Change Desktop Background hangs in LinuxMint 17.1 MATE

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iluvedm

Change Desktop Background hangs in LinuxMint 17.1 MATE

Post by iluvedm »

Greetings LinuxMinters,
I installed Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca MATE (32bit) a few days ago and just did a update via the Update Manager hoping that it would fix a bug when trying to change backgrounds.

Just wanted to know if this is a bug or just a MATE Desktop thingy....
Whenever I right-click 'Change Desktop Background', the info for the Theme, Background, and Fonts tabs takes a while to load. Seriously!!
Once I select the background (wallpaper) pic, it changes without any problems...it's just that initial loading after right-clicking 'Change Desktop Background'.
It is annoying to say the least because I like to change my wallpaper often.

Observations:
If I log out and back in again, I can literally count to from 'one thousand one, one thousand two' all the way up to 'one thousand twenty seven' before the thumbnails show up in the Background tab -- or for any tabs whatsoever. Most importantly, if I right-click Change Desktop Background again, it takes about 23 seconds for the same info to load in the 3 tabs (Theme, Background, Fonts). A 3rd or 4th time loads the tab content faster (almost instantaneous).

Conclusions:
Sooo, is this just a MATE Desktop bug that we just have to put up with?? Is this just a Linux Mint 17.1 bug? I don't want to jump to conclusions about 'stability' now since everything else works ok. But ya gotta admit, that kind of bug is annoying and would make a techie wonder if they made the right choice in using the MATE Desktop or Linux Mint (since I haven't seen this problem in PointLinux MATE edition).

Suggestions??

Thanks! :-)

Specs: Dell 500 (Intel Celeron 550 @ 2.00GHz, 1GB RAM); MATE 1.8.1; kernel: 3.13.0-37-generic; swap 2GiB;
System Monitor: Memory used: 210 MiB; CPU: 1-5.0% with nothing running
Note: Just kicking the tires, playing around on an old lappie. Not my main machine.
Last edited by SMG on Fri Oct 28, 2022 3:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Locking old topic.
ibbill

Re: Change Desktop Background hangs in LinuxMint 17.1 MATE

Post by ibbill »

iluvedm not a computer geek but when I change my background I go to system preference and back ground and chose my wallpaper from there dont have to right click. I have no problem with changing my desktop at all.

I also noticed that you have a swap of 2 gb but only 1 gb ram.

Suggest that your laptop is a tad out of date that may be causing the problem along with your garphics card.

This is just my opinion.
rbeltz48
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Re: Change Desktop Background hangs in LinuxMint 17.1 MATE

Post by rbeltz48 »

I agree with iluvedm. It takes at least 30 sec. for the backgrounds to come up no matter which way you go, either right-clicking or going to Preferences. This must be a bug in LM 17.1 because it has never taken this long in past versions of LM. I have a T61 Lenovo Thinkpad with 4 GB RAM and a Core-2 Duo processor.
ibbill

Re: Change Desktop Background hangs in LinuxMint 17.1 MATE

Post by ibbill »

rbeltz48 Hope someone else can help here as I have looked around with no luck. Sorry not more help.
Shu_mint

Re: Change Desktop Background hangs in LinuxMint 17.1 MATE

Post by Shu_mint »

Hallo, everyone.
I had the same problem, but I was able to solve it.

Menu -> Control Center -> Windows -> check "Enable software compositing window manager"

As a result, I can change my desktop background.
bongski55

Re: Change Desktop Background hangs in LinuxMint 17.1 MATE

Post by bongski55 »

Hello, new user here.

I installed Mate 17.2 and it still has this hanging problem.
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Quexos
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Re: Change Desktop Background hangs in LinuxMint 17.1 MATE

Post by Quexos »

I've been trying for 4 days to try out Mint Mate (my preffered DE) and Cinnamon. Both of them not only hang/freeze when I attempt to change the wallpaper/background, but freeze, lockup, then crash and reboot. Upon rebooting my bios reports a "Boot failure" and gives me options to enter bios, reload defaults, etc. If I power all the way down from there and restart, it will boot...but I no longer trust my install and start all over. Call me anal, but if it's going to crash that hard just changing the wallpaper....nah, no good.

