Metacity gone

[whodareswins]

I've lost my Metacity windows manager. Is there any simple way to recover it? I've tried "metacity --replace" but no cigar.

[PhillyFloyd]

How'd you "loose it" - yum install metacity will install it from the repos, you have to run metacity --replace as the user you are logged in as and it should work if the package is there i believe

[whodareswins]

I was looking to change the window focus. (Didn't realise there was an extra package). I can't remember the exact command but metacity disappeared. Now metacity --replace locks the terminal but a popup says that there is no window manager to replace. Just using metacity gives: Window manager warning: Screen 0 on display ":0.0" already has a window manager; try using the --replace option to replace the current window manager.

[JohnJasonJordan]

Originally Posted by whodareswins

I was looking to change the window focus. (Didn't realise there was an extra package). I can't remember the exact command but metacity disappeared. Now metacity --replace locks the terminal but a popup says that there is no window manager to replace. Just using metacity gives: Window manager warning: Screen 0 on display ":0.0" already has a window manager; try using the --replace option to replace the current window manager.

I'm not clear what you mean when you say you lost the metacity window manager. Did it go away while you were working? Or did it fail to load when you logged in?

If you can open a terminal, just type "metacity" and that will load it, assuming it is installed. If it is not installed, "yum install metacity" should reinstall it.

I also recommend installing a different desktop so you have something to log in to in case you mess up Gnome. I use Xfce4 as an alternative: You can install it with yum. After installing it, when your login window comes up you will have the option to log in to Xfce or Gnome.

I also recommend creating a new user as your alter ego. In case you mess up your password or otherwise can't log in as yourself, at least you have another way to log in so you can fix things.

[whodareswins]

Actually I've discovered it is still here just behaving improperly. Bringing up any window fills the screen with no title bar. If one then control + drags the window a smaller version with title bar comes up & behaves normally, but any new window goes back to filling the screen. Is there a config file available which has become wrongly set?

[PhillyFloyd]

yeah follow john's suggestion of creating a new user, see how that works for you, then you can troubleshoot where the configuration is causing your problem

[JohnJasonJordan]

OK, I should explain what happened to me. It may not be what has happened to you, but I should document it someplace so that if it happens to someone else Google will find it.

I have used Ubuntu for several years, but I decided it was time to move on and learn about other distros. I had tried several live CDs over the years and was always favorably impressed with Fedora, but I decided to start with Debian Testing, mostly because I love Debian package management. I bought a new hard disk for my laptop and put the Jaunty disk on the shelf for "just in case" and as a source of data and config files.

After a couple days of installing apps and configuring things the way I wanted them I decided it was time to reboot. And after I logged in the gnome-panel and metacity were gone. I had turned off display of the desktop, so I couldn't even create a launcher to get a terminal window open. I spent a day googling with another computer before giving up. However, I was suddenly hit with a bunch of work that required the computer to be working, so I put the Jaunty hard disk back and forgot about moving on for the time being.

Three weeks later I tried again. And again I started with Debian Testing, except that I rebooted more frequently. And sure enough, toward the end of the second day I lost the gnome-panel and metacity again.

I was so disgusted with Debian Testing by then that I installed Fedora 12. And in the morning of the second day I rebooted and discovered that I had lost metacity again, although this time gnome-panel was still running. Note that each new distro install was completely fresh, reformatting the new hard disk.

I quickly gave up and installed OpenSuse 11.2. At the end of the first day I rebooted and discovered that I had lost metacity again.

Now, each of those three distros use the latest Gnome. I never had anything like this happen with Ubuntu, but Ubuntu does not use the latest Gnome, not even on Karmic. Quite naturally, I blamed the problem on a bug in Gnome.

At that point I installed OpenSuse 11.1 to get an earlier version of Gnome. I used it for a couple of days and never lost gnome-panel or metacity. But I really disliked it. Package management was a mess.

So I decided to wipe it out and install Fedora 11, which also uses an older Gnome. I was moving right along, installing, tweaking, and having a fun time. And then on the fourth day I rebooted and discovered that I had lost metacity gain.

I should add that I had tried many troubleshooting efforts. One of them was to create a new user. And I discovered that the new user still had gnome-panel and metacity. Therefore I knew it had to be something in my user configs. But each new install was on a reformatted disk, and I never copied any configs from any other distro, with the exception of the .openoffice.org file from my Jaunty drive.

I also tried deleting .gconf, .gconfd, .gnome2, and .nautilus folders. They were regenerated and I lost my settings, but I still had no metacity.

It finally occurred to me that I needed to figure out what was different between my user profile and the new user's profile. I decided that an easy way to do this would be to pollute the new user with my Gnome configuration dot folders, one folder at a time, rebooting each time. All that happened was that the new user gained my desktop settings; the new user still had metacity.

And then I tried polluting the new user with my .local folder. Bang! The new user lost metacity,

In the process of polluting the new user with my configs I had always renamed the new user's folder by appending -original before copying my folder to the new user. So I ran diff on the two folders. It was hard to read the results from diff, but eventually I nailed the culprit. I had a file called "metacity.desktop" in .local/share/applications that was not in the -original folder. I tried renaming it, but Nautilus refused to let me rename it. Eventually I renamed it "metacity.desktop.old" from the command line as root.

And when I logged out and back in I had metacity back.

I have no idea what rogue process created that evil file, but I'd sure like to know so I can file a bug report.

So far I have rebooted several times and metacity always loads automatically. And the metacity.desktop file has not reappeared. (Knocking on wood.)

I have asked a number of local Linux-Gnome users if any of them have such a file. No one one has it.

That's as much as I know. I hope my story will help others who run into the same thing.

[whodareswins]

Thanks for the info JJJ. However while I had the dreaded "metacity.desktop" file where you suggested, removing it didn't fix my problem. Nor did the new user trick. There must be a system wide config file set to start metacity with windows maximised. I'm till looking for it.

---------- Post added at 03:30 PM CST ---------- Previous post was at 09:11 AM CST ----------

SOLVED! In case anyone else strikes this problem, the answer is in the Configuration Editor. Just above metacity is a folder called maximus. If you tick the box "no-maximise" all is back to normal.