UI freezes while palette cycling continues

[emh789]

Hi. I have trouble with the UI freezing when some commands would presumably open a dialogue window. While the UI is frozen, fractal rendering actions such as color cycling and autopilot will continue.

I see no indication that a window has opened in the background. The only recourse is to ps && kill the XaoS process from a terminal.

I have observed this with:

• File -> Open, also with keyboard shortcut Ctrl-O
• File -> Save, also with keyboard shortcut Ctrl-S
• Fractal -> Palette -> Palette Editor, after choosing a color to change
• Fractal -> Palette -> Load Palette Config
• Fractal -> Palette -> Save Palette Config

I am on an AMD desktop using Linux Mint 22 / Ubuntu 24. This happens from both the packaged edition and when I build from source.

This did not happen with version 4.2 when I was using the system package. This doesn't happen when I build from the 4.2.1 source right now.

Let me know if there is a way to generate a logfile that might help. Thanks!

[kovzol]

Thanks for reporting! Is the issue present with the latest sources (4.3.3 at the moment) too?

[emh789]

Yes, this issue is present with 4.3.3 built from source. It is also present with 4.3.0 built from source just now.

I would like to update one observation— if this happens when I run XaoS from a terminal window, I can Ctrl-C in that terminal window to exit XaoS as expected. If I run Xaos from the desktop menu system, then I have to open a terminal to find the process and kill it manually.

[kovzol]

Sorry, I cannot reproduce this. Please, can you create a video recording to show what you exactly experience?
I use Ubuntu 24.04 with KDE. What is your desktop environment?

[emh789]

Hi, sorry for the late reply. I reinstalled the latest version and made a video. I demonstrate the following actions:

• Help -> About
• Action -> Display text
• Calculation -> Zooming speed
• Fractal -> Formulae -> Mandlebrot

All of these work as expected.

When I go to File -> Open, nothing happens, and the window itself becomes unresponsive, including the menu bar and the Close (X) button. The application still cycles colors. There are no errors in the terminal window from which I ran XaoS, and Ctrl-C from the terminal closes XaoS.

I am using Linux Mint 22.1 which is mostly the Ubuntu 24 system libraries. I have a more current version of libpoco, if that matters.

If I understand correctly (as I'm still somewhat new to Linux) the desktop is Cinnamon, which I believe is GTK+3. Linux Mint also has editions with Xfce and MATE. I would be glad to try those and be more prompt with the results if you still aren't able to reproduce this.

Since the palette cycling continues, I'm wondering if the problem is ultimately not with XaoS but elsewhere. However, I use a few Qt6 applications and have never encountered this before.

On an older, slower machine with the same OS, the pointer briefly displays as the "busy" pinwheel after choosing File -> Open, then becoming unresponsive.

I hope this helps. Thanks!

video5573388863.mp4

[kovzol]

Thanks for your very detailed and helpful explanation. I tried to reproduce it on Ubuntu 24.04, for the first time I had some issues when trying to open the file, but after I updated my system (to have the newest version of each package), I cannot reproduce it any longer.
Maybe this is an issue with the Qt version you use, but I cannot confirm this.
I guess you cannot reproduce this issue with the WebAssembly version at https://xaos.app/? It worked for me without any problems.

[emh789]

Correct, I cannot reproduce this issue with the WebAssembly version.

It turns out I do have several pending system updates, but in the meantime here's the info on the current Qt package:

Package: qt6-base-dev
Version: 6.4.2+dfsg-21.1build5
Priority: optional
Section: universe/libdevel
Source: qt6-base
Origin: Ubuntu
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <[email protected]>
Original-Maintainer: Debian Qt/KDE Maintainers <[email protected]>
Bugs: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+filebug
Installed-Size: 16.6 MB
Provides: libqt6opengl6-dev (= 6.4.2+dfsg-21.1build5)
Depends: libgl-dev, libglx-dev, libopengl-dev, libqt6concurrent6t64 (= 6.4.2+dfsg-21.1build5), libqt6core6t64 (= 6.4.2+dfsg-21.1build5), libqt6dbus6t64 (= 6.4.2+dfsg-21.1build5), libqt6gui6t64 (= 6.4.2+dfsg-21.1build5), libqt6network6t64 (= 6.4.2+dfsg-21.1build5), libqt6openglwidgets6t64 (= 6.4.2+dfsg-21.1build5), libqt6printsupport6t64 (= 6.4.2+dfsg-21.1build5), libqt6sql6t64 (= 6.4.2+dfsg-21.1build5), libqt6test6t64 (= 6.4.2+dfsg-21.1build5), libqt6widgets6t64 (= 6.4.2+dfsg-21.1build5), libqt6xml6t64 (= 6.4.2+dfsg-21.1build5), libvulkan-dev, qmake6 (= 6.4.2+dfsg-21.1build5), qt6-base-dev-tools (= 6.4.2+dfsg-21.1build5), qt6-qpa-plugins (= 6.4.2+dfsg-21.1build5)
Breaks: libqt6opengl6-dev (<< 6.4.2+dfsg-12~)
Replaces: libqt6opengl6-dev (<< 6.4.2+dfsg-12~)
Homepage: https://www.qt.io/developers/
Download-Size: 1,458 kB
APT-Manual-Installed: yes
APT-Sources: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble/universe amd64 Packages
Description: Qt 6 base development files
 Qt is a cross-platform C++ application framework. Qt's primary feature
 is its rich set of widgets that provide standard GUI functionality.
 .
 This package contains the header development files used for building
 Qt 6 applications.
 .
 If you are interested in packaging Qt 6 stuff please take a look at
 https://qt-kde-team.pages.debian.net/packagingqtbasedstuff.html

[emh789]

Updating my system packages didn't resolve the behavior with version 4.3. The WebAssembly app at xaos.app and the previous version 4.2.1 still work as before.

I tried building XaoS on several different Debian Live Builds with different desktop environments to see what happens. Even though that might not represent the most current software updates, the results might be useful.

When using File -> Open:

Debian/Cinnamon

• No new window appeared. XaoS window continued color cycling, but was unresponsive.

Devian/GNOME

• No new window appeared. XaoS window continued color cycling, but was unresponsive.
• Upon launching XaoS from the command line, a message appears in the terminal:

  qt.qpa.plugin: Could not find the Qt platform plugin "wayland" in ""

• Installing qt-wayland resolves the message, but did not change the behavior.

Debian/KDE

• Behavior was not reproduced. A functioning "Open" window appears.

Debian/Mate

• A new window titled "Open" appeared, but was malfunctioning. Its contents were an image of the display, the desktop and other open windows.
• XaoS window continued color cycling, but was unresponsive.

Debian/Xfce

• A new window titled "Open" appeared, but was malfunctioning. It had no contents. When moving the window, the frame would persist on the display.
• XaoS window continued color cycling, but was unresponsive.
• (note: xfce did not exclude the Screenshot app from an "entire screen" capture)

If I knew anything about Qt I might be able to devise some other tests. However, if this indicates a missing Qt package in the desktop environment, let me know and I'll be glad to try installing it.

[kovzol]

Thank you, this is extremely useful. I will try to find time to have the problematic systems installed (currently I use Ubuntu/KDE which just works).