Annoying "feature" when scrolling a panned desktop.

[Marc Chamberlin]

Hi - I am using the TigerVNC viewer on my Linux (OpenSuSE 15.4 with KDE/Plasma) systems and the x11vnc server.

x11vnc -license
x11vnc: a VNC server for X displays.  0.9.16 lastmod: 2019-01-05

TigerVNC Viewer 64-bit v1.9.0

I start the x11vnc server with the following command -

/usr/bin/x11vnc -verbose -display :0 -auth /home/marc/.Xauthority -forever -loop \
-noxdamage -repeat -rfbauth /etc/vncpasswd -o /var/log/x11vnc.log \
-rfbport 5900 -noipv6 -shared;

and the vncviewer command is simply -

vncviewer <URL>:5900

This works fine for the most part, but with one very annoying feature. Usually this results in a display window with scrollbars that allows me to pan the view across the remote desktop. But when the scroll button is moved to near the top or bottom of the scrolling range, it appears as if a show desktop command was executed. All the open windows are immediately removed from the display, and only the desktop itself is shown. This "feature" prevents me from panning to the very top or bottom, or to the very left or right. I want to disable this scrolling side effect, but cannot find a way to do so. Google and logfiles has been zip helpful, and I don't know if the "feature" is coming from the x11vnc service or from the vncviewer application.

Are there any gurus around who can shed light on this "feature" and knows how to disable it?  Many thanks in advance for your time and thoughtful replies!

   Marc...

[Pierre Ossman]

On 10/04/2023 21:08, Marc Chamberlin wrote:
>
> Are there any gurus around who can shed light on this "feature" and knows
> how to disable it? Many thanks in advance for your time and thoughtful
> replies!
>

That is not an expected behaviour. And the client shouldn't be sending
anything to the server when interacting with the scroll bars.

Could you share a screenshot, just to double check that we are
discussing the same thing?

Regards
--
Pierre Ossman Software Development
Cendio AB https://cendio.com
Teknikringen 8 https://twitter.com/ThinLinc
583 30 Linköping https://facebook.com/ThinLinc
Phone: +46-13-214600

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

[Marc Chamberlin]

Sure, if fact I will attach 2 screenshots, one showing the screen image "before" I use the scroll bar, and the other showing what happens after I scrolled the view to the top of the image. All I do is scroll to either the top or bottom and the screen automatically drops all windows and just shows the "plasma" desktop itself.

   Marc...

[Pierre Ossman]

On 28/04/2023 18:41, Marc Chamberlin wrote:
> Sure, if fact I will attach 2 screenshots, one showing the screen image
> "before" I use the scroll bar, and the other showing what happens after I
> scrolled the view to the top of the image. All I do is scroll to either the
> top or bottom and the screen automatically drops all windows and just shows
> the "plasma" desktop itself.
>

Sorry for the delay here, this got lost in the mail pile.

I tried reproducing the issue here, and unfortunately failed. But I
noticed that you are running TigerVNC 1.9.0, which is rather old. Could
you check if the issue appears with the latest version of TigerVNC?

You only need to change the client. The server should have no blame in this.

[Marc Chamberlin]

Actually, in the meantime, I upgraded my OpenSuSE system from v15.3 to v15.4 and along with the upgrade my TigerVNC viewer was also upgraded to version 1.10.1. I just did a quick test and the problem seems to be solved. So at least one more annoying "feature" can be taken off the plate of aggravations! LOL

    Marc C