lightdm/xfce4, lost my window manager and my panels and some session state

[Joel Rees]

Several days back, after a late night session when I was asleep at the
keyboard by the time I logged at, xfwm4 quit starting up after logging
in from lightdm (which is my default dm).

There were no title bars and no trim. I could right-click on the
desktop and get the applications menu and start applications from
that, but I couldn't get keyboard focus into a terminal window to run
any commands from the command line.

Logging in on a virtual console (ctl-alt-Fn), I could check

ps wwaux | grep xf

and see that the window manager, xfwm4, did not show up. I could

startx

from there and the window manager and panels would be in place,
without memory of any of my session state. Logging out of x11 there,
and logging back out and back in through lightdm, there was no change
for the lightdm managed login. No title bars, no panels, most of my
session stuff still gone.

>From the application menu's "Run Program" (or whatever it is in
English) item, I was able to use the

xfwm4 --replace &

command and get the window manager and title bars back. Logging out
and in, my window manage was back, but not my panels.

Running

xfce4-panel

from a terminal window, I got my panels back and those persisted
through logging out and in, as well.

Still missing most of my workspace session state, and what is left is
all collected into a single workspace.

Well, all my workspaces were way cluttered, and it was probably time
to clean up anyway.

:-P

Would be interested in any suggestions about why that might have
happened (ergo, about what my fingers might have typed/moused while I
was not at home upstairs).

--
Joel Rees

Be careful when you look at conspiracy.
Arm yourself with knowledge of yourself, as well:
http://reiisi.blogspot.jp/2011/10/conspiracy-theories.html

[Charlie Kravetz]

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Someone deleted ~/.cache or ~/.config/xfce4 or some file in there.
Could also be a bug, used to have issues with Xfwm4 not starting always.

Xfce uses startxfce4 instead of startx, that could account for not
getting everything to start right again. Once you kick the dekstop in,
it doesn't care how it got there, but if done wrong it will lose its
mind and configuration data. You can add workspaces again, from
settings -> Workspaces. They will be empty, but at least they will be
there.

I keep xfce4-panel in startup and sessions, auto-start, just to make
sure it always runs. For reasons unknown, it will sometimes fail to
start.

- --
Charlie Kravetz
Linux Registered User Number 425914
[http://linuxcounter.net/user/425914.html]
Never let anyone steal your DREAM. [http://keepingdreams.com]
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[Ric Moore]

On 01/28/2016 09:59 PM, Charlie Kravetz wrote:

> I keep xfce4-panel in startup and sessions, auto-start, just to make
> sure it always runs. For reasons unknown, it will sometimes fail to
> start.
>

Running Sid and with last update the greeter fails to respond to the
mouse or keyboard (both USB). Still trying to trouble shoot with a
shotgun. On another drive, on the same desktop machine, I have no
problem using the mouse or keyboard running Xubuntu. I'll report back
when I find the culprit, Ric