Ubuntu
conky package

Conky does not initially display in Wayland sessions

Bug #1947185 reported by BertN45
22
This bug affects 3 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Conky
Fix Released
Unknown
conky (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Undecided
Unassigned
xwayland (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

Starting Ubuntu with wayland does not initially display the .conkyrc file. Only after a change in that file, conky restarts the display and .conkyrc is displayed. Conky has been started according to the system monitor. I doubled the time before starting conky, but that did not help.

If I change the display to xorg, .conkyrc displays directly as expected.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 21.10
Package: libwayland-bin (not installed)
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.13.0-19.19-generic 5.13.14
Uname: Linux 5.13.0-19-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: zfs zunicode zavl icp zcommon znvpair
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu70
Architecture: amd64
BootLog: Error: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/var/log/boot.log'
CasperMD5CheckResult: pass
CompositorRunning: None
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Thu Oct 14 12:58:20 2021
DistUpgraded: 2021-10-14 11:46:37,562 DEBUG Running PostInstallScript: '/usr/lib/ubuntu-advantage/upgrade_lts_contract.py'
DistroCodename: impish
DistroVariant: ubuntu
GraphicsCard:
 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Raven Ridge [Radeon Vega Series / Radeon Vega Mobile Series] [1002:15dd] (rev c8) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Raven Ridge [Radeon Vega Series / Radeon Vega Mobile Series] [1002:15dd]
InstallationDate: Installed on 2021-10-09 (4 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 21.04 "Hirsute Hippo" - Release amd64 (20210420)
MachineType: To Be Filled By O.E.M. To Be Filled By O.E.M.
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/BOOT/ubuntu_57vi20@/vmlinuz-5.13.0-19-generic root=ZFS=rpool/ROOT/ubuntu_57vi20 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=1
SourcePackage: wayland
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to impish on 2021-10-14 (0 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 03/12/2021
dmi.bios.release: 5.17
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: P4.50
dmi.board.name: B450M-HDV R4.0
dmi.board.vendor: ASRock
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.chassis.version: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvrP4.50:bd03/12/2021:br5.17:svnToBeFilledByO.E.M.:pnToBeFilledByO.E.M.:pvrToBeFilledByO.E.M.:skuToBeFilledByO.E.M.:rvnASRock:rnB450M-HDVR4.0:rvr:cvnToBeFilledByO.E.M.:ct3:cvrToBeFilledByO.E.M.:
dmi.product.family: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.product.name: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.product.sku: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.product.version: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.sys.vendor: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
version.compiz: compiz N/A
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.107-8ubuntu1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 21.2.2-1ubuntu1
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx N/A
version.xserver-xorg-core: xserver-xorg-core 2:1.20.13-1ubuntu1
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev N/A
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:19.1.0-2build1
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.917+git20200714-1ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:1.0.17-1build1

Revision history for this message
BertN45 (lammert-nijhof) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt) wrote : Re: GNOME on Wayland does not initially display conky output

This is almost certainly a bug in conky, since countless other apps support Wayland sessions just fine. Reassigning.

affects: wayland (Ubuntu) → mutter (Ubuntu)
summary: - Wayland does not initially display conky output
+ GNOME on Wayland does not initially display conky output
affects: mutter (Ubuntu) → conky (Ubuntu)
Revision history for this message
BertN45 (lammert-nijhof) wrote :

I do not expect the error is in conky:

1. The error does not appear, when I login with xorg. The error did not appear in 21.04.
2. The conky window is of course somewhat outside of the standard application windows; It has no windows boundaries, the background of the window is transparent and it is in the bottom right corner.
3. The following bypass in the login script worked;

#!/bin/bash
sleep 2
conky -d
sleep 1
killall conky
sleep 1
conky -d

The first time the windows is not displayed but conky is started, the second time conky is started and the display is perfect. For conky there is no difference between both starts, for wayland there is probably a difference.

The sleep time has no influence, since I also tried the first one with 8 seconds and that did not help.

Revision history for this message
Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt) wrote :

You can try:

  sudo apt install weston

and then log into Weston instead of GNOME. If it works in Weston then we have a GNOME bug, otherwise it is a Conky bug.

Changed in conky (Ubuntu):
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
BertN45 (lammert-nijhof) wrote (last edit ):

The Weston try out is irrelevant. In Weston Conky refuses to start and gives an error message about the display and it does it all the time. I use transparency and for that, conky requires a compositor, see the following text about that setting:

own_window_argb_visual
    ARGB can be used for real transparency, note that a composite manager is required for real transparency.

Weston does not have a compositor, so it does not run at all.

I run Ubuntu 21.10 also in a Virtualbox VM since 5 months and there Conky displays normally. Everything displays fine.

Yesterday evening I upgraded my laptop to Ubuntu 21.10, so today I tried the same on my HP Elitebook 8460p laptop based on an i5-2520M and there conky displayed as on the Ryzen desktop. It only displays, when started for the second time.

What is the difference between conky on real hardware and conky in a VM?

The reporting of conky after the starts is different.
On the real hardware it starts the first time as:
- conky: desktop window (b4) is root window
On the VMs and
on the real hardware after the second time it starts as:
- conky: desktop window (800014) is subwindow of root window (b4)

The root window is not displayed on the desktop and that subwindow is displayed

Revision history for this message
Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt) wrote :

Weston is a compositor, and it is the reference compositor for Wayland.

The problem you describe in Weston sounds to me like Conky is using X11 and complaining about the Xwayland layer it is communicating through. So this might be a bug in Xwayland or Conky. Either way it appears to already have a discussion open in https://github.com/brndnmtthws/conky/issues/1087

Changed in conky (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Confirmed
Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)
Changed in xwayland (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
summary: - GNOME on Wayland does not initially display conky output
+ Conky does not initially display in Wayland sessions
Revision history for this message
Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt) wrote :

I should probably explain:

Weston is a Wayland compositor, but it appears Conky's error message is about wanting an X11 compositor feature that it thinks is missing. In a Wayland session, X11 composition is provided by 'Xwayland'. So this bug is somewhere between Conky and Xwayland.

This is only a problem because Conky only supports X11. The discussion about Conky supporting Wayland natively is in: https://github.com/brndnmtthws/conky/issues/56

Bug Watch Updater (bug-watch-updater)
Changed in conky:
status: Unknown → New
Bug Watch Updater (bug-watch-updater)
Changed in conky:
status: New → Fix Released
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