[solved] conky hangs (when trying to ingerate intodesktop)

[Member papahippo]

I am using the 64-bit runit version of antiX21.

This problem occurs both on a Thinkpad notebook and on a desktop system with Asus notherboard; booth of these run MX Linux (resp. 19 end 21) without problems.

After startup, instead of being merged into the desktop, conky is visible as a square black window with white text, top left on the screen.

If I toggle Conky off an on from a console window, the turning on action hangs after the following output:

gill@luna:~$ conkytoggle.sh
gill@luna:~$ conkytoggle.sh
Conky: desktop window (80009e) is subwindow of root window (113)
Conky: window type – desktop
Conky: drawing to created window (0xc00001)
Conky: drawing to single buffer

The ‘new’ conky appears just a wrong as the previous one.

Another problem (most probably related, hence combined in one post) I observe is that the window decorations (X for close, _ for minimize etc) are all missing.

The non-64bit runit version displays exactly teh same symptoms on the Thinkpad (not tried on the desktop).

I’ve done all my testing with IceWM; I really don’t like the alternatives.

In all cases, the installatoin gave no errors; the desktop install did however give a warning about the lack of a GRUB-BIOS partition for GPT install, which I anxiously ignored.

Thanks for your attention. Hope someone can offer advice!

Larry / papahippo

e.

• This topic was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by christophe. Reason: marked "solved" per request

[Member papahippo]

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follow up info:

Working on the hunch that this is a graphics-driver related problem, here is the relevant(?) syseem info:

Graphics:  Device-1: Intel 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics 
           vendor: ASUSTeK driver: i915 v: kernel bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:0102 
           Device-2: GEMBIRD USB2.0 PC CAMERA type: USB driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo 
           bus-ID: 2-1.6:6 chip-ID: 1908:2310 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
           resolution: 1: 1280x1024~60Hz 2: 1680x1050~60Hz s-dpi: 96 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 2000 (SNB GT1) v: 3.3 Mesa 20.3.5 
           compat-v: 3.0 direct render: Yes 

[Member dirkd]

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I have seen that black square window too when trying to work around some conky problems of my own. Perhaps you can try conky-legacy-std in stead of the default conky-legacy-all? Both are offered in synaptic package manager. If it doesn’t solve your problem you can easily revert.

[Moderator caprea]

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You could try what happens if you create another user, are the conditions still the same for the new user?
control-centre > maintenance > User management

Don’t think this is graphic related.

[Anonymous]

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And, Please show your .conkyrc 😉

[Member papahippo]

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I’ve tried creating another user: no difference.
I really think the conky problem and the missing ‘x’ and ‘_’ in the squares on the windows are related as if some graphic operation to blit data into a screen area is failing or hanging. The main menu displays ok but some submenus just show as a horizontal line, as if the driver command to blit the icon on the item is also bombing out.
I could live with or disable the ‘ugly’ conky, but these other failures make the installation unusable.

The 32-bit installer also fails, but that same installer works fine on my old Dell D610. (Possibly because that is recognized as a less able video chip so Linux doesn’t try anything fancy?)

N.B this is the ‘runit’ flavour of AntiX. For me, that is the point of the exercise: I’m looking for an out-of-the-box running runit distro. I realise that the ‘runit’ flavour is pretty new to Antix so maybe this is teething trouble that will be identified later. I’m patient. I’ll stick with my MX + systemd system for the time being and come back to this later. (Linux has taken far more of my time than I had planned in recent days. … kind of fun time but there are limits!)

[Moderator caprea]

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Hello male, i was thinking about you today, more precisely when i read this thread.Nice to see you again here.

[Member dirkd]

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I get the black-square conky when my .conkyrc cannot be found. Try it on a computer where conky runs OK. Rename ~/.conkyrc to ~/.conkyrc-test, then toggle conky off and on again: black square conky window. Rename again to ~/.conkyrc and toggle off/on: conky back to normal and integrated on the desktop.

So check if ~./conkyrc is present, doesn’t contain illegal commands and has the right permissions assigned.

I have Antix21 64bit Runit, 5.10 kernel, and everything just works.

[Member papahippo]

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Thanks for the tip about ‘~/.conkyrc’. I have no such file on the problem system. I’ll see if I can find one on the working system,otherwise on the installation disk. Conky worls fine when running from the installation disk.
But the missing window decorations remain a show-stopper!

[Member dirkd]

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The window decorations are part of the IceWM themes. Check if these are installed as they should. Have you tried other then the default theme? Maybe you get to see the decorations in other themes.

Normally you find the theme files in /usr/share/icewm. The decorations are small bitmap pictures with extension .xpm, that open in Mirage if you want to look at them. There should also be a personal configuration folder present at ~.icewm/. Since you have problems with ~/.conkyrc, maybe that folder too is absent or compromised.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by dirkd.

[Anonymous]

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caprea wrote:

Hello male, i was thinking about you today, more precisely when i read this thread.Nice to see you again here.

Thank you @caprea, thank you for your kind words.

I am equally happy to see you here as a moderator. Good people are in high demand.
I hope you are safe and sound.

On topic:
antiX was actually always running on one of my computers. Since antiX-M8, I can’t remember ever seeing a Conky with this error:

Conky: drawing to single buffer

All conky’s on the ISO’s of antiX have this object variable
double_buffer yes

[Member papahippo]

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Eureka!
The problem relates to the fact that I am sharing a home directory with my trusty MX19 installation. This causes the installer to fail to create the ~/.Xresources directory and the ~/.conkyrc file.

To establish this beyond reasonable doubt, I have resintalled AntiX21-runit on the same pc, same partition and options but with different (not yet existing) login user name. This fixes conky and fixed the issues with window decorations etc.

My use-case of “Existing MX19 user want to give Antix21 a spin, in a bid to use ‘runit’ instead of ‘sysrtemd”, though clearly fraught with danger, is surely not unique to me. Perhaps this should be independently checked out and if necessary listed as a known issue.. and maybe fixed at some stage.

The administrators may now choose to append ‘solved’ to the title of this post at their discretion.

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