MX Linux Forum

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2025 5:43 am**

This relates to my wife's laptop, who uses it for work (she's self-employed, and I'm her IT support, so there's some pressure

). In the past this issue was easily resolved, but I've run into a wall here.

TL;DR: Restoring from a backup didn't help, so I'm not sure if I might have missed something I should have restored, or if somehow Xfce itself is damaged. I read all the posts in this group which I thought could apply, all the way back to the end of 2023, but didn't see anything applicable.

It happens about once in every three blue moons that Xfce suddenly loses a great deal of its config, with your entire desktop gone (no background or icons) and the panel empty of almost everything. Clicking on anything that is on the panel leads to a please wait animation that doesn't stop, while any clicking on the desktop does nothing. Logging out requires Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to be activated, which takes me back to the display manager login screen. Sometimes I need to do another Ctrl+Alt+Backspace there for it not to have the power button options greyed out.

This has been happening to me for years, and across many different machines, kernels, and distros.

In the past I'd correct this by not being logged in from the GUI, going to a VT as the problem user, and running "rm -Rf ~/.cache/sessions/*".

Now, that did nothing.

First, QSI from a VT:

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Snapshot created on: 20240815_1306
System:
  Kernel: 6.1.0-37-amd64 [6.1.140-1] arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 12.2.0
    parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-6.1.0-37-amd64 root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash
    resume=UUID=<filter> resume_offset=66183168
  Console: pty pts/0 DM: LightDM v: 1.32.0 Distro: MX-23.6_x64 Libretto August 15  2024
    base: Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: HP product: HP 250 G4 Notebook PC v: Type1ProductConfigId
    serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 10 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: HP model: 8135 v: 31.37 serial: <superuser required> UEFI: Insyde v: F.20
    date: 02/23/2016
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT1 charge: 18.6 Wh (100.0%) condition: 18.6/32.1 Wh (57.9%) volts: 16.1 min: 14.6
    model: Hewlett-Packard PABAS0241231 type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: full
CPU:
  Info: model: Intel Core i5-6200U bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Skylake gen: core 6 level: v3
    note: check built: 2015 process: Intel 14nm family: 6 model-id: 0x4E (78) stepping: 3
    microcode: 0xF0
  Topology: cpus: 1x cores: 2 tpc: 2 threads: 4 smt: enabled cache: L1: 128 KiB
    desc: d-2x32 KiB; i-2x32 KiB L2: 512 KiB desc: 2x256 KiB L3: 3 MiB desc: 1x3 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 455 high: 622 min/max: 400/2800 scaling: driver: intel_pstate
    governor: powersave cores: 1: 400 2: 400 3: 622 4: 400 bogomips: 19200
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
  Vulnerabilities: <filter>
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Skylake GT2 [HD Graphics 520] vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: i915 v: kernel
    arch: Gen-9 process: Intel 14n built: 2015-16 ports: active: eDP-1 empty: DP-1,HDMI-A-1,HDMI-A-2
    bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:1916 class-ID: 0300
  Device-2: Cheng Uei Precision Industry (Foxlink) HP Webcam type: USB driver: uvcvideo
    bus-ID: 1-5:4 chip-ID: 05c8:022a class-ID: 0e02 serial: <filter>
  Display: server: X.org v: 1.21.1.7 compositor: Compton v: 1 driver: X: loaded: modesetting
    unloaded: fbdev,vesa dri: iris gpu: i915 tty: 100x57
  Monitor-1: eDP-1 model: LG Display 0x0465 built: 2014 res: 1366x768 dpi: 101 gamma: 1.2
    size: 344x194mm (13.54x7.64") diag: 395mm (15.5") ratio: 16:9 modes: 1366x768
  API: OpenGL Message: GL data unavailable in console. Try -G --display
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel alternate: snd_soc_skl,snd_sof_pci_intel_skl bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:9d70
    class-ID: 0403
  API: ALSA v: k6.1.0-37-amd64 status: kernel-api tools: alsamixer,amixer
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.0 status: active (process) with: 1: pipewire-pulse status: active
    2: wireplumber status: off 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin 4: pw-jack type: plugin
    tools: pactl,pw-cat,pw-cli,wpctl
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Hewlett-Packard
    driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: gen: 1 speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: 4000 bus-ID: 01:00.0
    chip-ID: 10ec:8168 class-ID: 0200
  IF: eth0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Realtek RTL8723BE PCIe Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Hewlett-Packard
    driver: rtl8723be v: kernel modules: wl pcie: gen: 1 speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: 3000
    bus-ID: 02:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:b723 class-ID: 0280
  IF: wlan0 state: down mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Realtek Bluetooth Radio type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-4:3
    chip-ID: 0bda:b006 class-ID: e001 serial: <filter>
  Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 2.1 lmp-v: 4.0
    sub-v: 9f73 hci-v: 4.0 rev: e2f
  Info: acl-mtu: 820:8 sco-mtu: 255:16 link-policy: rswitch hold sniff park
    link-mode: peripheral accept
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 447.13 GiB used: 271.01 GiB (60.6%)
  SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
  ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Apacer model: AS330 480GB size: 447.13 GiB block-size:
    physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 7PD0 scheme: GPT
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 446.88 GiB size: 438.79 GiB (98.19%) used: 271.01 GiB (61.8%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/sda2 maj-min: 8:2
  ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 256 MiB size: 252 MiB (98.46%) used: 274 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 15 (default 60) cache-pressure: 100 (default)
  ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 5.72 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 file: /swap/swap
  ID-2: swap-2 type: zram size: 256 MiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: 100 dev: /dev/zram0
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 27.0 C pch: 22.5 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Repos:
  Packages: pm: dpkg pkgs: 2184 libs: 1077 tools: apt,apt-get,aptitude,nala,synaptic pm: rpm
    pkgs: 0 pm: flatpak pkgs: 0
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list
    1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list
    1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
    2: deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/kopia.list
    1: deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/kopia-keyring.gpg] http://packages.kopia.io/apt/ stable main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list
    1: deb https://mirrors.aliyun.com/mxlinux/mx/repo/ bookworm main non-free
Info:
  Processes: 152 Uptime: 1h 55m wakeups: 2 Memory: 3.72 GiB used: 733.9 MiB (19.2%) Init: SysVinit
  v: 3.06 runlevel: 5 default: graphical tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 12.2.0 alt: 12
  Shell: quick-system-in default: Bash v: 5.2.15 running-in: pty pts/0 (SSH) inxi: 3.3.26
Boot Mode: UEFI

