Cygwin-X shortcut no longer works after recent updates

Cygwin-X shortcut no longer works after recent updates

[Brian Inglis]

Hi folks,

After the recent upgrades to cygwin 3.1.4, perl, etc. I have found that the
Cygwin-X Startup, Start Menu, and Task Bar shortcuts no longer work, although I
can start Cygwin-X by running startxwin from a mintty window.

From the shortcut, the shell is invoked to run startxwin normally, two copies of
xinit fork, and Xwin runs and displays the start tray Xserver icon, but my
mintty terminal and the xwin-xdg-menu clients don't start.

On exiting the X server, the processes are left running and have to be killed off.
There are sockets and lock files, which are left around after termination:
$ llgo /tmp/.X11-unix/X0*
srw-rw-rw- 1 0 Feb 27 23:11 /tmp/.X11-unix/X0=
-rw------- 1 0 Feb 27 23:11 /tmp/.X11-unix/X0.lock

The server log /var/log/xwin/XWin.0.log looks normal, and nothing shows in
~/.xsession-errors.

My .startxwinrc is a copy of /etc/X11/xinit/startxwinrc with addition of the
minnty terminal startup in bg before leaving xwin-xdg-menu running in fg.

The shortcut and processes when started normally look like:

C:\...\cygwin64\bin\run.exe --quote /bin/sh -l -c "cd; exec /usr/bin/startxwin"
/bin/sh /usr/bin/startxwin
\_ xinit /home/$USER/.startxwinrc -- /usr/bin/XWin ... [as below]
   \_ /usr/bin/XWin :0 -multiwindow -auth /home/$USER/.serverauth.$PGID

I have checked the man pages and the Cygwin-X docs for hints about things to
check and try with little success.

Hints and suggestions about possible problems and problem solving approaches
would be appreciated.

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

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Re: Cygwin-X shortcut no longer works after recent updates

[Jon Turney]

On 28/02/2020 07:21, Brian Inglis wrote:
> Hi folks,
> 
> After the recent upgrades to cygwin 3.1.4, perl, etc. I have found that the
> Cygwin-X Startup, Start Menu, and Task Bar shortcuts no longer work, although I
> can start Cygwin-X by running startxwin from a mintty window.
> 
>  From the shortcut, the shell is invoked to run startxwin normally, two copies of
> xinit fork, and Xwin runs and displays the start tray Xserver icon, but my
> mintty terminal and the xwin-xdg-menu clients don't start.

Two copies of xinit suggests to me that it is getting stuck somewhere in 
the cygwin fork/exec of /etc/X11/xinit/startxwinrc (which in turn starts 
~/.startxwinrc if it exists) to start clients.

> On exiting the X server, the processes are left running and have to be killed off.
> There are sockets and lock files, which are left around after termination:
> $ llgo /tmp/.X11-unix/X0*
> srw-rw-rw- 1 0 Feb 27 23:11 /tmp/.X11-unix/X0=
> -rw------- 1 0 Feb 27 23:11 /tmp/.X11-unix/X0.lock
> 
> The server log /var/log/xwin/XWin.0.log looks normal, and nothing shows in
> ~/.xsession-errors.
> 
> My .startxwinrc is a copy of /etc/X11/xinit/startxwinrc with addition of the
> minnty terminal startup in bg before leaving xwin-xdg-menu running in fg.
> 
> The shortcut and processes when started normally look like:
> 
> C:\...\cygwin64\bin\run.exe --quote /bin/sh -l -c "cd; exec /usr/bin/startxwin"
> /bin/sh /usr/bin/startxwin
> \_ xinit /home/$USER/.startxwinrc -- /usr/bin/XWin ... [as below]
>     \_ /usr/bin/XWin :0 -multiwindow -auth /home/$USER/.serverauth.$PGID
> 
> I have checked the man pages and the Cygwin-X docs for hints about things to
> check and try with little success.
> 
> Hints and suggestions about possible problems and problem solving approaches
> would be appreciated.


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Re: Cygwin-X shortcut no longer works after recent updates

[Henry S. Thompson]

Jon Turney writes:

> On 28/02/2020 07:21, Brian Inglis wrote:
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> After the recent upgrades to cygwin 3.1.4, perl, etc. I have found that the
>> Cygwin-X Startup, Start Menu, and Task Bar shortcuts no longer work, although I
>> can start Cygwin-X by running startxwin from a mintty window.

Ditto.

> Two copies of xinit suggests to me that it is getting stuck somewhere
> in the cygwin fork/exec of /etc/X11/xinit/startxwinrc (which in turn
> starts ~/.startxwinrc if it exists) to start clients.

A bit more detail, from pstree -Aap:

 |-sh,2027 /usr/bin/startxwin
 |   `-xinit,2058 /home/ht/.startxwinrc -- /usr/bin/XWin :0 -multiwindow -auth ...
 |       |-XWin,2059 :0 -multiwindow -auth /home/ht/.serverauth.2027
 |       `-sh,2065

>> My .startxwinrc is a copy of /etc/X11/xinit/startxwinrc with addition of the
>> minnty terminal startup in bg before leaving xwin-xdg-menu running in fg.

Mine was just a two-liner, changing it to none or
/etc/X11/xint/startxwinrc has no effect.

Aha.  A similar problem occurs with xemacs when launched from a shortcut
with command

  H:\C64\bin\run.exe -p /home/ht/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin /usr/local/bin/xemacs-21.5-b34.exe

The common denominator is clearer run.exe -- does that give anyone a
useful clue?

ht
-- 
       Henry S. Thompson, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh
      10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AB, SCOTLAND -- (44) 131 650-4440
                Fax: (44) 131 650-4587, e-mail: ht@inf.ed.ac.uk
                       URL: http://www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/~ht/
 [mail from me _always_ has a .sig like this -- mail without it is forged spam]

The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.


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Re: Cygwin-X shortcut no longer works after recent updates

[Ronald Blaschke]

On 2/28/20 8:21 AM, Brian Inglis wrote:
> Hi folks,
> 
> After the recent upgrades to cygwin 3.1.4, perl, etc. I have found that the
> Cygwin-X Startup, Start Menu, and Task Bar shortcuts no longer work, although I
> can start Cygwin-X by running startxwin from a mintty window.
> 
>From the shortcut, the shell is invoked to run startxwin normally, two copies of
> xinit fork, and Xwin runs and displays the start tray Xserver icon, but my
> mintty terminal and the xwin-xdg-menu clients don't start.

I think I am seeing the same problem. Here are a few observations.

1) The issue happens often, but not always, when starting with the
Windows shortcut.  Currently, I am retrying a few times until the
startup works.  I have been unable to reproduce the issue starting
startxwin from a mintty window.

2) XWin always seems to start fine.

3) If the issue comes up, I am always seeing the following hanging
process tree.

3969 cons0    S      0:00  \_ xinit ...
 3970 cons0    S      0:00      \_ /usr/bin/XWin ...
 3974 ?        Ss     0:00      \_ /usr/bin/sh <defunct>

In Windows, this looks like so.

    C:\cygwin64\bin\xinit.exe
    \_ C:\cygwin64\bin\xinit.exe
      \_ C:\cygwin64\bin\sh.exe
    C:\cygwin64\bin\XWin.exe

Currently, I am killing the defunct sh, which seems to properly clean up
everything, and try again.

Ron

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