(SOLVED) Window Switching fancy effects broken

[ubersoft]

It seems like every time I update to a newer version of KDE it's a dice roll whether all of the desktop effects will work. Specifically, there's a 50-50 chance that window-switching effects -- i.e., the fancy window flips you get with the box switch, cover switch, and flip switch options on the Configure desktop effects settings window -- will stop working.

That's where I'm at right now. When I alt+tab, I jump from window to window but I don't get any effects -- I don't even get the default window list that appears when desktop effects are turned off.

I'm currently using KDE 4.5.1, downloaded from backports. The only other problem I have is that dolphin crashes after 2-3 minutes of using it for anything, which is a lot more annoying but I think I've fixed that one.

Does anyone know the secret to getting the fancy alt+tab effects to start working again? They're not necessary, but I like them...

[ubersoft]

Re: Window Switching fancy effects broken

Well, it's not a Lucid problem, because I upgraded to Maverick and it's still there.

[dibl]

Re: Window Switching fancy effects broken

Does anyone know the secret to getting the fancy alt+tab effects to start working again? They're not necessary, but I like them...

I don't know about "secrets", but it's all about your video driver and GLX. Open a terminal window and enter

glxgears

What do you see? Probably an error message. If so, show us the output of

lspci -v

and maybe someone can point you in the right direction. You only need to show the stanza that starts like this:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ....

[ubersoft]

Re: Window Switching fancy effects broken

Glxgears runs fine. Every other desktop effect works on my system, but for some reason when I press alt+tab, I don't get any messages or notifications or affects associated with switching windows. That's what confuses me: I can't find any specific reason why alt+tab would fail to use any desktop effects when everything else seems to be working without any issues.

Anyway, when I run lspci -v, this is what I get for VGA:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G98M [GeForce G105M] (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 365c
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
Memory at d2000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
Memory at c0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
I/O ports at 6000 [size=128]
[virtual] Expansion ROM at d3080000 [disabled] [size=512K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: nvidia
Kernel modules: nvidia, nouveau, nvidiafb

[ubersoft]

Re: Window Switching fancy effects broken

I just noticed something else, not sure if it's relevant. When I go into System Settings, and select the "Window Behavior" icon, the first icon is for "Task Switcher." It is completely greyed out. I can't even access it when I use kdesudo to access System Settings as root.

[dibl]

Re: Window Switching fancy effects broken

I'm not an expert on that chip, but a casual Google search suggests that it is fairly limited on its GLX and compositing performance: http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-...M.13790.0.html

Plus I see at least one feature ("HybridPower") that is only used by Windows. :P

I'll speculate that you're getting about all there is to get out of it.

[ubersoft]

Re: Window Switching fancy effects broken

Well it might be limited compared to other chips out there but it's definitely a step up from my old gpu and it plays games just fine, both in wine and on my Windows partition. It can handle every single effect in Desktop effects screen except the windows switching ones (including the desktop cube animation, wobbly windows, translucent dragging, etc), and at one time it DID do the fancy alt+tab effects. Whatever it's limitations I know it's capable of handling Cover Switch because that's what it was set to when I noticed it had stopped working.

I reckon it's a configuration problem somewhere, but I have no idea what configuration problem it could be. I suppose I could rename my kde folder to force kde to gen up a default one and see what happens then.

[ubersoft]

Re: Window Switching fancy effects broken

So I renamed my .kde directory, logged out, logged back in. KDE generated a new one and I went to system settings, and lo and behold, the Cover Switch effect works perfectly. Renamed THAT and moved my old directory back in place, logged out, logged back in, and lo and behold, Cover Switch stopped working.

So I guess the problem has something to do with a setting in my .kde directory. Does anyone know what files in .kde are used for desktop effects?

[vinnywright]

Re: Window Switching fancy effects broken

/home/you/.kde/share/config/kwinrc

I think

VINNY

[ubersoft]

Re: Window Switching fancy effects broken

That did it! I moved kwinrc to my desktop KDE regenerated it, and it now works. I had to redo a number of settings but it was worth it. Now I'm going to diff the two to try to figure out what the problem was.

[vinnywright]

Re: (SOLVED) Window Switching fancy effects broken



VINNY