Cinnamon appears random and I have gotten the wallpaper changed a time or two, then had the crash upon the 3-5th attempt to change it. Mate...I have never even seen the wallpaper choices, just a blank window followed by major crash and boot failure.

Any way to fix this or is is this distro just not an option for me?
bongski55

Re: Change Desktop Background hangs in LinuxMint 17.1 MATE

Post by bongski55 »

Did you try version 17 Qiana? There is no background change crash for mine on that version.
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Quexos
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Re: Change Desktop Background hangs in LinuxMint 17.1 MATE

Post by Quexos »

I just went with 17.2 Xfce, but thanks. I'm liking Xfce much better anyway.

More info for the heck of it though: The Wallpaper thing in the 17.2 Mate version, happened every single time I tried to change the background/wallpaper, while booted into the live DVD only, or full install, before and after installing any version of Nvidia driver. It just flat out was not happening on this system (AMD FX6300, Nvidia GTX 460). I tested it with the live DVD on my second system (AMD Phenom II X4 955, Radeon HD4890) and it seemed to work slowish, but did let me change wallpaper (sometimes) and no crash.
Last edited by Quexos on Sat Aug 15, 2015 11:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.
reddot

Re: Change Desktop Background hangs in LinuxMint 17.1 MATE

Post by reddot »

on my fileserver amd a6-5400k 8GB DDR3 1600 old 7200rpm sata2 3.5 drive, opening up change background with right click on desktop takes less than 10 seconds, i know bad right?
but in my dell inspiron 17 5758, i3 dual core, ssd 850 pro, 16gb ddr3l 1600, loads in less than a second.

my problem is just opening to change the background, or going to the background tab. i have never crashed it, it does not freeze/hang when i change wallpapers

both are running 17.2 mate, i dont like it :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:
rbeltz48
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Re: Change Desktop Background hangs in LinuxMint 17.1 MATE

Post by rbeltz48 »

I recently upgraded to LM 17.2 Mate. Again I went to Menu -> Control Center -> Windows -> "Enable software compositing window manager"

It was "checked". I "unchecked" it and the wallpapers now come up in 3 seconds! There seems to be a serious memory hog problem related to this window manager issue.
reddot

Re: Change Desktop Background hangs in LinuxMint 17.1 MATE

Post by reddot »

rbeltz48 wrote:I recently upgraded to LM 17.2 Mate. Again I went to Menu -> Control Center -> Windows -> "Enable software compositing window manager"

It was "checked". I "unchecked" it and the wallpapers now come up in 3 seconds! There seems to be a serious memory hog problem related to this window manager issue.
Image

Image

added some screenshots, i have no idea why i have that enabled, thanks it did help my file server, i can count about 5-6 seconds now instead of a dreadful 10+ seconds.
my file server hard drives are slow, more than a 10+ years old, i wont upgrade, i have 6 more in line after this one fails... :mrgreen:
hey atleast im not running a 5.25 harddrive

edit: i also disabled it in my laptop
Moat

Re: Change Desktop Background hangs in LinuxMint 17.1 MATE

Post by Moat »

I believe this issue is caused primarily by the background changer application having to write/convert to cache thumbnails of all of the relatively large wallpaper images. And - IIRC - one of the system updates added a boatload of older Mint version wallpapers, making the wait for that caching un-bearable (like, maybe close to a full minute). I mean, choice is nice, but...!?! :shock:

Using the file manager as root/Administrator, I've deleted all but my favorite dozen or so wallpapers from /usr/share/backgrounds - much better. Takes just a few seconds to open now.

FWIW...