I have a script which shows me the youngest n files (n defaults to 20) in the current directory tree, and using that I saw that only the following files were newer than the last known good state:

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/home/user/.config/xfce4/desktop/accels.scm
/home/user/.config/xfce4/desktop/icons.screen0.yaml
/home/user/.config/xfce4/panel/launcher-13/17496707101.desktop
/home/user/.config/xfce4/panel/launcher-13/17496714411.desktop
/home/user/.config/xfce4/panel/launcher-14/17496707102.desktop
/home/user/.config/xfce4/panel/launcher-14/17496714422.desktop
/home/user/.config/xfce4/panel/launcher-15/17496707103.desktop
/home/user/.config/xfce4/panel/launcher-15/17496714423.desktop
/home/user/.config/xfce4/panel/launcher-16/17496707104.desktop
/home/user/.config/xfce4/panel/launcher-16/17496714424.desktop
/home/user/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/thunar.xml
/home/user/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-notifyd.xml
/home/user/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-panel.xml
/home/user/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-power-manager.xml

My next step was to over-write these from the backup made two days prior, when the Xfce state was still fine, but then I saw in the backup that it contained a number of files which were not on her laptop any longer. These included things like "/home/user/.config/xfce4/panel/whiskermenu-7.rc", which explains a lot.

As a result I simply restored the following directory trees:

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/home/user/.cache/xfce4
/home/user/.config/xfce4
/home/user/.config/xfce4-session  
/home/user/.config/xfce-superkey

Not sure if it's important, but "/home/user/.config/xfce4-session" in the backup was empty. But then, it gets deleted as first step in potential restoration, so that's probably OK.

Sadly, this left me with a functionally unchanged machine, so all I can think of is that I did not restore from every location I should have. Does anyone know what other than the above four directory trees should also have been restored?

Also, I did not have enough time before leaving for work to create another user and see if Xfce itself is working.

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2025 6:57 am**

Create a new user account on her machine, make sure it has sudo rights. Login into that account and open nothing but the MX User Manager. In the copy/Sync tab, select the new user ac you're logged into as the copy from location and set your Wifes login account as the copy to, then click the Apply button.

If that doesn't fix it, the sync option may be more successful, but use it with caution. I have used this a few times when I have tinkered beyond the point of safety and it works for all officially supported MX versions.

