't show, right clicking on the desktop doesn't bring up the contextual menu, I cannot drag windows, I cannot type on the terminal... Very annoying.

Could somebody help with this?

My keybindings show:

x 	A-F3            	~/.config/dmenu/dmenu-bind.sh

and that file has

msoutopico@helium5:~$ cat ~/.config/dmenu/dmenu-bind.sh 
#!/bin/bash
#
# written for BunsenLabs by damo <damo@bunsenlabs.org> May 2015
# modified July 2017
#
# -nb    normal background colour
# -nf    normal foreground colour
# -sb    selected background colour
# -sf    selected foreground colour
#
# -b    place menu at bottom (otherwise appears at top)
#
# See 'man dmenu' for more information.

USAGE="\n  To start dmenu at the top or bottom of the screen,\n\
  add or remove -b in the dmenu_run command in dmenu-bind.sh.\n\
  -b     locate at bottom\n\n\
  To change colours, edit the options:\n\n\
  -nb    normal background colour\n\
  -nf    normal foreground colour\n\
  -sb    selected background colour\n\
  -sf    selected foreground colour\n\n\
  Get all configuration options with 'man dmenu'.\n"

if [[ $# = 1 ]]; then
    case $1 in
        -h|--help   ) echo -e "$USAGE"
        exit 0;;
        *           ) echo -e "\n  Invalid command argument\n"
        exit 1;;
    esac
fi

# BL-Hydrogen (Crunchbang):
#dmenu_run -b -i -nb '#151617' -nf '#d8d8d8' -sb '#d8d8d8' -sf '#151617'

# BL-Helium Beam theme
# Bottom
dmenu_run -i -b -nb '#082B4A' -nf '#ADD8E6' -sb '#446F6C' -sf '#151617'
# Top
#dmenu_run -i -nb '#082B4A' -nf '#ADD8E6' -sb '#446F6C' -sf '#151617' 

Thanks in advance for any help.

Cheers, Manuel

clusterF

Member

Registered: 2019-05-07

Posts: 539

Re: Issues when running dmenu

I doubt it is dmenu causing issues, most likley your VM keybindings, what VM software are you using?

nobody

The Great

Registered: 2015-08-10

Posts: 3,655

Re: Issues when running dmenu

What is the content of ~/.config/dmenu/dmenu-bind.sh? Perhaps the command that should feed dmenu gives no input, or demu behaves strangely upon receiving no input. Does the same happen if you just bind to dmenu_run instead?

To debug your script, you may put

set -x

at the top and then find the execution trace in ~/.xsession-errors.

malm

jgmenu developer

Registered: 2016-10-13

Posts: 752

Website

Re: Issues when running dmenu

Does dmenu start (even if you can’t see it)?

Do a loop with pgrep or something to confirm. Or htop

dmenu does grab keyboard + pointer, so that would explain the behaviour.

If you press Escape, do you get keyboard+pointer back?

If you type a command (e.g. thunar), will it launch?

ohnonot

...again

Registered: 2015-09-29

Posts: 5,592

Re: Issues when running dmenu

please enter

dmenu_run -i -b -nb '#082B4A' -nf '#ADD8E6' -sb '#446F6C' -sf '#151617'

and show us what it outputs.
As said before, you can Escape when it seems to lock up the desktop.

msoutopico

Member

Registered: 2018-11-23

Posts: 10

Re: Issues when running dmenu

Thank you for all your replies.

I will try to answer to everyone:

@clusterF: I use VirtualBox.

@nobody: The content of file `~/.config/dmenu/dmenu-bind.sh` is in my original post.

The `~/.xsession-errors session` shows:

+ USAGE='\n  To start dmenu at the top or bottom of the screen,\n  add or remove -b in the dmenu_run command in dmenu-bind.sh.\n  -b     locate at bottom\n\n  To change colours, edit the options:\n\n  -nb    normal background colour\n  -nf    normal foreground colour\n  -sb    selected background colour\n  -sf    selected foreground colour\n\n  Get all configuration options with '\''man dmenu'\''.\n'
+ [[ 0 = 1 ]]
+ dmenu_run -i -b -nb '#082B4A' -nf '#ADD8E6' -sb '#446F6C' -sf '#151617'

@malm: Yes, it seems to run

msoutopico@helium5:~$ ps aux | grep dmenu
msoutop+  5471  0.0  0.1  12184  4376 pts/0    T    10:59   0:00 nano /home/msoutopico/.config/dmenu/dmenu-bind.sh
msoutop+  5537  0.0  0.0   8604   884 pts/0    S+   11:04   0:00 grep dmenu

If I press Escape, I get keyboard and pointer back, thanks! Useful to know.

Yes, if I tun, say, thunar, I don't see anything being typed in the bottom, but when I press Enter it launches. So it seems like a visualization issue.

@ohnonot: that line (which seems like the one I have in the dmenu-bind.sh file) reproduces the behaviour I have reported.

I have tried removing the "-b" option, and it seems to work fine on the top of the screen.

Any clue what is wrong? Thanks a lot.

Cheers, Manuel

damo

....moderator....

Registered: 2015-08-20

Posts: 6,734

Re: Issues when running dmenu

There is a lot of information in

man dmenu_run

Are you losing some of your desktop at the bottom of the monitor, so that dmenu is out of sight? Try listing items vertically and see if they all appear:

dmenu_run -i  -b -l 10 -nb '#082B4A' -nf '#ADD8E6' -sb '#446F6C' -sf '#151617'

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ohnonot

...again

Registered: 2015-09-29

Posts: 5,592

Re: Issues when running dmenu

A wild guess:
dmenu "grabs" the X keyboard by default, that means you cannot do anything else while it waits for input.
This may or may not be ideal, but it's the expected behaviour - maybe you just struggle with that, it confuses you?
You can always <Escape> out of it.