[Maverick] XFCE system tray became unusable after libgtk upgrade

I've found that this bug is actually triggered by upgrade of libgtk2.0-0, not xfce4-panel. Version 2.21.0-1ubuntu2 is affected, and version 2.20.1-0ubuntu1 isn't.

More info from a duplicate bug report:
"When I login notification area icons appears (decorated by WM) centered on screen, just to disappear right after. After that a new window is spawned witch once again disappear.

The icon windows will keep flashing in the middle of the screen until i kill xfce4-panel. Once I start a new xfce4-panel the same thing happens once again.

The sound (xfce4-mixer) icon is attached to the panels notification area as expected, all other icons are affected by above mentioned problem."

We don't know yet if this is an expected new behavior in gtk+ or a regression…

Marking this bug as confirmed because it has a duplicate with the same symptoms.

Another workaround is to remove notify area

I have this bug. When i start the livecd start xfce4 and appear a 2windows and the desktop i can't use. For use i can stop the proces on system monitori xfce4 and after this a i can use normaly.

libgtk2.0-0 2.21.1-1ubuntu1 is also affected.

Same for me.

I had to kill xfce4-power-manager e xfce4-volume-control-applet to use the system.

I can confirm this bug.

Removing the 'Notification Area' from the panel seems to make the flashing go away. Of course you will not see nm or any other indicators though.

Looks like gtk 2.21.0 has also problem with screen corruption. It seems that some Expose events are missed, gtk applications do not redraw their windows correctly after virtual desktop switch.

"gtk applications do not redraw their windows correctly after virtual desktop switch"

Not only after virtual desktop switch... but this should be in another bug report.

Updates that came through recently seem to be working ok.

Latest version works for me too. Thanks!

As of libgtk+2.0 2.21.2-0ubuntu2 rgba and client side decorations is (temporary) disabled. This seems to be related to those features and thus can't be seen with this version.

The bug is still there and we will most likely see it once again when rgba and csd is activated again.

the gtk rgba change has been turned off until alpha2 since nobody has time to work on fixing those bugs for now and we did collect the feedback required for now, the change will come back later in the cycle though so the bug still should be investigated

This change is not going to be included in Maverick since it's not ready yet, and it's going to be looked at next cycle, Since the change was not included, is the panel still working fine or you're still getting the issue even though the change was not included anymore? Thanks.

This is not affecting the panel as of Maverick Beta. The live environment and the installations are working.

Egual in mine tests of maverick beta, panels works well in live session, in real installations and in qemu.

This bug was fixed in the package xfce4-panel - 4.7.5-0ubuntu1

---------------
xfce4-panel (4.7.5-0ubuntu1) natty; urgency=low

  * Upload to natty (pkg-xfce svn r4611).

xfce4-panel (4.7.5-1) UNRELEASED; urgency=low

  [ Lionel Le Folgoc ]
  * New upstream development release.
  * debian/control:
    - refreshed (b-)deps for this new major release
    - add myself to Uploaders
    - bump Standards-Version to 3.9.1.
  * debian/NEWS: dropped, unneeded.
  * debian/xfce4-panel.shlibs: refreshed, bump to (>= 4.7.2).
  * debian/xfce4-panel.lintian-overrides: refreshed, new lib name.
  * debian/xfce4-panel.preinst: added, handles removal of old conffiles.
  * debian/xfce4-panel.postinst: explicitly set -e.
  * debian/*.install: refreshed.
  * debian/rules:
    - call dpkg-buildflags
    - dropped rc files mangling as they don't exist anymore
    - updated removal of *.{l,}a files.
  * debian/xfce4-panel.{preinst,postinst,prerm}: use dpkg-maintscript-helper
    to remove pre-xfconf config files.
  * Bugs fixed by 4.7.x/4.8.x series:
    - rgba support lp: #586012
    - disappearing menus lp: #53897
    - xrandr support lp: #176174, Closes: #432914
    - Fails to reap children, creating zombies lp: #420187
    - DND of desktop-files on the panel to create new launchers Closes: #480380

  [ Yves-Alexis Perez ]
  * New upstream development release
  * debian/xfce4-panel.install:
    - install wrapper and migrate tools in xfce4-panel package
    - update plugins paths
  * debian/rules:
    - update path when removing .a/.la files for plugins.
    - add hardening flags to {C,LD}FLAGS
  * debian/control:
    - add build-dep on hardening-includes
 -- Lionel Le Folgoc <email address hidden> Sat, 04 Dec 2010 15:45:53 +0100