Bug 750476

Summary:	Mutter no longer works (properly) as window manager in fallback mode
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Bojan Smojver <bojan>
Component:	mutter	Assignee:	Peter Robinson <pbrobinson>
Status:	CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	16	CC:	maxamillion, otaylor, pbrobinson, walters
Target Milestone:	---	Keywords:	Reopened
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	x86_64
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2012-02-07 21:20:55 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:

Description Bojan Smojver 2011-11-01 09:26:50 UTC

Description of problem:
If one replaces metacity with mutter in fallback mode, on user switch and switch back, or on suspend/resume, mutter crashes with:
------------------------
Window manager warning: Log level 16: The program 'mutter' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)'.
  (Details: serial 9782 error_code 3 request_code 151 minor_code 1)
  (Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
   that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
   To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line
   option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
   backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)
------------------------

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
mutter-3.2.1-2.fc16.x86_64

How reproducible:
Always.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Run mutter in fallback mode.
2. Suspend/resume or switch users back and forth.
3. See mutter crash.
  
Actual results:
Mutter crashes.

Expected results:
This worked in F15.

Additional info:
Not sure whether this is some kind of "feature" to discourage folks from running mutter in fallback mode. If it is, not everyone is all that happy with gnome-shell and yet we do like a simple, but 3D accelerated window manager.

Comment 1 Peter Robinson 2011-11-01 09:36:43 UTC

mutter is not suppose to be used in fall back mode. Mutter is a port of metacity to work with 3D/clutter (metacity + clutter = mutter). If you have a 3D card you should use standard gnome-shell + mutter. If you don't have a card capable, or don't wish to use the gnome-shell interface you should use fall back with metacity. There is no benefit of using fallback with mutter.

Comment 2 Bojan Smojver 2011-11-01 11:03:39 UTC

Gnome-shell requires mutter, not the other way around.

The problem from this bug is that mutter crashes when it receives and X error, which it should not.

Mutter is a window manager that requires 3D acceleration with work (mostly) OK on my notebook:

http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pub_ebd16c9b-ba21-4d39-964a-cfd361713146

So, either this is broken on purpose or it's a bug. I would like to know from mutter developers which is it.

Comment 3 Peter Robinson 2011-11-01 11:24:35 UTC

> So, either this is broken on purpose or it's a bug. I would like to know from
> mutter developers which is it.

ultimately you should report it in bugzilla.gnome.org as that's where design design decisions are made.

Comment 4 Bojan Smojver 2011-11-01 12:20:54 UTC

I'm sure Fedora maintainer will upstream it if required.

Comment 5 Bojan Smojver 2011-11-02 01:27:52 UTC

(In reply to comment #1)
> There is no benefit of using fallback with mutter.

Just one more comment here.

Yes, there is. I get a simple (i.e. not compiz) 3D accelerated window manager without the insanity that is gnome-shell.

Comment 6 Bojan Smojver 2011-11-02 02:09:36 UTC

In comparison, compiz appears to work fine (i.e. doesn't crash due to any X BadWindow errors).

Comment 7 Bojan Smojver 2011-11-23 05:25:14 UTC

Tried cheating with the mutter build from F-17, but gdm hung with that, so no luck.

Comment 8 Bojan Smojver 2012-02-07 21:20:55 UTC

This was fixed in mutter-3.2.2-1.fc16.x86_64. Thanks.