[Xastir] Xastir crashing lxde desktop

Sun Feb 25 09:43:10 PST 2018

This sounds like the same problem I was having a while back, and I think 
it was written off as using the old Compass image but it does it with 
later images as the build I am using at home on a monitor and the build 
in my truck with a 7 inch i touch display does it too..

https://nw-digital-radio.groups.io/g/compass/topic/6079844#146

It has been a long time since I did any APRS but I don't think I have 
ever found a solution.

Robert/KF7VOP

On 2/24/2018 4:49 PM, Tom Russo wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 04:32:48PM -0800, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <kg7gcf at gmail.com> flavor, containing:
>> Thanks Tom,
>>
>> You've given me some ideas and that is a whole lot better than what I had.
>>   Do have VNC and SSH enabled and running the behavior is similar to what
>> you pointed out.  There's a lot here that I don't understand .  Thanks for
>> the input.  Thank you again for the work on git.  The build was flawless as
>> near as I can tell.
>>
>> Well thought I'd report that I disabled both ssh and vnc, rebooted, fired
>> up direwolf and festival, then launched xastir.
> Is this using a locally connected monitor, then?
>
>> The same outcome as with
>> both those services enabled, the lxde desktop panel disappeared and the
>> three windows with direwolf, festival, and xastir continued and the xastir
>> window continued.  It all seemed to be working but I'd lost the lxde panel
>> with it's application launcher, menu, etc.
> Hmmmm.
>
>> If any more thoughts or info come your way about this odd behavior I hope
>> you drop me a line.
> No more thoughts, but if you google with the search text "raspbian vnc bug lxde"
> and "raspberry pi taskbar missing" you'll find lots of hits, some of which are
> so old the solutions they propose are suspect, but some very recent (a few
> months old).  There is one report:
>
> https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=191765
>
> that the initial release of Raspbian Stretch had the bug but it got fixed (so
> an "apt-get update/apt-get upgrade" would fix it.  But you're running a
> different OS, so this might not be relevant.
>
> There's also this:
>
> https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=148030&p=974857
>
> and this:
>
> https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/9395/i-accidently-deleted-my-taskbar-how-do-i-get-it-back
>
> that may have *something* for you to try.  The number of low-quality answers
> on some of those threads (and some of their ages) make me wary of just trying
> what they say, though.
>
>> On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 12:11 PM, Tom Russo <russo at bogodyn.org> wrote:
>>
>>> On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 11:11:53AM -0800, we recorded a bogon-computron
>>> collision of the <kg7gcf at gmail.com> flavor, containing:
>>>> Built xastir from the git hub source yesterday and every thing went
>>> smooth
>>>> as glass, nice job devs!  All features including gdal indicated they were
>>>> enabled.
>>>>
>>>> I am running a pi3 with a udrcII, compass OS, and direwolf.  When I
>>> launch
>>>> Xastir, the LXDE desktop environment crashes, and I am left in an OpenBox
>>>> window manager session.
>>>>
>>>> I am looking for any input that might help me determine what the heck is
>>>> going on.  Is there something new in xastir that might account for this.
>>>> It appears to be easily replicated by starting up xastir.
>>> Can't help you with what might be wrong, but there shouldn't be anything
>>> new in Xastir for the last few years that could account for this.  Almost
>>> all of the work that has gone into Xastir for the last two public releases
>>> has been unrelated to its GUI (either in scripting, network handling, or
>>> internal decoding of APRS data).
>>>
>>> Any messages in /var/log/syslog or /var/log/messages that might be
>>> relevant?
>>>
>>> Are you viewing your desktop over VNC, or on a screen attached directly to
>>> the Pi3?  I think we saw some commentary recently about there being aa bug
>>> in VNC where there were problems if VNC and SSH were both enabled on the
>>> machine, but that was mostly something that showed up as panels going away
>>> on
>>> the desktop.
>>>
>>> If that's not the issue, if it were me I'd start by pulling everything off
>>> the
>>> Pi and just seeing if Xastir, not talking to any interfaces and not having
>>> any
>>> external hardware on the Pi, will still crash the desktop.
>>>
>>> Other than that, I don't know what to guess at.
>>>
>>> I've only used Raspbian on my pis (they're all running Stretch right now),
>>> and only old-school TNCs with them (an OpenTracker 2 for one igate, an
>>> ancient
>>> MFJ TNC for another igate, and an even older OpenTracker SMB running KISS
>>> firmware built into an HT's battery pack for playing around).  I've no
>>> experience with the UDRCII and direwolf.
>>>
>>> I have run Xastir on my headless Pi B+, but not through the LXDE desktop
>>> --- I
>>> just used ssh -Y to the machine from my desktop machine and popped the
>>> window
>>> back up on my desktop's X server.  It ran fine for hours, albeit with a
>>> little struggle on that poor overworked B+ (which is also running
>>> javAPRSSrvr,
>>> something of a resource pig).
>>>
>>> I noticed some UI hangs, notably the little "data in/data out" arrows
>>> getting
>>> stuck "on" on some interfaces when no data was flowing, and the "Show
>>> Incoming
>>> Data" window stopped updating even though axlisten showed that
>>> data was coming in over the TNC all the time.  I'm thinking that was just
>>> the
>>> poor little Pi B+ not having enough "oomph" to handle everything I was
>>> asking
>>> of it.  It still updated the map and received packets as normal, even with
>>> that
>>> hiccupping.  The program didn't crash, but I have no idea what would have
>>> happened if I had tried to run LXDE on top of all that.
>>>
>>> I did briefly play with Xastir on a Pi Zero W with the LXDE desktop
>>> displaying
>>> on a little 7" HDMI monitor just a few weeks ago with a USB-connected TNC.
>>> It, too, ran fine, and I saw no evidence of crashes.  That was just a toy
>>> setup though, and I didn't keep it running for very long, as what I was
>>> actually doing was rebuilding an SD card for one of my IGates, and using
>>> the
>>> Pi Zero temporarily to configure the new card --- and while I was at it I
>>> used
>>> Xastir to test out the AX25 networking set-up.
>>>
>>> This is all a long-winded way of saying "I dunno why you're having this
>>> problem."  Sorry.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Tom Russo    KM5VY
>>> Tijeras, NM
>>>
>>>   echo "prpv_a'rfg_cnf_har_cvcr" | sed -e 's/_/ /g' | tr [a-m][n-z]
>>> [n-z][a-m]
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