[SOLVED] XFCE4.10 main panel and freeze problem

Question

Hello everyone.
I just have upgraded to XFCE4.10 and after rebooting (as the update included also a new kernel) the main panel is double its size just like the icons. I would have included a screenshot but here is where my second problem appears.
Whenever I try to open a window the system just freezes.
The strange thing is that when I try random things (checking 'Appearance' to see if my Oxygen theme wasn't working anymore with 4.10 or fixing the missing 'Separator' issue for correct window display - former freezed though after clicking on 'Accept') it works but the 'real' things (opening browser - both from applications menu or xfce shortcut panel - or Thunar) do not.
I also noted that when trying to save the 'Separator' fix when I hit the actions button to close the session I was directly just given that option instead of displaying the full menu of restart etc.
Should I consider this a new issue or something I have to setup in 4.10 in comparison to 4.8 where it work perfectly?
I am considering a kernel downgrade to see if it fixes the freeze issue though I doubt, if it does, it would relate to the panel size issue (or that 'only close session' allowance that I have just referred to). The reason for not having tried the downgrade yet is that the system apparently works fine as long as I do not open any window "for real", as said.
Any suggestions?
Last edited by root (2012-05-02 17:34:03)

Answer 1

%$$& Wrote everything nicely down and got logged out xD
Let's see how much I remember.
First of all, right now writing from my downgraded 3.3.3-1 kernel. I didn't succeed doing the downgrade while the 3.3.4-1 was loaded thus I had to do it using the change root method. That way I also discovered the, apparent, reason for the user modules fail at startup and the freezing at the login screen I reported in #3. Somehow the system was using the 3.3.3-1 kernel (I do not know when it installed successfully) but the 3.3.4-1 headers. Most likely I made a mistake somewhere during my previous change root attempt when fixing a *new* unable to find root device that popped up then.
As said, I have been able to downgrade using the Arch Install CD and through the change root method but received the warning,
directory permissions differ on usr/src/linux-3.3.3-1-ARCH/
filesystem: 700 package: 755
after the install/downgrade of each package (linux-docs, linux-headers and linux). Should I consider this a new problem? System works fine so far thus I am not sure about this.
Prior to successfully downgrading I tried to install the LTS kernel but wasn't successful with the 3.3.4-1 kernel loaded. Just like with the downgrade I tried using the change root method and could install it.
But despite updating grub's menu.lst accordingly I was receiving an 'unable to find root device message' which could not be fixed through the change root method just like with the 3.3.4-1 kernel (in case of the LTS one changing the final step from mkinitcpio -p linux to mkinitcpio -p linux-lts as far as I understand it). I might give it another try installing it in this working environment later on and report back with the results.
@ConnorBehan
As I have just stated the user modules fail message and the login screen freeze were surely my fault but the error messages I referred to from the beginning with the 3.3.4-1 kernel were like these,
.... = increasing numbers/disk sectors(?) (left/right)
.... ext4_reserve_inode_write .... [ext4]
.... ext4_reserve_inode_dirty .... [ext4]
.... ? unix_write_space ....
.... ? ext4_dirty_inode .... [ext4]
.... ? ext4_dirty_inode .... [ext4]
.... ext4_dirty_inode .... [ext4]
.... __mark_inode_dirty ....
.... ? mnt_clone_write ....
.... file_update_time ....
.... __generic_file_aio_write ....
.... generic_file_aio_write ....
.... ? ext4_file_mmap .... [ext4]
.... ext4_file_write .... [ext4]
.... ? ext4_file_mmap .... [ext4]
.... do_sync_readv_writev ....
.... ? security_file_permission ....
.... ? _copy_from_user ....
.... ? rw_verify_area ....
.... do_readv_writev ....
.... ? ext4_file_mmap [ext4]
.... ? sockfd_lookup_light ....
.... vfs_writev ....
.... sys_writev ....
.... sysenter_do_call ....
@foutrelis
You may be right with regard to the drive as it is a quite old laptop I am running Arch on. Now that you refer to the drive could the freeze/errors I reported to ConnorBehan be related to the tweaking of the vm.vfs_cache_pressure value I did?
I am just taking a wild guess myself comparing my ide drive to your ssd one. I had never had this kind of problem prior to 3.3.4-1. Just as if this kernel could not handle my tweak anymore (value is 50 and worked fine so far).