Issue reporting instructions

Some issues are easy to identify and fix, but in a lot of cases the fault in the code might be obscure and/or hard to replicate. This page lists some common ways to make issue reports more helpful.

Performance issues

• Make sure you have valgrind installed, as well as other needed build dependencies.
• Clone conky with git clone https://github.com/brndnmtthws/conky.git conky-perf-debugging
• Enter temporary build directory: cd conky-perf-debugging
• Configure project: cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo --fresh
• Build: cmake --build build > >(tee -a build.stdout.txt) 2> >(tee -a build.errlog.txt >&2)
  • If the build fails, check the last 2/3 lines to see whether you're missing a build requirement.
  • If you're not sure, attach build.errlog.txt file in the issue comment and others will help you out 🙂.
• Profiling:
  • Start conky valgrind --tool=callgrind --dump-instr=yes --simulate-cache=yes --collect-jumps=yes build/src/conky
    • Optionally, add any arguments you run conky with at the end of the command (e.g. -c <one_of_your_config_files>).
  • Valgrind slows conky down because it's collecting a lot of data, it will take a while until conky draws anything but a blank window.
  • Do whatever causes performace issues when you run conky normally.
  • Wait a minute so the code gets executed.
  • Press Ctrl+C in the terminal to stop conky.
  • Wait for valgrind to print out "miss rate" lines and exit.
• Move generated report file to home directory: mv callgrind.out.* ~/callgrind.out.txt
• Remove temporaray build directory: cd .. && rm -r conky-perf-debugging
• Attach callgrind.out.txt file from home directory to the issue (Drag'n'drop).
  • If the file is too large, you can use some other file transfer service, or create a gist on GitHub.
• Uninstall valgrind if you want to.