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2025 7:06 am**

TL;DR: Restoring from a backup didn't help,

in an somewhat unconnected issue, I would remark (apology for quoting myself):

If you backup, but have not tested your restore procedure to completion, there in an unfortunate accident waiting for you.

from a previous post viewtopic.php?t=84242&start=22

Just a data point,
Mike

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2025 8:16 am**

@m_pav: Thank you for that suggestion. I'll let you know. Unfortunately I'm working a 12+ hour day today, so it might only be tomorrow.

@MikeR: Thank you for the reference. I, too, learned a lot from my stint in global corporate. In this case I have automated differential backups every hour, and restoring user files is a doddle. The problem comes in when something as fundamental as your DE has a bug that screws up its own configs and it's not particularly well documented. As stated, this is not a once-off, and what worked in every previous case didn't work now. When I got to the point of needing more help than I was able to figure out in the circumstances, I reached out.

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2025 10:00 am**

I have used XFCE a lot (with SysV) and I have never had any problems. In the past the "session restore" feature could "break" things, but it was removed from the logout dialog in XFCE 4.20. So your problems are a mystery. The suggestions I have are similar to those above:

1. Try a new user account and see if it works there - maybe your affected account has permission problems of some sort
2. Try booting with systemd and see if it makes a difference
3. Try a different DE or window manager to see if your problems are really tied to XFCE or if you have deeper problems

Posted: **Fri Jun 13, 2025 4:52 am**

My next post has a summary, as there I reply to m_pav's suggestions.

Detail

dreamer wrote: Thu Jun 12, 2025 10:00 am I have used XFCE a lot (with SysV) and I have never had any problems. In the past the "session restore" feature could "break" things, but it was removed from the logout dialog in XFCE 4.20. So your problems are a mystery. The suggestions I have are similar to those above:

1. Try a new user account and see if it works there - maybe your affected account has permission problems of some sort
2. Try booting with systemd and see if it makes a difference
3. Try a different DE or window manager to see if your problems are really tied to XFCE or if you have deeper problems

Thanks for the tips, @dreamer.

1. It is not at the system level of Xfce, as my new account works fine, so "dpkg-reconfigure xfce4" won't help. Also, I made sure that there are no files in her directory tree that she doesn't own ("find /home/user /home/keep ! -user USER"), and that she has write permission to all her files ("find /home/USER /home/keep.h -type f ! -perm -u=w").

2. See point 3.

3. I installed fluxbox and it works as expected when I log in as her using that. I doubt she'd be happy to learn it, though, and I have neither the desire nor the time to attempt to configure it to look and work like she is used to.

Posted: **Fri Jun 13, 2025 5:56 am**

m_pav wrote: Thu Jun 12, 2025 6:57 am Create a new user account on her machine, make sure it has sudo rights. Login into that account and open nothing but the MX User Manager. In the copy/Sync tab, select the new user ac you're logged into as the copy from location and set your Wifes login account as the copy to, then click the Apply button.

If that doesn't fix it, the sync option may be more successful, but use it with caution. I have used this a few times when I have tinkered beyond the point of safety and it works for all officially supported MX versions.

Thank you so much, m_pav. I certainly learned more about the user manager.

My next post might suggest something to someone who knows more about Xfce than I do.

Summary

Details follow, but it definitely looks like it's Xfce-related at the user account level. My question is thus two-fold:

1. Where are all the places that Xfce writes its user-related stuff?
2. What is the correct format of said stuff?

I could give up, bite the bullet, and manually copy everything except the files obviously part of Xfce to the new user, but would really like to solve this so we can at least work out how to recover from a recurrence. My hope is rather to help getting the cause addressed. I say that based on a comment she made yesterday about it recently taking longer than usual to log out / shut down, coupled with a comment by an Xfce developer I read while researching this — it makes me think it boils down to a serialisation issue between loosely-coupled processes at log-out time.

Some detail

Hers was the only user on the machine, so I had to create two new users, as the User Manager would not let me do the copy to the active user (for good reason!).

Since the drive doesn't have enough free space to make a copy of all her files, plus the chances of it being related to a file outside of "~/.*" are tiny, I did the following as root.

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cd /home
mkdir keep
mv USER/* keep/.

While that leave a large amount of unrelated rubbish (Firefox cache files, for example) for the User Manager copy, it is small enough to work, plus it won't miss any of the Xfce files. [Sentence edited for clarity.]

As an aside, after the copy I saw a tree size discrepancy, but that was just the "~/.config/autostart/mx-welcome.desktop" which she had deleted and which the new installation had.

