My desktop does not work

Hello again everyone. I have somewhat of a curious problem now. my desktop does nor work. because I don not know the appropriate technical term to explain this; I will tell every symptom I can see and pray someone has the wisdom to make it all better.

  • Desktop icons disappeared. they are nowhere to be found.

  • Me clicking to the blank space in desktop (right or left) has no apparent effect on anything. but if I right clicked it; the first attempt to go to another window with alt+tab does not work. The focus goes to that new window; but the display stays firmly on the desktop.

  • I can not change the background image (nothing happens when I change it).

  • Every other thing in the computer works just fine. I can still open and operate anything from the Whisker menu.


I have NO idea what triggered this. the first time it happened (about 2 weeks ago) I was able to solve the problem with a simple restart and everything worked just fine. but in about 3 or 4 days; a reboot would not be able to make a solution anymore.

thanks for everything. have a nice day.
cheers

Edit: I wanted to post inxi -Fxz output but it said “you cant post links”. it’s kernel linux5.9.16-1 if that’s important.

just please feel free to ask anything regarding to the machine itself.

Edit 2: inxi -Fxz output

System:
  Kernel: 5.9.16-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.0 
  Desktop: N/A Distro: Manjaro Linux base: Arch Linux 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: ASUSTeK product: X550VC v: 1.0 serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: ASUSTeK model: X550VC v: 1.0 serial: <filter> 
  UEFI: American Megatrends v: X550VC.222 date: 01/22/2014 
CPU:
  Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-3230M bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Ivy Bridge rev: 9 cache: L2: 3 MiB 
  flags: avx lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 20762 
  Speed: 1197 MHz min/max: 1200/3200 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1197 2: 1197 
  3: 1312 4: 1201 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics vendor: ASUSTeK 
  driver: i915 v: kernel bus-ID: 00:02.0 
  Device-2: NVIDIA GF117M [GeForce 610M/710M/810M/820M / GT 
  620M/625M/630M/720M] 
  vendor: ASUSTeK driver: nouveau v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.0 
  Device-3: Chicony USB2.0 HD UVC WebCam type: USB driver: uvcvideo 
  bus-ID: 3-1.3:4 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.10 driver: loaded: intel,nouveau 
  unloaded: modesetting resolution: 1366x768~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 4000 (IVB GT2) 
  v: 4.2 Mesa 21.0.1 direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 7 Series/C216 Family High Definition Audio vendor: ASUSTeK 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.9.16-1-MANJARO running: yes 
  Sound Server-2: JACK v: 0.125.0 running: no 
  Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 14.2 running: yes 
Network:
  Device-1: Qualcomm Atheros AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter 
  vendor: AzureWave driver: ath9k v: kernel port: e000 bus-ID: 03:00.0 
  IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet 
  vendor: ASUSTeK driver: r8169 v: kernel port: d000 bus-ID: 04:00.2 
  IF: enp4s0f2 state: down mac: <filter> 
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: IMC Networks Atheros AR3012 Bluetooth 4.0 Adapter type: USB 
  driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 3-1.1:5 
  Report: bt-adapter ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: down 
  bt-service: enabled,running rfk-block: hardware: no software: no 
  address: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 698.64 GiB used: 80.72 GiB (11.6%) 
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WD7500BPVT-75A1YT0 
  size: 698.64 GiB 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 686.38 GiB used: 80.72 GiB (11.8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2 
  ID-2: /boot/efi size: 299.4 MiB used: 280 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat 
  dev: /dev/sda1 
Swap:
  Alert: No swap data was found. 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 62.0 C mobo: N/A 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 3000 
Info:
  Processes: 209 Uptime: 20m Memory: 3.73 GiB used: 1.54 GiB (41.2%) 
  Init: systemd Compilers: gcc: 10.2.0 Packages: 1338 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.0 
  inxi: 3.3.04

does issuing

xfwm4 -r

help at all?

I have no better Idea what to ask or to do based upon the symptoms.
This will restart the xfce window manager.

A log out and back in should do the same.

there are no links in the output of that command
mark the output and then use the
format as preformatted text` button …

1 Like

5.9.16 kernel is EOL. Have you updated your system recently? 5.4 and 5.10 are LTS.

I have added “edit 2” in the parent post.

in GUI, that comment gave the output of;

[uluchann@uluchann-x550vc ~]$ xfwm4 -r
Waiting for current window manager (Xfwm4) on screen :0.0 to exit: Done

in tty; it said “warning: cannot open display”. it’s just weird.

Edit: oh and; the GUI one constantly tries to do something. I have to use ctrl + c to do anything to do something else in terminal. yet it did not do anything else after about 2 hours. so I ha to terminate it too.

I have no good idea how to fix your problem.
this command

xfwm4 -r

was just a guess
It restarts the window manager.
This only works from a terminal in the GUI - not from tty.

I’m afraid I can’t be of any help to you.

1 Like

No worries. Thank you very much for trying :slight_smile:

Maybe read through this page:
https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/Install_Desktop_Environments#Install_a_basic_XFCE_environment

I would first do a full update