Thunar randomly stops responding

[kerryhall]

Hi folks,

Running Debian 8, thunar 1.6.3. Randomly thunar stops redrawing and stops responding to mouse and keyboard input.

This is annoying because I usually have a handful of tabs open and I "lose my place."

Thanks!

[Head_on_a_Stick]

If you start the program from a terminal window, does it return any errors when it freezes?

[kerryhall]

No output to the terminal when it stops responding.

[kerryhall]

Bump. Any thoughts on this? Thanks!

[ralph.ronnquist]

In a distant past, I suffered from a similar problem when I pointed the file browser to a directory with a huge amount of image files, causing it to dive into excessive thumb-nail making that consumed all and everything. I then recovered by removing the thumb-nail making program (don't remember which).

You might want to trial this by finding out what the thumb-nail making program is called and temporarily "a-x" it..

[Head_on_a_Stick]

The thumbnail program used by thunar is tumbler

[kerryhall]

I disabled thumbnails in thunar.

It ran for a few hours without any issues, then the issue occurred.

Interestingly enough when the issue occurs I can click on tabs and the window title will change, but the window itself won't get redrawn.

So maybe the process itself isn't locked up, it just doesn't redraw the window.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Are you using a compositor?

If so, try disabling it.

[kerryhall]

I'm using fluxbox for my window manager. Do you think I could be running into problems since I'm not using xfce?

Any fluxbox settings I should try tweaking?

I'm interesting in trying a more recent version via backport, but I couldn't find thunar in backports.debian.org. Why doesn't backports compile a few new version of each package that debian has normally? I would imagine that process could be automated, I doubt packges are built by hand.

I'm open to compiling it myself also. Does that mean I have to compile the entire xfce desktop environment from source? Ideally I would like to generate a deb so I can remove it easily as I am testing. (Sometimes there is no "make uninstall target")

Thanks!

[Head_on_a_Stick]

I'm using fluxbox for my window manager. Do you think I could be running into problems since I'm not using xfce?

I don't think so, I use thunar in xmonad and PekWM with no problems.

I think the MX-15 repositories have a backported version of thunar, you can use those in Debian jessie.

See http://main.mepis-deb.org/

Perhaps wait for @stevepusser to comment on my suggestion though

[kerryhall]

It is ok to use packages from that repo?

I installed a package from deb multimedia IIRC and got stuck in dep hell for awhile o_O

Don't want to repeat that experience!

Thanks!

[Head_on_a_Stick]

It is ok to use packages from that repo?

It should be safe, yes.

As always with new packages, there may be some new bugs to deal with but one of the maintainers of those repositories (@stevepusser) is a regular poster here and has demonstrated a consistently high level of expertise in his posts

Perhaps if you wait a bit he will notice this thread and offer some personal reassurance.

[kerryhall]

Alrighty, I removed the old version of thunar, which for some reason caused two packages to get installed from that PPA:
libxfce4ui-common:amd64 (4.12.1-1mx150+1, automatic), libxfce4util7:amd64 (4.12.1-1mx150+1, automatic)

Not sure how removing a package caused two new packages to get installed. o_O

I then installed thunar 1.6.10. I'll see how stable it is and I'll report back.

Thanks!!

[sunrat]

Alrighty, I removed the old version of thunar, which for some reason caused two packages to get installed from that PPA:

Debian doesn't have PPAs, that's a buntu thing. Using buntu PPAs in Debian can be a recipe for disaster. Hopefully you just got the terminology wrong and meant to say "MX repository".

[kerryhall]

Ah, yes I got the terminology wrong, my apologies.

So thunar 1.6.10 seems to be pretty stable so far! Thanks for the help!

But an issue seems to be coming up as a side effect.

I didn't realize this, but lots of new packages I have been installing are coming from the mx repo now.

Will this affect my system stability? I have no idea what mx is but I'm guessing (no offense to anyone) that it's a smaller project than Debian. What if those repos go away in the future? Are huge chunks of my system going to be dependent on the mx repos now?

How do I see a list of all packages that have been installed from the mx repos? And then once I have that list, how do I uninstall those packages and install the same packages from the standard Debian repos? I could probably throw something together with dpkg --get-selections, apt-cache policy, and grep -A, but I'm assuming there is a more "normal" way to do what I'm looking for.

Thanks!!

[Head_on_a_Stick]

I didn't realize this, but lots of new packages I have been installing are coming from the mx repo now.

Will this affect my system stability? I have no idea what mx is but I'm guessing (no offense to anyone) that it's a smaller project than Debian. What if those repos go away in the future? Are huge chunks of my system going to be dependent on the mx repos now?

Only the stuff you've pulled from their backports and any dependencies needed.

I think MX will be around for a while yet

At any rate, the only packages affected would be the ones you have installed form there.In the unlikely event of the repositories being taken down, just un-install the packages, change your sources.list, update the package database and re-install the "normal" versions.

[kerryhall]

Thanks everyone.

Sadly, the issue reoccurred with Thunar today.

I think it might be time to file a bug report.

Thoughts?

[kerryhall]

Hi folks,

Any thoughts on this? Anyone else experience this issue?

Thanks!

[kerryhall]

Hi folks,

Still wondering about this.

Thanks!

[kerryhall]

Hi folks,

Still having this issue. Any thoughts?

Thanks