Bob
bluethirdup

Re: Change Desktop Background hangs in LinuxMint 17.1 MATE

Post by bluethirdup »

Moat wrote:I believe this issue is caused primarily by the background changer application having to write/convert to cache thumbnails of all of the relatively large wallpaper images. And - IIRC - one of the system updates added a boatload of older Mint version wallpapers, making the wait for that caching un-bearable (like, maybe close to a full minute). I mean, choice is nice, but...!?! :shock:

Using the file manager as root/Administrator, I've deleted all but my favorite dozen or so wallpapers from /usr/share/backgrounds - much better. Takes just a few seconds to open now.

FWIW...

Bob
I confirm this. After running

Code: Select all

 sudo apt-get remove mint-backgrounds-maya mint-backgrounds-nadia mint-backgrounds-olivia mint-backgrounds-petra mint-backgrounds-qiana
it took ~2 seconds to open.
reddot

Re: Change Desktop Background hangs in LinuxMint 17.1 MATE

Post by reddot »

bluethirdup wrote: I confirm this. After running

Code: Select all

 sudo apt-get remove mint-backgrounds-maya mint-backgrounds-nadia mint-backgrounds-olivia mint-backgrounds-petra mint-backgrounds-qiana
it took ~2 seconds to open.
this did not work in my case, linux mint 17.2 mate, not all wallpapers were removed, i think i had extra wallpaper pkg, for sure mate.
Moat wrote: Using the file manager as root/Administrator, I've deleted all but my favorite dozen or so wallpapers from /usr/share/backgrounds - much better. Takes just a few seconds to open now.
i deleted everything from my fileserver in, and wow less than a second to load.

Code: Select all

sudo caja /usr/share/backgrounds
BUT i got a problem, i moved my personal wallpaper directory hidden, once i added all my wallpapers again all of them were set to default style "tile", i dont use any wallpaper in "tile" so this is how i fixed the default style in mate.

close appearance preference , rename the directory where all your wallpapers are nested, mine ".wallpapers" to ".wallpapers2" in home folder. load appearance preference->background, now you should not have any wallpapers, rename folder ".wallpapers2" to ".wallpapers" (example only), add just one wallpaper and set style to zoom, add the rest, all wallpapers should be set to zoom.

if theirs a faster way in terminal, please share!!!

BTW, now changing backgrounds, loads in less than a second :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
thanks everyone!!!

Update: since i deleted all wallpapers, i screwed the lock screen wallpaper, location is "/usr/share/backgrounds/linuxmint/linux_mint_17.png"
adding the structure and image will not set the image in lock screen, im looking for a fix
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Quexos
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Re: Change Desktop Background hangs in LinuxMint 17.1 MATE

Post by Quexos »

In Mint MATE 17.3, I still have this problem. In my case, it is not just slow to respond, it will freeze, then completely crash the OS and reboot. Upon rebooting my bios reports a "Boot failure" and gives me options to enter bios, reload defaults, etc. Very, very bad bug...still.
reddot wrote:Update: since i deleted all wallpapers, i screwed the lock screen wallpaper, location is "/usr/share/backgrounds/linuxmint/linux_mint_17.png"
adding the structure and image will not set the image in lock screen, im looking for a fix
If I understand correctly, the logon screens slideshow of wallpapers is now broken? If so...

Edit "slideshow.conf" to set the new wallpaper paths. I just pick my 3 or 4 favorite ones and remove the entries to all the rest (I think the list includes them all). Edit the following (leafpad) command to whatever text editor you use (pluma? mousepad? gedit?):

gksudo leafpad /usr/share/mdm/html-themes/Mint-X/slideshow.conf

Example of after edit with only a three image 'slideshow' after I deleted/moved wallpapers to /usr/share/backgrounds for simplicity:

#
# slideshow settings
#

interval_seconds = 10
fade_seconds = 2
shuffle = false
show_controlls = true
show_filename = false

[backgrounds]

# Add background image files here, one file per line.
#
# Examples:
# file:///absolute/path/to/image.jpg
# ../relative/path/to/image.jpg

file:///usr/share/backgrounds/the_pier.jpg
file:///usr/share/backgrounds/easy_go.jpg
file:///usr/share/backgrounds/pier.jpg
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