Sadly, logging in as this new user with all my wife's "~/.*" files was no different, hence I really do need answers to questions one and four, above.

Posted: **Fri Jun 13, 2025 6:00 am**

This might suggest something to someone who knows Xfce well.

Since I can't do anything other than Ctrl+Alt+Backspace when I log in via Xfce as "tempuser", I logged in as my own user and then ran this:

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$ sudo -u tempuser dbus-launch xfconf-query -l
Authorization required, but no authorization protocol specified

Channels:
  accessibility
  displays
  keyboards
  pointers
  thunar
  thunar-volman
  xfce4-appfinder
  xfce4-desktop
  xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts
  xfce4-mime-settings
  xfce4-mixer
  xfce4-notifyd
  xfce4-panel
  xfce4-power-manager
  xfce4-screensaver
  xfce4-screenshooter
  xfce4-session
  xfce4-settings-editor
  xfce4-settings-manager
  xfce4-terminal
  xfwm4
  xsettings
$

Posted: **Fri Jun 13, 2025 8:06 am**

Question: Why does your QSI show this:

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Console: pty pts/0 DM: LightDM v: 1.32.0 Distro: MX-23.6_x64 Libretto August 15  2024
    base: Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)

instead of the standard:

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Desktop: Xfce v: 4.20.0 tk: Gtk v: 3.24.38 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm
    v: 4.20.0 vt: 7 dm: LightDM v: 1.32.0 Distro: MX-23.5_ahs_x64 Libretto
    January 21 2024 base: Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)

have you modified your systems in some fashion that is now causing problems?

Posted: **Fri Jun 13, 2025 9:15 am**

I just checked my installation notes and nothing seems out of the ordinary, but I looked into it and it is because I ran from the command line in an SSH session via "quick-system-info-mx >QSI" (because I couldn't get into the GUI). Then it gives a "Console" line under "System" as opposed to a "Desktop" line.

That the console is "pty pts/0" means it is a pseudo-terminal, if memory serves. If it was from the first text interface terminal on her laptop, that line would have started " Console: tty 1" instead.

Just a word of warning for those who want to run it from a text terminal: if you want to pipe its output to "less", call it as "less -R", otherwise your terminal can get so messed up that you'll have to run "reset", as happened to me.

Posted: **Fri Jun 13, 2025 4:30 pm**

Remember those 12hr common days all too much: What you can try and I'll describe 1st then share commands - other wise I'm sensored anything I post.
yes as shared Best Create a new test account. I created test1 and test22 set passwds make it easy. There is or should be a file in the common Xfce4 directory
called xfce-mx-defaults
reading shares delete all "Files" except this file and re-login with xfce-project icons and all same control. the Project files not MX-Default xfce file content
I tried 3 tests.
1: - as described deleted all folders and files except xfce-mx-defaults - xfce4-session-logout , re- login and I have mentioned Xfce-project icons and operations
2: - Deleted all the files logout login same as default install MX-xfce common xfce-desktop icons and file settings.
3: - Deleted all files and copied from /etc/skel/.config/xfce/* . - after cd ~/.config/xfce4
session logout login looks same as standard. Do not worry your other programs etc content are in their own perspective folders. yet worry about your backup this is not 100 percent integrity they will be all there on a restart of each application you open.
all files originate from /etc/skel as each account is created. so these are the key primary files 'the Desktop and Environment common'

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test1:
cd ~/.config/xfce4

rm -rf desktop xfwm4 panel xfconf terminal xfce4-taskmanager.rc xfce4-screenshooter help.rc helpers.rc
xfce4-session-logout
#did not delete xfce-mx-defaults
#upon re-login all Xfce-project desktop control and icon standards similar to mx-xfce4
#operates all the same

test2:

cd ~/.config/xfce4
rm -rf *
xfce4-session-logout
login now have Xfce-own-desktop control and icons
xfce4-session-logout / Re login looks same as initial mx install from iso

test3:

cd ~/.config/xfce4
rm -rf *
cp -r /etc/skel/.config/xfce4/* .
xfce4-session-logout / Re login looks same as initial mx install from iso

Might provide some confidence: you should be able to do this to your messed up account. Cheers.

Posted: **Fri Jun 13, 2025 10:44 pm**

b3ta wrote: Fri Jun 13, 2025 5:56 am 1. Where are all the places that Xfce writes its user-related stuff?
2. What is the correct format of said stuff?

