Hard to discribe problem: Mint partially not working

[jaeger]

Mint 14 64bit Xfce AMD 64 dual core , but it also accured with Mint 13 32bit. Last night shut down the computer, but it wouldn't go off for a while, a notification come up for a momment and I wasn't able to read it before it then shut down. Turn the computer on today and everything looks good except none of the applications have the minimize, maximize and close buttons up in right hand corner; the right mouse button doesn't work, none of Firefox's File, Edit, View, History, Bookmarks, Tools work. The only way to shut it down is by the task manager. Also, the last program open always stays on top even if I click on another previously opened application. All other programs have similar bugs now as well. This happened about a week ago with Mint 13 32bit Xfce and I figured I'd just update to Mint 14 64bit and reinstall. Everything fine for several days then it happened again. I believe this also happened about a year ago with Mint 12 / Gnome. I am not a Linux pro. I rarely use command line.

So I have 3 questions:

1: What happened?
2: How do I fix it?
3: How do I prevent this from happening again?

Thanks for any help!
Jaeger

[passerby]

Could you post a screenshot of the issue? It sounds a little like your window manager won't start, but I can't say from the description alone.

[anandrkris]

Perhaps an issue with Window manager? Not sure about xfce but in KDE it happened to me once when Compiz was made the window manager and it worked fine when I switched to Kwin.

[jaeger]

Could you post a screenshot of the issue? It sounds a little like your window manager won't start, but I can't say from the description alone.

Hello passerby and anandrkris;

Except for the lack of the minimize, maximize and close buttons at the top corner of programs everything looks the same, so a screenshot doesn't show anything different. I tried reinstalling anything that I could find that was Windows Managment in the Synaptic Package Manager, but nothing changed.

Both of you (passerby and anandrkris) mentioned a problem with the Window Manager. How would I fix it if it was?

Thanks!!

[deep64blue]

This seems to be a well known issue with XFCE which I have encountered many times but the various fixes on the Internet just don't work. I've given up and switched to Cinnamon instead.

[jaeger]

This seems to be a well known issue with XFCE which I have encountered many times but the various fixes on the Internet just don't work. I've given up and switched to Cinnamon instead.

Well, this is the third time its happened over about a year and half and several editions of Mint. It's too bad, because I really like Xfce. I guess I'll have to look into the other DE's if nobody comes up with a fix. Gnome 3 is what turned me on to Xfce, so that is out.

Cheers!

[wayne128]

try this

on terminal type xfwm4 or xfwm4 --replace

I had this long time ago, but have not got it for over two years on many xfce distros ( not mint).

read this
http://michael.otacoo.com/manuals/arch- ... w-manager/

[jaeger]

try this

on terminal type xfwm4 or xfwm4 --replace

I had this long time ago, but have not got it for over two years on many xfce distros ( not mint).

read this
http://michael.otacoo.com/manuals/arch- ... w-manager/

BOO-YA!!! That looks like that fixed it! Thank you, wayne128!!!

[deep64blue]

Good news

I might try XFCE again then!

[MentalWarden]

After some searching I was able to get my default toolbar back through terminal and then I found this post to get the Minimize, Maximize and Close buttons working again but when I did ... I received the following error.

(xfwm4:18504): xfwm4-WARNING **: Unmanaged net_wm_state (window 0x1800004, atom "_NET_WM_STATE_FOCUSED")

Since I cannot find any xfwm4-WARNING on the forum, I am asking here ... what is this? On my way to do some web searches for it now but figured I would ask here as well.