[mythtv-users] Backend window manager messed up

[Damian]

On 09/03/2015 12:11, Rob wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 8, 2015 at 4:06 PM, Damian <myth at surr.co.uk
> <mailto:myth at surr.co.uk>> wrote:
>
>     Hello all,
>
>     I'm running MythBuntu on my home server's backend. The server is in
>     the garage and I access it via primarily via VNC.
>
>     For a few weeks now, the window manager (Xfce) has been messed up.
>     When I log into VNC, it looks 'kind of' like it usually does, but
>     there's no visible panel at the top (although I think that's just
>     because other windows are in front of it rather than below it) and
>     the other windows on screen (Firefox, SpiderOak, TeamViewer etc)
>     don't have a top bar. The bar that you use to move, close, maximise
>     and minimise a window. Those top bars are simply not there.
>
>     Most things seem to be working ok with the server. The MythTV
>     backend is functioning fine. My music server (Logitec Media Server)
>     is working fine. I seem to remember that Dropbox stopped working,
>     for some reason, a week or two before this problem started, but I
>     didn't worry too much about that.
>
>     So, it's household function is 'OK', but I can't do anything else on
>     the machine because the GUI is messed up.
>
>     Do you lovely people have any idea how to fix this?
>
>
> Try logging in via ssh and either deleting or moving the directory that
> stores XFCE's desktop configuration.  It's been a while since I've
> played with that environment, but my be is that it's either ~/.xfce or
> some combination of ~/.gnome ~/.gnome2 ~/.gconf ~/.gconf2
>

OK, here's what I've tried in an attempt to narrow down the problem ...

Before and after each of these lines, I've done:
sudo stop lightdm
sudo start lightdm
and then tried to log in via VNC to see if there's any difference.

mv /home/gingerserver/.gnome2 /home/gingerserver/.gnome2-x
.. didn't fix it

mv /home/gingerserver/.gconf /home/gingerserver/.gconf-x
.. didn't fix it

mv /etc/lightdm /etc/lightdm-x
.. VNC wouldn't work after this

I copied eveeything back to the original files, then homed in on the 
lightdm directory ...

mv lightdm.conf lightdm.conf-x
.. couldn't connect after this

mv lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf-x
.. didn't fix

mv lightdm-gtk-greeter-ubuntu.conf lightdm-gtk-greeter-ubuntu.conf-x
.. didn't fix

mv mythbuntu-lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf mythbuntu-lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf-x
.. didn't fix

mv users.conf users.conf-x
.. didn't fix

So, I thought that I had potentially narrowed the problem down to the 
lightdm.conf file.

However, the contents of that seem to be ...

[SeatDefaults]
autologin-guest=false
autologin-user=homeserver
autologin-user-timeout=0
autologin-session=lightdm-autologin
greeter-session=lightdm-gtk-greeter
user-session=mythbuntu

That all seems quite innocent.

Can anyone see anything here that points to anything?

Thanks,
Damian