Clicking on desktop makes all icons disappear; again and they reappear

[darksun]

Hi
today suddently, at startup, this error appears at screen

https://ibb.co/K5YDYqc

the issue I am experiencing is that every time I click on the desktop all icons/conky disappear , clicking again makes them coming back.

this is my rox-setting

https://ibb.co/NZspTbb

I have given the command

Code: Select all

rox -p=Default

but it has not sorted the issue out, on rebooting still the same issue and window error at start up.

Any ideas?

Thank you!

[darksun]

Another issue with rox/pinboard , maybe they are related.

I use bookwormpup64 , frugal installation.

More and more often, when I manually unplug the usb stick, the icons on the desktop do not disappear

https://ibb.co/ByjYydG

If I click on one of them the following error window comes up

https://ibb.co/5F30VT9

nothing major but could be useful to troubleshooting these annoying issues.

Thanks!

DS

[rockedge]

This has a syntax error,

Code: Select all

rox -p=Default

it should be:

Code: Select all

rox -p default &

I have also done this before, wiping out the pinboard. The original is always in the root file system SFS.

What were you doing when or before it happened?

[darksun]

Code: Select all

rox -p default &

it gives me grey background/pinboard

I was not doing anything particular, just playing with

Code: Select all

dmesg -w

and my ethernet cable that for a mysterious reason first passed away than resurrected after 3 fiddling around the socket, I am sure this is unrelated with my rox/pinboard issues.

[OscarTalks]

If issuing the command you might want to try including the path to the PuppyPin file
rox -p /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin
If the PuppyPin file has become corrupted or problematic in some way, as rockedge says, the original is in the main puppy.sfs
So with a frugal it would probably be a case of copying:-
/initrd/pup_ro2/root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin
to
/root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin
This will "factory reset" the pinboard after restart of X

[mikewalsh]

@darksun :-

Oh, this brings back memories, this does!

Some 2-3 years after I started running Puppy full-time - 7-8 yrs back - I had a spell of this happening with every single Pup in the kennels. I got SO p***ed-off with re-setting up a highly-customized desktop every time that I made some modifications to the shut-down/re-boot sequences to allow making a "current" copy of the 'PuppyPin' file to an external location at the 'root' of the Puppy install (at /mnt/home).......BEFORE passing control back to the wmpoweroff/wmreboot scripts and letting the normal code continue doing its thing.

I also set-up scripts & a Menu entry to permit easy resetting of the desktop if, as & when things decided to go AWOL again. A few weeks or so after setting these up, the issue magically 'cleared-up' (and - touch wood! - has never recurred).......but to this day, I still install a .pet containing these scripts & mods. Just in case, like....!!

Never hurts to have a 'safety net'.

(*shrug.....*)

Mike.

[darksun]

If issuing the command you might want to try including the path to the PuppyPin file
rox -p /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin
If the PuppyPin file has become corrupted or problematic in some way, as rockedge says, the original is in the main puppy.sfs
So with a frugal it would probably be a case of copying:-
/initrd/pup_ro2/root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin
to
/root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin
This will "factory reset" the pinboard after restart of X

Code: Select all

cp /initrd/pup_ro2/root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin

it appears that restoring the PuppyPin has sorted the issue out, for now thanks!

[mikewalsh]

@darksun :-

Glad to hear you're sorted for now!

The thing to understand with the PuppyPin file is that it's what's known as a "dynamic" file. In other words, it's written to - immediately - as and when you move things on the 'desktop'.....in REAL time.

Yet another of "our Pup"s wee quirks.....

Mike.

[williwaw]

@darksun :-

Glad to hear you're sorted for now!

The thing to understand with the PuppyPin file is that it's what's known as a "dynamic" file. In other words, it's written to - immediately - as and when you move things on the 'desktop'.....in REAL time.

Yet another of "our Pup"s wee quirks..... :D

Mike. ;)

I have had this error occuring with some installs years back. a sort of workaround that seemed to be effective was to never make desktop changes at first boot before the savefile is created. second or more boots seemed OK

dunno why that would make a difference, tho.. but still do it out of a force of habit to this day.

[darksun]

thank you to all of you.

After a reboot the issue has presented itself again.

As one of my modus operandi is to leave the OS as much default as possible, I do not touch the desktop at all.

Recently I am using eth0 instead of wlan0 so the only thing I have changed is to disable WiFi using the ConnMan toggle via the systray icon on the bottom right corner.
Another thing I do is to unplug the usb stick after the boot which, between these two things, IMO is the most likley the cause of PuppyPin getting corrupted.
I use BWpup64 frugally installed , the OS on the usb stick, the save folder on my internal SSD.

DS

[bigpup]

There has been resent posts about removing the ability to remove a USB drive you are booting from.
Still needing the drive plugged in to get stuff from.
All of Puppy is no longer going to be completely loaded into memory.

