Bug 717811

I've just tried xfce with another account, and there everything still seems
to work.
So it seems the software update must have corrupted the config files in a major
way and the xfce menu configuration for my main account operates in a
garbage-in garbage-out mode now.

It sounds like several issues here. 

First, it sounds like xfwm4 died, or is no longer being started in your session. If you do a 'xfwm4&' in a xterm do all the window decorators come back and placement starts working again? 

For the workspace, I wonder if it's related to the lack of xfwm4. If you aren't running a window manager it may be unable to provide more workspaces. 

Can you attach your ~/.xsession-errors file from a failing session?

(In reply to comment #2)
> It sounds like several issues here. 
> 
> First, it sounds like xfwm4 died, or is no longer being started in your
> session. If you do a 'xfwm4&' in a xterm do all the window decorators come back
> and placement starts working again? 
> 
> For the workspace, I wonder if it's related to the lack of xfwm4. If you aren't
> running a window manager it may be unable to provide more workspaces. 

Starting xfwm4 by hand made new windows work.  The workspace switcher stayed
as 1 workspace, but its configury dialog now acknowledged that there was but
one workspace, and changing it to a larger number had the expected &
desired effect.  Changing the number of workspaces to zero was still accepted,
but fortunately merely grayed out the mini-view.
The xterm stuck up beyond the top of the desktop seemed reluctant to move
when I was in its workspace, but it eventually moved when I was in another
one and then moved it via the mini view.  And that revealed a title bar.
I am now using mozilla from my xfce session.

> Can you attach your ~/.xsession-errors file from a failing session?

I tried that, and the first time I couldn't upload control to 'browse'
for the file (never mind entering the $^& filename).  And file:// is not
accepted as a URL prefix.  I went back and found my comment was gone.  I
tried again the add attachment menue, and it sowed directories an plain files,
but not .xsession-errors, and still wouldn't allow me to type the filename.
I'll try with lxde.

Created attachment 510753 [details]
.xsession-errors file from .xfce start with missing xfwm4

When I was looking at this dialog in lxde, I realized that there was this
pencil-and-paper icon in the file selector box.  And low and behold, that
made another text entry field available, which actually worked . (Unlike
the one labelled "Enter the path to the file on your computer.") .
So I went back to xfce and found this operated the same way here.

Regarding the file, the message starting with: GDBus.Error:
was also displayed in a pop-up dialog box in the upper left corner.
I don't remember it being there in the previous failed session, but it
might have been below the xterm.

When I logged in again with xfce now, things worked OK.  Also the popup window
was not there.  Even though a similar error message is in the new
.xsession-errors file.

Created attachment 510755 [details]
Current .xsession-errors file

Curiously, the current .xsession-errors file doesn't look all that much different.

Yeah, sadly, that doesn't help much. ;( 

xfwm4 died at some point and your session got saved with it not present, so it didn't want to start it on login anymore. ;( 

Not sure how to determine what killed xfwm4, unless you can get it to happen again? 
Or had an abrt or other crash notification from it?

I don't know what caused it to get killed, but isn't the fact that it can stay
killed even in a fresh login a problem in itself?
E.g. if the window manager got killed because of a run-away memory hog, would
it then stay killed too if you managed to do an orderly reboot of the machine?
I thnk it would be better if a new xfwm4 was spawned if no window manager
process is currently running or being started.
If someone really wants an xfce session without a window manager, they could
have some kind of wm-dog to sit on the lock or whatever resource / token you
use to prevent starting a new window manager when one is already present.

Yes it is a problem but no, it's not a but because strictly speaking it's what you wanted when you logged out and had the "Save current session" option checked.

(In reply to comment #8)
> Yes it is a problem but no, it's not a but because strictly speaking it's what
> you wanted when you logged out and had the "Save current session" option
> checked.

I understand your technical argument, but I doubt that this is what the
average user expects to get from 'saving a session'.
They will only consider part of the session what they actually did themselves.
Or, more untractably, what they remember to have intentionally done themselves.

Well, I'm happy myself to know what's going on, and having my immediate problem
fixed, so I have nothing personally against closing this bug, but keeping in
mind that Fedora is supposed to be sort of a Beta-test for features to appear
in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, maybe some thought could be spent on making
the log-in process more predictable - if an office worker has only one
account with one graphical desktop interface available and no text consoles,
loosing functionality of this one interface is not just an annoyance, but a
show stopper.

I agreee it's less than ideal, but I'm not sure there is any easy solution. 

Some users use compiz/openbox/whatever instead of xfwm4. Some users might want no window manager (kiosk type setups). So, it's hard to say that xfwm4 should always be running. ;( 

Perhaps we could introduce some kind of failsafe session with a clean/known set and allow that as a login option to help folks who get into this state? 

In any case, I will close this and move discussion over to our Xfce list and/or upstream. Thanks.