My XFCE configuration has one panel, at the right edge of the desktop. When nothing particular is ongoing 'top' frequently reports over 50% use for xfce4-panel and X together. I tried removing applets from the panel but it does not help. The version of xfce4-panel is 4.13.2.
Created attachment 511638 [details] Output of `emerge --info'
Masking xfce4-panel-4.13.2 is possible, causing 4.13.1 to be pulled in. This does not help however, the high CPU usage persists.
I remember seeing something like that some time ago, but now on 4.13.2 I do not experience that. That leads me to believe the cause could be one of the dependencies that since then I reemerged and problem disappeared after doing so.
It is sad to read that you have problems with the software. The situation seems to be a bit more complicate and requires some analysis. We can not help you efficiently via bug tracker. The bug tracker aims rather on specific problems in .ebuilds and less on individual systems. I have had very good experience on the gentoo IRC [1] with questions like this. Of course there are also forums and mailing lists [2,3]. I hope you understand, that I will close the bug here therefore and wish you good luck on one of the mentioned channels [4]. Please reopen the ticket in order to provide an indication for an specific error in an ebuild or any gentoo related product. [1] https://www.gentoo.org/get-involved/irc-channels/ [2] https://forums.gentoo.org/ [3] https://www.gentoo.org/get-involved/mailing-lists/all-lists.html [4] https://www.gentoo.org/support/
I have now switched to the 'mate' desktop for daily use. I will keep the xfce packages alongside, and since I start my desktops with `startx' and .xinitrc I can easily switch between the two. Maybe the CPU usage problem will go away with a future upgrade of XFCE--I will keep an eye on it.
Almost 3 months later; same symptoms still seen. It seems that what I see is in fact https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13829 (High CPU usage in xfce4-panel, reported on xfce4-panel 4.13.1). A workaround for now is thus to not use "Window Buttons" in any panel. Instead one can use "Window Menu". Changing the status to "UPSTREAM".
Hopefully a solution has been found; read here: https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13829 You can try it out like this: download the attached panel-window.diff to /tmp and then do (with adjusted paths to suit your system if needed) ebuild /usr/portage/xfce-base/xfce4-panel/xfce4-panel-4.13.2.ebuild configure cd /var/tmp/portage/portage/xfce-base/xfce4-panel-4.13.2/work/xfce4-panel-4.13.2/panel patch </tmp/panel-window.diff ebuild /usr/portage/xfce-base/xfce4-panel/xfce4-panel-4.13.2.ebuild compile install qmerge
Created attachment 526368 [details, diff] patch that hopefully solves this issue until fixed by upstream