You're over-thinking it. All your answers lie on the storage drives you already have in use. Just set Thunar to show the hidden files and you'll see them for yourself, BUT, do it on a fresh user account that has only been used once to log and nothing else.

The first time I saw the Xfce user configuration in the hidden files, I went through each of the hidden directories and looked at what was laid down, it just made sense.

I then compared them to the hidden content in /etc/skel/ and I could see how the first run only really created a series of standard user folders in the chosen language and everything else was just apps and services laying down their default configs.

That is why the process I gave you works to get the standard configs back to the initial state. If an issue persists afterwards, then either the user has done something pretty damaging that goes beyond the standard state files, or there may be corruption on te drive, in which case, you NEED to run a partition check BEFORE you do anything else cause there's no point in scurrying around doing this and that when the underlying structure is already in a fragile state.

If you go back to read what I said in my initial response, you would have avoided making the mistake you made, trying to pull the configs into the damaged users profile, and who knows what damage was inflicted in such a move. The clean base configs have to be written into the damaged users profile from an external point when the damaged profile is NOT active.

Posted: **Sat Jun 14, 2025 6:13 am**

Because she has accounts to do I got it working again without finding out why it happened, but as you'll see in the details below, the solution involved something very unexpected — to me, at least. There was one other piece of strangeness relating to a broken Trash link, but I'll put that in my next post after I re-read the image size limit in the rules

If anyone is interested in me writing up the consolidated steps I took (plus things like why I checked the process table after logging out) in the form of a tutorial, let me know.

m_pav wrote: Fri Jun 13, 2025 10:44 pm You're over-thinking it. All your answers lie on the storage drives you already have in use. Just set Thunar to show the hidden files and you'll see them for yourself, BUT, do it on a fresh user account that has only been used once to log and nothing else.

I hear you, m_pav, but I wanted first to prove that the issue is Xfce-related (all "smartctl" tests and "e2fsck" are fine), which is why I did it this way around (first putting her config in a clean installation). Then I had to go to work, which is why I stopped there.

In the end it was a combination of your suggestion and some extra digging that got her working again, so thank you very much.

Thank you also to everyone else who pitched in to help.

Lastly, out of interest: if a user's home directory has at least one named pipe in it, then the MX User Manager won't delete that user's home directory — it will delete everything except any named pipes and doesn't warn you about it. I had to do a manual "rm -Rf /home/tempuser" as root before I could re-create it.

Some detail

After logging in as USER and having to get back to the login screen via Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, I saw there were a number of processes hanging around.

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root@lonsdale:/home# ps -ef | grep USER | grep -v "grep"
USER      13849       1  0 10:44 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/gpg-agent --sh --daemon
USER      14108       1  0 10:44 ?        00:00:00 compton --dbus --config /home/USER/.config/compton.conf -b
USER      14122       1  0 10:44 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/pipewire
USER      14123       1  0 10:44 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/pipewire-pulse

root@lonsdale:/home# updatedb

root@lonsdale:/home# locate compton.conf
/home/USER/.config/compton.conf
/home/USER.BROKEN/.config/compton.conf
/usr/share/compton-conf/compton.conf.example
/usr/share/mx-tweak/compton.conf

root@lonsdale:/home# killall -u USER

root@lonsdale:/home# ps -ef | grep USER | grep -v "grep"

root@lonsdale:/home# ls -l /home/USER/.config/compton.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 USER USER 1254 Jun 20  2021 /home/USER/.config/compton.conf

As a test, I logged in as "tempuser" and then out again, and this was the result:

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root@lonsdale:/home/USER# ps -ef | grep tempuser | grep -v grep
tempuser   15129       1  0 10:52 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/pipewire
tempuser   15130       1  0 10:52 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/pipewire-pulse

So, some pipewire processes hang around for some reason, but "tempuser" had no "compton" process (no "gpg-agent" either, but that wasn't configured.

Here's the kicker: she hasn't had Compton configured since installation. So, after I killed all of USER's processes and logged in again, same problem, but if I did the same and also deleted "~USER/.config/compton.conf", then it all worked.

Thing is, that file has not been touched since 2021-06-20, so what changed? Also, her Xfce config directories had important files missing — ones she doesn't even know exist, nor how to get to — and I want to know why, but for now, she can work.

That said, I have a complete backup and week after next I'll see if anyone on the Xfce forum wants to take a look, specifically because of what she explained to me about how shutting down has been taking longer recently. From my perspective some Xfce processes sometimes get out of sync during shut-down, which is why I mentioned serialisation, as every time except once when something similar has happened to me (identical from user experience, but different in solution), it was related to shut-down going awry in some way.

