Linux: bug, feature request, my setup, or shut up and deal with it?

[tgodfrey]

Running xLights (currently 2018.30) on Ubuntu 18.10 now but I've had the same issue with various versions of xLights on various versions of Ubuntu. I've asked about this on the facebook group with no response and have sent message to Chris with no response so I'm trying here.

When sequencing a song - should there be horizontal & vertical scroll bars in the timing area? There are when I run on my laptop with Windows but I mainly use my desktop linux box which has never had them. I've got scroll bars for the mini-windows (color, layer bending, etc) but not in the timing area. The missing vertical scroll bar doesn't bother me much but the lack of the horizontal scroll when zoomed in on a song is getting old.

Is this normal for other linux users, something incorrect with my setup or do I just need to deal with it when running on linux?

Thanks,

Tom

[scooter_seh]

I'm running the 2018.30 AppImage on Fedora 28 and the scroll bars appear as expected.

Scott

[tgodfrey]

Thanks for letting me know and I see you do have horizontal & vertical scroll bars. I'm VERY jealous.

I usually use the PPA however I had a problem getting 2018.30 to install from the PPA so I ended up building it from git. I haven't been able to get the appImage to run on Ubuntu. Maybe I'll need to look into that.

[debenham]

The PPA is just for ubuntu 18.04 (doesn't build right on 18.10 due to library changes - working on it)
So I'm guessing you are actually installing the 18.04 package
To check this run:
# dpkg -l xlights|grep ubuntu
It should say something like 2018.30-1~201808232315~ubuntu18.04.1

If you are running the 18.04 build on 18.10 then it would explain the difference.  There are different gtk libraries and so it may be getting things confused.

(note also that there was a problem with 2018.30 in the ppa so there is now a 2018.30.1)

Regarding the appimage - what happens when you try that?
That is what I use on ubuntu 18.10 at home

[tgodfrey]

Thanks for the response Chris - You are correct. It did build 18.04 from GIT.

Version: 2018.30.1-1~201808282125~ubuntu18.04.1

This was the first time I built from GIT and that was due to the failing PPA build. The PPA is what I normally use and have been doing so for the past 1.5-2 years. On ANY of the versions of xLights I've had on Ubuntu (16.04-18.10) I've never had the horizontal or vertical scroll bars in the timings window. So ultimately that's what I'm trying to figure out.

As far as appImage - I can run the MuseScore appImage as demonstrated on appimage.org. When I use the xLights appImage the 'Would you like to integrate' and 'Disable question?' windows will open but nothing happens after that. Doesn't seem to matter which answers I choose.

EDIT - So I tried some older appImage versions - looks like I can get some of the older appImages to run but not the newer ones. I was successful running the 2018.10, 2018.20 & 2018.21 appImages but anything past .21 would not run. Failed to run .22,.23,.24,.25,.27,.29,30 appImages. Just nothing executes.

OH MY GOD  - I ACTUALLY have a horizontal & vertical scroll bar when using the 2018.21 appImage. Seriously, in almost 2 years that is the first time I've seen scroll bars in the timing window!

[debenham]

Can you try running the newer appimage from a terminal grab all the terminal output?
I'm running it regularly on ubuntu 18.10 (and debian 9) without issue so wondering if something odd is happening
The next step would be to try tracing it.
This would be done by installing strace ('apt install strace') and then running 'strace -f -tt -o xlights.trace ./xLights-2018.30.glibc2.17-x86_64.AppImage' and collecting the created xlights.trace file

[tgodfrey]

So feeling pretty stupid about this one but just realized I'm running 18.04.1 and not 18.10. Still unable to run .30.appImage from terminal. Also not sure why the ppa didn't work if I'm on 18.04.1 - I'll need to look into that. I was able to run .21 from the term however .30 failed with:

tom@Server-705:~/Desktop/xLights appImage$ dir
xLights-2018.30.glibc2.17-x86_64.AppImage
tom@Server-705:~/Desktop/xLights appImage$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:   Ubuntu
Description:   Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS
Release:   18.04
Codename:   bionic
tom@Server-705:~/Desktop/xLights appImage$ chmod a+x xLights*.AppImage
tom@Server-705:~/Desktop/xLights appImage$ ./xLights*.AppImage
./src/common/stdpbase.cpp(62): assert ""traits"" failed in Get(): create wxApp before calling this
./src/common/stdpbase.cpp(62): assert ""traits"" failed in Get(): create wxApp before calling this
/tmp/.mount_xLightgxLlRw/usr/bin/xLights: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gtk-2.0/modules/liboverlay-scrollbar.so: undefined symbol: ubuntu_gtk_set_use_overlay_scrollbar
tom@Server-705:~/Desktop/xLights appImage$

If that doesn't help I can install and run strace.

[tgodfrey]

From a quick google search this (undefined symbol: ubuntu_gtk_set_use_overlay_scrollbar) looks like a problem caused by my box and from the name might explain the missing scrollbars. I'll look into it more tomorrow. Let me know if you agree and/or know a fix. Thanks!

[debenham]

The overlay scrollbars stuff was something ubuntu added for unity - It was meant to basically hide application scrollbars unless your mouse was in 'just the right spot'
It broke many things and a lot of people got confused because scrollbars seemed to disappear.
From memory it was mostly removed back after 16.04 - but if you have been upgrading since then it could have bits left around.
Check if you have overlay-scrollbar and/or overlay-scrollbar-gtk2 installed - then remove them.
You may also need to reinstall libgtk2.0-0
The appimage includes its own libgtk so re-installing libgtk2.0-0 is likely not needed if running the appimage

[tgodfrey]

Thanks Chris! I did have both overlay-scrollbar and/or overlay-scrollbar-gtk2 installed. After removing them I was able to start xLights using the new .31 appImage and had both scroll bars in the timing windows. That's going to be a big time saver.  Thanks again for the help.

[debenham]

😎

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[tgodfrey]

Chris - Thanks again for the help with the scroll bars. It's made moving around the timing window a lot easier/quicker versus using the shift/ctrl + mouse wheel to move/zoom around.