Lucid has no title bars - Metacity issue

Some additional information from a terminal where I ran metacity to get the windowing working.

tony@orac:~$ metacity &
[1] 1640
tony@orac:~$ Window manager warning: Buggy client sent a _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW message with a timestamp of 0 for 0x2000003 (Authentica)
Window manager warning: meta_window_activate called by a pager with a 0 timestamp; the pager needs to be fixed.
Window manager warning: Buggy client sent a _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW message with a timestamp of 0 for 0x2000003 (Authentica)
Window manager warning: meta_window_activate called by a pager with a 0 timestamp; the pager needs to be fixed.

Same problem here.

I guess the output on the terminal is nothing critical...

Could you please check bug #559111 and see if the problem goes away when you:
* install compiz package, or
* remove ~/.gconf/desktop/gnome/session/required_components

Do you know if you have activated Visual effects? In that case the compiz package needs to be installed since it's probably a problem with Compiz not starting.

I just installed compiz through synaptic as it was not installed.
Then I restarted and configured the visual effects which was previously enabled.
I get wobbly windows now and the windowing is working fine.

@ Martin Karlsson - Thanks for your help.

No problem. This is certainly a duplicate of bug #559111 but I'm reluctant to mark it as such since it will hide it from the search results. Since this seems to be a fairly new issue users are bound to search for it, and "titlebars" seems like a likely keyword for that :)

I have the title bar problem where each time I restart or log in, I have no title bars. If I check the Visual Effects, it has defaulted to 'none'. If I select 'normal', after it briefly searches for drivers, the title bars are restored. I can then select 'none' or 'extra' and the title bars remain.

However, no matter what I leave the Visual Effects setting at, when I restart or log out and log back in, I've lost the title bars and the Visual Effects are set to 'none'.

Also, manually starting metacity restores the title bars.

My problem is not quite the same as the first post, as the position of the minimize/maximize/close buttons is remembered (I prefer the right), so once I set the visual effects to restore the title bars, the buttons are still on the right.

I've tried removing ~/.gconf/desktop/gnome/session/required_components but this made no difference. The compiz package is installed.

I performed an update from 9.10 to 10.04 and as of 30th April have all updates.

Any ideas?

The solution doesn't work for me.I have just upgraded from 9.10. It seems that a configuration file in the home directory is the responsible, because if I create a new user everything works fine. I have temporally fixed the bug by executing compiz --replace on startup.

After changing the Desktop Effects, or logging in without title bars, could you check the setting of /desktop/gnome/session/required_components/windowmanager with gconf-editor and verify that it shows the same as Desktop Effects:
* It should say metacity if Desktop Effects are set to None
* Otherwise it should say compiz

Also, you could try changing Desktop Effects while running gnome-appearance-properties in a terminal and see if it outputs some useful information.

Hi Martin,
in gconf the windowmanager is set to compiz even when Desktop Effects are set to none.
When I activate the Dektop Effects I get the following message:
"There is not a graphics driver available for your system which supports the composite extension, or the current driver already supports it.
(gnome-appearance-properties:1766): Gdk-CRITICAL **: gdk_display_sync: assertion `GDK_IS_DISPLAY (display)' failed"
Any idea on what is going on?

The message seems fine, but why the value of windowmanager isn't changing I don't know. Maybe you could try to manually set it to metacity with Gconf editor, reboot and see if that works, check to see if Visual effects says "None" and from there try again to change to normal or extra and reboot and see if Compiz starts. If not, maybe reinstalling the Compiz-packages could work.

Also you could check the Hardware drivers just to be sure that the upgrade went fine and the new driver got installed.

Thanks for your reply Martin,
If I manually set windowmanager to metacity it maintains the value by next reboot (still no title bars) and visual effects are set to none. Then, if I activate visual effects windowmanager gets set to compiz. When I reboot again, windowmanager is set to compiz but visual effects to none...
How do I check if the hardware driver got updated correctly? I have a nvidia propiatary driver activated(I think its the same as in jaunty).
But I still think that it has something to do with a configuration file in /home because if I create a new user everything works fine.
Thanks for the help.

I find it strange that you don't have titlebars even when metacity is set as the window manager. It's probably not a faulty driver then, but rather some other settings as you say. However, you can see in Hardware drivers under System -> Administration if the latest nvidia driver is installed. It should be the one that's recommended by Ubuntu, I think the version is 193-something. You can also start nVidia settings (under the same menu i believe) and see which driver version it uses.

As far as my knowledge goes I really don't know what else to do but to reset the settings directory completely, which should work since creating a new user works. However, that's considered a last resort :)

For me chosing 'reload window manager' in compiz fusion icon restores the title bars.
Title bar controls are where they should be.

@Martin

I have an ATI card and this is happening to me after upgrading to Lucid. Therefore, I think you're right that it's some sort of configuration issue.