Again, if someone wants me to write up a tutorial on this, let me know.

Posted: **Sat Jun 14, 2025 7:04 am**

OK, so this is spurious, but I said I'd share.

In her "~/Desktop/" there was a ".desktop" file for the Wastebasket. Its name is supposed to be "trash.desktop". Only, it is "trash:⁄.desktop".

What's really weird is that the character after the ":" is not "/" — it is actually "⁄", or U+2044, character 0x2044 in the Unicode character set. Depending on your font they either look the same or slightly different, so that can be hard to catch. of course, no-one has any idea how that happened.

Posted: **Sat Jun 14, 2025 8:23 am**

b3ta wrote: Fri Jun 13, 2025 5:56 am Some detail

Hers was the only user on the machine, so I had to create two new users, as the User Manager would not let me do the copy to the active user (for good reason!).

Since the drive doesn't have enough free space to make a copy of all her files, plus the chances of it being related to a file outside of "~/.*" are tiny, I did the following as root.
Code: Select all
cd /home
mkdir keep
mv USER/* keep/.
While that leave a large amount of unrelated rubbish (Firefox cache files, for example) for the User Manager copy, it is small enough to work, plus it won't miss any of the Xfce files. [Sentence edited for clarity.]

As an aside, after the copy I saw a tree size discrepancy, but that was just the "~/.config/autostart/mx-welcome.desktop" which she had deleted and which the new installation had.

Sadly, logging in as this new user with all my wife's "~/.*" files was no different, hence I really do need answers to questions one and four, above.

Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems to me you did the opposite of what @m_pav suggested you do. The copy should have been FROM the new user TO your wife's account. Instead you copied your wife's configs to the new user and had the same issues with the new user.

This is also why it seems you needed to create 2 new users (instead of the one user m_pav suggested) because it wouldn't let you copy to the ACTIVE new user.

Posted: **Sat Jun 14, 2025 1:58 pm**

Even though post is Solved : Some lessons to learn and well some knowledge can go long way, also may cause some dangerous effect if not handled used more correct.

- Comment: #13 mention of deleting an tempuser account via "rm -Rf ~/.cache/sessions/*". very dangerous anything ~/.cache can be deleted prior to exit an account for the user logged in.

use sudo userdel -rf "tempuser" - tempuser being the name of account to delete. by doing your command rm -Rf ~/.cache/sessions/* hope your logged in as your wifes user other wise you deleted your own ~ home .cache / sessions content, if you do so on an account rm -Rf /home/Wife/* as root,
this alone will mess up your system by system files inclusive being

/etc - passwd passwd- , shadow shadow- , group group- , subuid subuid- . subgid subgid- gshadow gshadow-

- files just named via ending with dash no biggy these are for cache use, forensics and backup incase. ( my always make copy of any file worked in /etc/ alone )

m_pav was right at 1st to help rebuild the account with assumption your user account on system was doing the user sync in MX-User-manager. and not logged in with same broken account.

Practice with my share as well. I used the xfce-session-logout issue to same as mouse click "Logout" I script lots.

contents of /etc/skel/* are all the base files to create a user account. Yet Directories are not created until the user logs in the 1st time.

Firefox cache files can also be deleted prior exit or logout

clean /var/logs and or use the MX-Clean-Up . if your linux only apt remove samba it may provide some extra space if not used. few other programs and or games could also be removed to clear free up Disc real-estate. Food for thought.

-last oddity - MX-user-manager creating an account and after login logout and trying run compton did not see any change yet remove or delete Test1 account. I did not see benefit from normal Xfce4-desktop use need to run such compton. ?

checking the process tree do see pipe-wire still holding the EUID# to the account holding pipe-wire process.
easily killed off by sudo kill -9 4313 or what ever the pid will be per.

this shares another option found in /etc/login.defs where by when deleting an account all user account parts are account delete USERDEL_CMD

this removes user specific Crons and Jobs , it does not kill any holding account process. Pipe-Wire pid is not taken care of but should extinguish at logout and or reboot /shutdown-reboot. hope this helps a little understanding. use of word "my pipes ie | character " > >> either are redirects | is pass onto next command the baton pass per say. give too next.

Again to iterate rm -Rf "anything" let alone rm -rf "anything" be very careful to use of this particular command line. Delete important system files pray back up is kept to date.

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