Bug 172264 – gnome-panel keeps flashing KDE tasks for no reason (eg when swiching virtual desktops)

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

[Description Gerry 2007-03-26 04:59:37 UTC]

See summary.  This happens every time when switching virtual desktops, and is exceptionally annoying.  There doesn't seem to be any way to turn off the flashing -- I've tried unchecking 'enable_animations' for the panel in gconf, and I've tried disabling taskbar notifications in kcontrol -- no effect.

The problem is not limited to virtual desktop switching; sometimes it happens out of the blue even when working on only one desktop.  It's 100% reproducible when switching virtual deskops, though.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Use Gnome.  Tested with gnome-panel 2.16.2 and 2.16.3.
2. Open at least one KDE app (eg kate).  Also open another app and switch focus to that (flashing won't happen if an app already has focus).
3. Switch to another virtual desktop.
4. Switch back to the virtual desktop with the KDE apps.  All of the KDE tasks are now flashing in the taskbar.  While flashing the tasks will take up space and scream for attention even if you switch desktops.  The only way to stop the flashing is to click the tasks so they gain focus.

Actual Results:  
Annoying flashing for no good reason


Expected Results:  
No flashing


# emerge info
*** Deprecated use of action 'info', use '--info' instead
Portage 2.1.2.2 (default-linux/amd64/2006.1/desktop, gcc-4.1.2, glibc-2.5-r0, 2.6.19-gentoo-r5 x86_64)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.19-gentoo-r5 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+
Gentoo Base System release 1.12.9
Timestamp of tree: Sun, 25 Mar 2007 21:00:01 +0000
dev-java/java-config: 1.3.7, 2.0.31-r5
dev-lang/python:     2.3.5-r3, 2.4.3-r4
dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r5
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.17
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.61
sys-devel/automake:  1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10
sys-devel/binutils:  2.17
sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.3.14
sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.22
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.17-r2
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=k8 -msse3 -O3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/3.5/env /usr/kde/3.5/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/share/X11/xkb /usr/share/config"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/gconf /etc/java-config/vms/ /etc/php/apache1-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/apache2-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cgi-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cli-php5/ext-active/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo"
CXXFLAGS="-march=k8 -msse3 -O3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoconfig ccache distlocks metadata-transfer parallel-fetch sandbox sfperms strict userpriv usersandbox"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://trumpetti.atm.tut.fi/gentoo/ http://mirror.gentoo.no/"
LANG="nb_NO.UTF-8"
LC_ALL="nb_NO.UTF-8"
LDFLAGS=""
LINGUAS="no nb no_NO nb_NO"
MAKEOPTS="-j4"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --delete-after --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages --filter=H_**/files/digest-*"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="16bit 7zip S3TC X Xaw3d a52 aac aalib acl acpi alsa amd64 ao aotuv apache2 applet artworkextra asf audiofile bash-completion berkdb bitmap-fonts browserplugin bzip2 cairo caps ccache cdparanoia cdr cli cracklib crypt css ctype cups curl cvs dbus dri dvd dvdr dvdread eds elf emboss emul-linux-x86 encode exif expat fam fame fat ffmpeg firefox flac flash fontconfig fortran gcj gd gdb gdbm gif gimp glitz glut glx gmp gnome gpm graphviz gstreamer gtk gtk2 gtkhtml guile gzip h323 hal icecast iconv idn ieee1394 imagemagick imap imlib imlib2 intl ipv6 jabber jack jack-tmpfs java javascript joystick jpeg json kde kdeenablefinal kdehiddenvisibility kqemu lame lcms ldap libcaca libg++ linuxthreads-tls logitech-mouse lua lzo mad matroska md5sum mhash midi mikmod ming mjpeg mmap mng mod modplug mono mozbranding mozilla moznocompose moznoirc moznomail moznoroaming mp3 mp4 mp4live mpeg mpeg2 mplayer mpm-prefork msn musepack music musicbrainz ncurses new-login nforce2 nls no nptl nptlonly nsplugin ntfs nvidia nvram objc ocaml ogg oggvorbis openal opengl openssh openssl oss pam paste64 pcre pdf perl php physfs png pnp povray ppds pppd python qemu-fast qt4 quicktime rar readline reflection rtc samba scanner sdk sdl sdl-sound session sharedext sharedmem sid slang smp sms sndfile speex spell spl sse-filters sse3 ssl startup-notification stencil-buffer subtitles subversion svg sysfs tcpd tga theora thesaurus threads tiff timidity transcode truetype truetype-fonts type1 type1-fonts unicode usb vcd videos vorbis wacom wma wma123 wxwindows x264 xanim xine xml xml2 xorg xpm xrandr xscreensaver xv xvid xvmc yv12 zip zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" ELIBC="glibc" INITNG_PLUGINS="also bash_launcher chdir chroot conflict cpout critical cron daemon dev dllaunch envparser find fstat history idleprobe initctl interactive iparser last limit logfile netprobe ngc4 pause pidfile reload renice rlparser simple_launcher stcmd stdout suid syncron syslog unneeded provide" INPUT_DEVICES="joystick keyboard mouse wacom" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LINGUAS="no nb no_NO nb_NO" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="nv nvidia vesa fbdev"
Unset:  CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS

[Comment 1 Mart Raudsepp 2007-03-27 23:30:14 UTC]

KDE team, please advise? I see no reason why it would do that in the first place just for KDE apps, so I imagine Qt/kdelibs might be doing something to cause this.
I see this problem myself as well, and only exclusively with KDE apps like kate, or simpler ones like kfind.

PS: I saw this problem on a co-workers Ubuntu Edgy just as well.

[Comment 2 Mart Raudsepp 2007-06-19 01:59:00 UTC]

KDE apps send PropertyNotify events for _NET_STARTUP_ID on workspace switches and metacity used to "active" the window then due to _NET_STARTUP_ID being set, which even further down the logic made the taskbar blink for attention.
Fixed in metacity-2.18.5, now in tree, by not setting the window active if the startup id value is set to what it already was before.
More details for the curious in the upstream bug in URL field.