Confused with hal, xcb etc

[Brian J. Tarricone]

John Coppens wrote:
> Hi guys.
> 
> I just installed hald, and have some problems making it run correctly.
> (It doesn't, yet). But one of the side effects it seems to have, is that
> when Xfce is started, xfdesktop isn't run (or probably it is, but gets
> killed).
> 
> If I start xfdesktop manually, it _does_ start, but doesn't do its things
> completely (eg., it doesn't seem to read the config completely. Panel
> shows only 4 desktops instead of 6 configged. The theme isn't selected
> correctly, and the background appears, but not dimmed 50% as configged,
> and the right-click menu doesn't appear, some icons missing).
> 
> Starting xfce-settings manually makes xfdesktop abort. I get this
> feedback:
> 
> root at on6jc ~$ xfdesktop
> ** Message: This build doesn't include support for XF86Misc extension
> ** Message: Querying Xkb extension
> ** Message: Xkb extension found
> ** Message: Querying XINPUT extension
> ** Message: XINPUT extension found
> ** Message: Querying Xkb extension
> ** Message: Xkb extension found
> Locking assertion failure.  Backtrace:
> #0 /usr/X11/lib/libxcb-xlib.so.0 [0xb7528740]
> #1 /usr/X11/lib/libxcb-xlib.so.0(xcb_xlib_unlock+0x2d) [0xb752886d]
> #2 /usr/X11/lib/libX11.so.6 [0xb782fcc2]
> #3 /usr/X11/lib/libXrandr.so.2(XRRQueryVersion+0x156) [0xb753b396]
> #4 /usr/X11/lib/libXrandr.so.2(XRRSetScreenConfigAndRate+0x79)
> #[0xb753bd79] 5 /usr/local/lib/xfce4/mcs-plugins/display_plugin.so
> #[0xb71ea612] 6 /usr/local/lib/xfce4/mcs-plugins/display_plugin.so
> #(mcs_plugin_init+0x3db) [0xb71eaadb] 7 xfce-mcs-manager(main+0x206)
> #[0x804a966] 8 /lib/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xe0) [0xb7560390]
> #9 xfce-mcs-manager [0x8049f81]
> xfce-mcs-manager: xcb_xlib.c:82: xcb_xlib_unlock: Assertion
> `c->xlib.lock' failed.
> 
> ** (xfdesktop:4761): CRITICAL **: settings_register_callback: assertion
> `cb && user_data && mcs_client' failed
> 
> ** (xfdesktop:4761): CRITICAL **: settings_register_callback: assertion
> `cb && user_data && mcs_client' failed
> 
> 
> Finally, starting xfdesktop with
> 
> LIBXCB_ALLOW_SLOPPY_LOCK=1  xfdesktop
> 
> makes things work normally AFAICS (6 desktops, right-click menu is back,
> and settings work again). (I found this hack in Java-related similar
> problems) 
> 
> I first thought the problems were hald-related and would be solved if I
> could get it running, but I'm not so sure now: hald isn't running yet,
> and the xcb hack solved the problem.
> 
> Can anyone explain this? A config problem?

No idea.  I don't use libxcb here.  Report this to your distro.

	-brian