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Xfce Appearance/Theme crashes and has other bugs

I installed
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artix-xfce-runit-20200506-x86_64.iso
and performed a system upgrade resulting in the following kernel:
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Linux xo 5.8.3-artix1-1 #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat, 22 Aug 2020 20:54:32 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux

From the Menu, in Settings Manager, in Appearance, there are some default (pre-installed) themes:
  • Adwaita
  • Adwaita-dark
  • Artix-dark
  • High Contrast

Artix-dark is the theme by default.

Settings Manager Help links to the following location (apparently indicating its version):
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https://docs.xfce.org/help.php?version=4.14&locale=en_US&component=xfce4-settings

ISSUE #1
With Artix-dark as the theme, from the Menu, in Settings Manager, hovering above the scroll bar causes Settings Manager to crash. The window disappears. Running Settings Manager from a terminal, I was able to see stderr messages:
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(xfce4-settings-manager:2578): Gtk-CRITICAL **: 13:30:45.423: _gtk_css_image_get_concrete_size: assertion 'default_width > 0' failed

(xfce4-settings-manager:2578): Gtk-CRITICAL **: 13:30:45.424: _gtk_css_image_get_surface: assertion 'surface_width > 0' failed
Segmentation fault

ISSUE #2
With any default theme other than Artix-dark (and perhaps Adwaita-dark), the theme is not applied properly, and may result in black text on a dark background in several areas such as menus and buttons, which is virtually impossible to see. This behavior can be observed on the exit dialog buttons when using leafpad when being asked to save. This behavior is also apparent in a different way when trying to use a program such as kid3. In both instances, black text appears on a very dark background.

WORKAROUND
At first, I had to use Artix-dark (or perhaps Adwaita-dark) in order to see things. However, this was a very poor workaround, because the dark themes are very difficult for me to see on a small, dimmed laptop screen in an outdoor environment.

I am now avoiding all of these issues because I moved the following directories and all of their contents to a directory that the system does not know about:
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/usr/share/themes/Adwaita
/usr/share/themes/Adwaita-dark
/usr/share/themes/Artix-dark
/usr/share/themes/HighContrast
The resullt is that, upon reboot, the Xfce theme falls back to safe, default values. The resulting theme is a light theme, similar to Adwaita but somewhat dated, which is good for my use on a small, dimmed laptop screen in an outdoor environment.

Re: Xfce Appearance/Theme crashes and has other bugs

Reply #1 –
Bonjour,

Quote from: crunchbonk – on
ISSUE #2
With any default theme other than Artix-dark (and perhaps Adwaita-dark), the theme is not applied properly, and may result in black text on a dark background in several areas such as menus and buttons, which is virtually impossible to see. This behavior can be observed on the exit dialog buttons when using leafpad when being asked to save. This behavior is also apparent in a different way when trying to use a program such as kid3. In both instances, black text appears on a very dark background.
I tested Artix for a year on VirtualBox before installing it on three PCs.

On the XFCE version, I noticed that some windows show wrong colors when I choose the Adwaita theme.

For example in some configuration windows such as Gimp preferences, the text appears black on a black background, and the Gimp System theme looks the same ...

Ditto for Dolphin, which I add to XFCE4, the icons background is black instead of light gray, with black text: - /
To work around, you have to edit ~ / .config / kdeglobals and modify modify:
[Colors: View]
BackgroundNormal = 220,220,220


Finally, I found a "nag" type solution: Reinstall all the packages present.
sudo pacman -S $ (pacman -Qnq)

After this "cure", all the colors are correct everywhere ... provided that you comment in / etc / environment the two lines:
# QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME = gtk2
# QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE = gtk