Not sure, but BookwormPup64 may now be using this new change to booting process.

Can you keep the USB drive plugged in all the time and not see any of these issues?

[bigpup]

How much RAM is in this computer?

The ability to be able to remove a USB drive you are booting from,

depends on having enough RAM, to completely load the BookwormPup64 OS into, and still have enough RAM to do stuff.

The boot process checks this and may not let all of the OS load into RAM.

(default is to copy, if half your RAM is enough).

[darksun]

sorry for the delayed answer.

It is not an issue of the amount of RAM (my PC has got 16 GB).
It is not an issue of unplugging the usb stick whilst some necessary files are used by it.
The issue does not show up straight after a fresh frugal BWpup 64bit installation but days after.
The most likely culprit is, as far as I have understood, the PuppyPin getting corrupted, at some point, for some reason; restoring it

Code: Select all

cp /initrd/pup_ro2/root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin

fixed it only till the next (X11) reboot.

I am using @dimkr's vanilladpup 64bit since few days and for now this issue has not appeared; I will post it here, in case of.

[dimkr]

If you want to unplug the flash drive you're booting from you'll need to avoid any kind of persistency and copy to RAM. You can do this by adding pfix=ram. If you're saving changes the flash drive remains mounted.

[darksun]

If you want to unplug the flash drive you're booting from you'll need to avoid any kind of persistency and copy to RAM. You can do this by adding pfix=ram. If you're saving changes the flash drive remains mounted.

I flash the puppy's ISO to my usb stick then I boot it and frugally install (savedir) to my internal SSD;

every time I need to use my PC I boot using the same usb stick, I have no boot-loader installed on my SSD, I have actually only 1 ext4 partition for the whole internal SSD;

been using puppy since Dec 2023 (with grub's default/untouched options) and always unplugged the usb stick I (boot from and) flashed the ISO to straight after the desktop loads up and gets populated by the icons, but at this point I am not 100% sure if I am doing it right, am I not? my pc has got 16 GB and I thought everything needed gets loaded into RAM so I could unplug the usb stick, which I always have been doing without any issues, apart from this annoying and randomly appearing issue with the desktop's icons playing funny at some point, after many days of using my puppy linux always in the same way.

[bigpup]

To make sure the USB is truly not needed anymore.

After it fully boots to the working desktop.

Look at the desktop drive icon for the USB stick and make sure it is not indicating it is mounted.
It is not mounted?

The drive icon for the location of the save should be indicating that it is mounted.
Is it?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If all of this is true.

My only other idea is the actual live install on the USB stick is not 100% good. (it happens)

If nothing is on the USB stick but the live install of BookwormPup64.

This will delete everything on it.

Best to run this from a Puppy version booted from a different drive.

I would use Gparted program to make a new partition table for the drive. (I use msdos type) but if computer is a UEFI bios (GPT type may be better)

Make a new partition, formatted fat32, flag boot. (the way you do the live install could do this partitioning for you)

Get a new fresh download of the BookwormPup64 ISO.
Note:
A download could be bad if it is placed on a partition that is fragmented (Fat32 and ntfs formats can get fragmented) de-fragmenting can fix that.

Now do a fresh clean live install of BookwormPup64 on the USB stick.

It should boot and use the save that you already have for it on a different drive.

Any help?

Note:
If the USB you are installing on has ever been used for anything else. (not a fresh unused one)
Doing the new partition table and partition/format will make sure it is clean and has no errors in it's file system (format).

[Chelsea80]

I don't know how valid this is, perhaps someone with more knowledge than I can say.

Also I don't know if this is generic or specific.

My search has revealed this

To restore a PuppyPin file in Puppy Linux, follow these steps:

Press F12 on the blank desktop to open the start menu.

Navigate to the "ROX-Filer" file manager and open it.

In ROX-Filer, go to the /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/ directory.

If there is a PuppyPin file in this directory, copy it to a safe location as a backup.

If there is no PuppyPin file, or if you want to restore the default PuppyPin file, download the default PuppyPin file from the Puppy Linux repository
and save it to /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/.

Close ROX-Filer and return to the desktop. The icons should now be restored to their default layout based on the PuppyPin file.

Alternatively, you can use the PuppyPin Restore tool to automate the restoration process:

Download and install the PuppyPin Restore tool.

Run the tool, which will analyze your current desktop layout and create a restore script at /root/.puppypin-restore.

To restore the desktop icons automatically at boot, rename /root/.config/autostart/puppypin-restore-auto.desktop.bak to /root/.config/autostart/puppypin-restore-auto.desktop.

The PuppyPin Restore tool gives you more control over the restoration process, allowing you to manually modify the restore script if needed.