Hello,
Here too, This issue came up on my computer just after upgrading to Lucid. Metacity has been working perfectly on this box for years.
FI: I use the free Lucid GPU driver and my graphic card is:
lspci | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV730XT [Radeon HD 4670]
Two workarounds here:
1-) if activated Visual effects = "none" : starting metacity restores the title bars.
2-) if activated Visual effects = "normal" or "extra" : starting /usr/bin/compiz restores the title bars too.
but in this case I have this compiz bug : https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/compiz/+bug/433488

hello there,

i had the same issue on lucid after upgrading from jaunty and found a solution:
delete the saved session e.g. with the command

rm ~/.config/gnome-session/saved-session/*

maybe it's enough to delete one of the files in the folder.

of course i upgraded from karmic...

Doesn't work for me Bernhard, but thanks.

The original report here sounds like metacity is just not started. Those with other issues should file new bug reports.

Never mind, I think this is a duplicate of bug 559111.

OK, Tony's problem was that compiz was not installed but was configured to be used. Was this after upgrading from Karmic?

The original problem in the other bug was also compiz missing, which the reporter fixed by installing meta-packages. I don't think that bug should have been marked "fixed released" though.

Same behaviour as topic and Comment #7.
I didn't change anything, no reason for it. I run this configuration flawless since 2009.
I've booted today and the issue occured.

Removing .gconfd/saved_state didn't help.
Changing the theme didn't help.

compizconfig-settings-manager -> window decoration
said: /usr/bin/compiz-decorator

After removing the 'required_components .xml' file it says: gtk-window-decorator --replace

gconf-editor /desktop/gnome/session/required_components/windowmanager
said: compiz

After removing the .xml file it says: gnome-wm

Installed fusion-icon and run it.
After desktop starts without window decorations and only one workspace fusion-icon says:
Selected windowmanager is compiz, selected windowdecorator is gtk-window-decorator

Same outputs without or with window decoration
~$ ps -ef | grep compiz
1000 2024 1958 0 20:49 pts/0 00:00:00 grep --color=auto compiz

~$ ps -ef | grep metacity
1000 2032 1958 0 20:50 pts/0 00:00:00 grep --color=auto metacity

Workarounds:
#Add compiz to startup apps.

# In applications menu is a section 'Other' with an entry 'Compiz' (german local).
If I run this compiz comes back the way it was the day before.

#Same when reloading windowmanager via fusion-icon everything is fine, each setting is the way it was.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -
(I don't see why I'm supposed to remove config into the blue and start from scratch if I don't understand why the issue occurs in the first place. Not to mention spending at least a whole day to reconfigure everything. I spend already one day now to investigate, how lucky that this is my day off, by this time I could've reinstalled and setup everything again)

Well, the as far as bug reporting goes it's obviously important to find out the cause of the problem. But if that's not possible (or not achieved in a reasonable time frame) then you would obviously want the problem fixed even without knowing exactly what caused it. And that's the reason for deleting the config directories, and it's not completely out of the blue since that suggestion was derived from the fact that it worked when creating a new user. It's a better "solution" than to do a whole reinstall.

Anyhow, I upgraded to Maverick from Lucid a couple of days ago and the problem appeared once again. I still don't know what the problem is but it seems that no compositing manager starts on log in. None of the earlier fixes worked. The workaround of adding "compiz --replace" to Startup applications fixes that problem, but the window decorations is still not working. I had to change the settings in Compiz Config Settings Manager under Window Decorations from gtk-window-decorator to compiz-decorator --replace.

I had the same problem after upgrading to 10.04 and it was solved after deleting the ~/.config directory and rebooting.

Moving .config didn't help, but moving .compiz did, imported compiz backup .profile, done.
$ ps aux | grep compiz
1000 5641 3.1 5.1 344704 52872 ? S 11:27 6:18 compiz
1000 5685 0.0 0.0 4096 576 ? Ss 11:27 0:00 /bin/sh -c /usr/bin/compiz-decorator
1000 10895 0.0 0.0 7636 1008 pts/0 S+ 14:51 0:00 grep --color=auto compiz
$ ps aux | grep metacity
1000 10903 0.0 0.0 7632 920 pts/0 S+ 14:51 0:00 grep --color=auto metacity

Just for the record when no windowmanager is loaded after login.
xession-errors:
X Error of failed request: BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)
  Major opcode of failed request: 3 (X_GetWindowAttributes)
  Resource id in failed request: 0x1800003
  Serial number of failed request: 100
  Current serial number in output stream: 101

$ ps aux | grep compiz
1000 15615 0.0 0.0 7632 924 pts/0 S+ 22:54 0:00 grep --color=auto compiz
$ ps aux | grep metacity
1000 15617 0.0 0.0 7632 924 pts/0 S+ 22:54 0:00 grep --color=auto metacity

btw.
no differences between a gconf.dump file before and after the issue.
no changes between .desktop files (mentioned below) before and after the issue.

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Since there're plenty of questions (2004-2010) in englisch and german forums out there regarding 'metacity doesn't start' here is another workaround, which suggest to move compiz.desktop, metacity.desktop, gnome-wm.desktop from .local/share/applications.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?s=ab4dcff2b4a107b078c2c0475015a701&t=1304973&page=2