jp from France

Re: Xfce Appearance/Theme crashes and has other bugs

Reply #2 –
I've had problems with window borders and buttons ever since this major version of xfwm4 was introduced. But that seems to be a graphics hardware support issue, there is a lack of fallback options or it uses buggy features elsewhere. Since you had this after a kernel update you have probably lost some graphics ability.
This helps for me - 1 option:
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$ xfwm4 --replace &
That only works for the session until a reboot, the replace startup path is different to the regular one at boot.
A more permanent solution that resolved most of the issues, run this script, reinstall xfwm4 to revert the changes, the script requires imagemagick to be installed:
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#!/bin/bash
for f in /usr/share/themes/{Daloa,Default,Default-hdpi,Default-xhdpi,Kokodi,Moheli}/xfwm4/*.png
do
        if [[ -f $f ]]
        then
        rm ${f}
fi
done
for f in /usr/share/themes/{Daloa,Default,Default-hdpi,Default-xhdpi,Kokodi,Moheli}/xfwm4/*.xpm
do
        if [[ -f $f ]]
        then
        convert ${f} ${f%%.xpm}.png
        rm ${f}
fi
done
This script also reveals some of the images used in some of the themes are in fact corrupt and broken, this has not been fixed for years despite bug reports mentioning it. The graphics part of xfwm4 is scheduled for major revision in the next version, so I think nobody is fixing what is there as it will be mostly deleted. But hopefully your issue will be fixed in future kernel versions, and it might be something different again.
The QT and KDE config doesn't exist on my system, and all windows are affected for me.

Re: Xfce Appearance/Theme crashes and has other bugs

Reply #3 –
Bonjour,

Quote from: ####### – on
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$ xfwm4 --replace &
Oh, I completely forgot about this command line!
Looking at my notes, I see I had this:
xfwm4 --replace && rm -R /home/user/.cache/sessions

Quote from: ####### – on
A more permanent solution that resolved most of the issues, run this script, reinstall xfwm4 to revert the changes, the script requires imagemagick to be installed
Thanks for this script, I will test it during the next installation of Artix XFCE, if this problem reappears.  8)

Quote from: ####### – on
This script also reveals some of the images used in some of the themes are in fact corrupt and broken...
Ah, here's what I couldn't find ...   :)

I'm curious to see if crunchbonk manages to solve its problem thanks to this script ...

Merci !

Re: Xfce Appearance/Theme crashes and has other bugs

Reply #4 –
Thanks for some interesting suggestions. I'm not interested in playing around with this right now, as my workaround works for me. The reason I posted this issue is because it appears to be a bug introduced by the Artix Developers. My best guess is that whatever they did to brand Xfce with their Artix Linux themes, they messed something up, thereby making it worse than having no branding whatsoever. So, if anyone wants to tackle the actual issue, then the first thing I suggest they try is to possibly fix the 4 themes and see if they can get them to render properly, then implement the fix in the next release. For example, it seems that the "dark background on menus" value (whatever that's called) in Artix-dark somehow accidentally got copied over to the other themes.

TL;DR
This is a bug report pertaining specifically to Artix Linux.

Re: Xfce Appearance/Theme crashes and has other bugs

Reply #5 –
Well, perhaps, but if you look at say:
/usr/share/themes/Default/xfwm4/themerc things like text color are set there, and that's going to be the same file as shipped by XFCE. And you can uninstall the Artix theme package, anyway if it isn't selected then xfwm4 doesn't look at that directory. There might be some other config from the iso you can remove, but that has been noted above already.
_gtk_css_image_get_surface rather sounds like it is referring to a cairo surface, so that is most probably hardware graphics code stopping play, and probably causing the black parts in the display too, due to some hardware specific issue. But you know, perhaps Artix just intentionally creates it's themes with invisible text and crashing apps as a special feature for fun  ;D
This version of xfwm4 uses 2D hardware acceleration to draw the windows, and it does not always work quite correctly on all computers if they don't have the requisite graphics features. This could mean older ones, or new ones without full kernel support, or if you are just unlucky and there is a temporary graphics bug for your hardware. So anyway, the messages and the black bits together suggest that isn't a dark theme problem, just a patch of emptiness where nothing has been drawn because some size is wrong or surface was not allocated.
There are some good images of XFCE desktops in this thread, showing it is working for some:
https://forum.artixlinux.org/index.php/topic,8.90.html
 

Re: Xfce Appearance/Theme crashes and has other bugs

Reply #6 –
My openrc Xfce installation works ok. I did some changes, changed icon for main menu bar, removed title, changed theme and colours
-and on next reboot it had all reverted to default. So would seem some stuff is coded in.
Moved the dark themes as shown above and liked the result but its not necessary on my installation.
Copied themes from my Sparkylinux and Salix installation and they work fine so I can choose light. No problems.