Cannot switch workspace on gnome when SQLiteBrowser is open

[vanitasvitae]

Details for the issue

Hi!
Im using sqlitebrowser from the Debian testing repository on my machine running Gnome Shell (3.22.2).
When I have sqlitebrowser opened, it seems like it is constantly requesting focus. I cannot switch workspaces, since it constantly switches back to the sqlitebrowser window.
Also I cannot minimize it, since it instantly gets de-minimized again.

Useful extra information

Gnome-Shell version 3.22.2

I'm opening this issue because:

• DB4S is crashing
• DB4S has a bug
• DB4S needs a feature
• DB4S has another problem

I'm using DB4S on:

• Windows: ( version: ___ )
• Linux: (Debian Testing)
• Mac OS: ( version: ___ )
• Other: ___

I'm using DB4S version:

• 3.9.1
• 3.9.0
• Other: ___

I have also:

• Tried out the nightly version: https://github.com/sqlitebrowser/sqlitebrowser#windows
• Searched for an existing similar issue: https://github.com/sqlitebrowser/sqlitebrowser/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Aissue%20

[justinclift]

Thanks for reporting this. I'm pretty sure someone else has mentioned this happening to them a few months ago too, but I'm not finding the bug report about it just yet.

@revolter Do you remember the previous bug report about this? From memory, you commented on it.

[vtronko]

In any case it's upstream bug, not SQLiteBrowser.

[justinclift]

Why an upstream bug?

[ghost]

From #948

The problem starts in one of the following commits

1ced897
b9e4433
aa965ff

1ced897 and aa965ff fail to compile in my machine, so I couldn't bisect the exact bad commit.

[justinclift]

@kehugter Excellent, that's good info. 😄

[MKleusberg]

Just quickly mentioning issue #635 here which seems to describe a similar problem (see the last couple of comments). However, that issue is older than the commits mentioned by @kehugter. No idea how to explain this but maybe this is some valuable input for somebody 😃

[akhilman]

Bug appears only when View→Edit Database Cell is enabled.

[MKleusberg]

That's some interesting information, @akhilman! Can you double check one extra case for me? When disabling the View -> Edit Database Cell option do you have the View -> Plot option enabled? And if not, does setting it change anything?

If we can really narrow this down to the Edit dialog I could prepare a patch that adds tons of debug output to that dialog and, with any luck, this helps us tracking down the source of the problem.

[ghost]

It's only Edit Database Cell. Tried all permutations and Plot doesn't trigger the issue.

[prcutler]

I can confirm this bug on GNOME 3.22 on Fedora 25. Looking at the above comments, I'm just running SQLIteBrowser as it comes installed by default - I haven't disabled or enabled the Views as mentioned two comments above. If there is anything you want me to try to confirm, please let me know.

[justinclift]

@vanitasvitae @prcutler @akhilman @kehugter Would any of you have time to try something out which might (if lucky) solve this problem? 😄

If you do, please compiling this branch here and see if the problem seems any different: https://github.com/justinclift/sqlitebrowser/tree/issue_934_v1
(specifically, the "issue_934_v1" branch)

It's our latest source for what will become version 3.10.0, but with all of the calls to qApp->processEvents() either removed or commented out.

While debugging a different problem today I gained a sneaking suspicion that these calls might be causing the problem here. Removing them hasn't seemed to cause any change in user visible behaviour for me just now. So, it'd be useful to find out if there's any change for yourselves. 😄

[ghost]

@justinclift sorry for taking so long to answer. I'm using Arch now but can still reproduce the issue compiling 6029e25. Issue is also present in https://github.com/justinclift/sqlitebrowser/commit/e7933fac6dd9b881a0a7247c65c23ee0d66b75c1 even after a make clean.

[justinclift]

@kehugter Thanks for testing. Someone else mentioned a few weeks ago that the experimental thing above didn't fix it for them either, so I guess your report really confirms it.

Will probably have time to investigate it further over the next few weeks. 😄

[rastersoft]

Hi:
I found this same bug five minutes ago. Anyway... it seems to be more a bug in gnome shell, not in sqlitebrowser, isn't it? (and the same in Cinnamon: both are based on mutter). Has someone reported this to gnome programmers?

I'm using gnome shell 3.24 in Debian Sid.

[ghost]

a bug in gnome shell

I don't think so. sqlitebrowser seems to be requesting focus. Some new findings in the dconfs:

org.cinnamon prevent-focus-stealing false
org.cinnamon bring-windows-to-current-workspace false
Switching workspaces is impossible

org.cinnamon prevent-focus-stealing true
org.cinnamon bring-windows-to-current-workspace false
No issues

org.cinnamon prevent-focus-stealing false
org.cinnamon bring-windows-to-current-workspace true
sqlitebrowser follows to every workspace

org.cinnamon prevent-focus-stealing true
org.cinnamon bring-windows-to-current-workspace true
sqlitebrowser follows to every workspace only if focused

[justinclift]

@vanitasvitae @akhilman @prcutler @rastersoft A fix (written by @kehugter) for this problem has just been added to our source code.

Would any of you have the time/interest to try compiling, and confirm back from your point of view? 😄

[rastersoft]

Compiling...

[rastersoft]

Ok, this patch seems to have fixed the problem. Thanks!!!!

[justinclift]

Fantastic! Thanks for confirming @rastersoft. 😄

Good work @kehugter, this bug has been annoying people for ages. 😀

[qwabra]

+1

[qwabra@n5110 ~]$ sqlitebrowser -v
This is DB Browser for SQLite version 3.10.1.
[qwabra@n5110 ~]$  cat /etc/fedora-release
Fedora release 27 (Twenty Seven)
[qwabra@n5110 ~]$ gnome-shell --version
GNOME Shell 3.26.2

[hutou]

Workspace switching still blocked (version 3.10.1 on Archlinux / Gnome 3.30)

[rastersoft]

In Debian SID (sqlitebrowser 3.10.1/Gnome 3.30) works fine.

[justinclift]

@hutou That's not good. Are you comfortable compiling stuff from source?

If you are, the build instructions we use are here:

    https://github.com/sqlitebrowser/sqlitebrowser/blob/master/BUILDING.md#generic-linux-and-freebsd

We don't have any Arch specific steps yet, but it's generally a matter of installing dependencies, then running cmake on the directory to generate a Makefile, then running make to do the compiling.

In theory (!), it shouldn't be toooooooooo hard to figure out. 😄

[hutou]

Ok, sqlbrowser works fine after compiling from source (git clone).
I noticed the last release is 3.10.1 from Sept. 2017 and the Archlinux package is built upon it. So, I suppose this version still suffers from this bug.
Thanks

NB. I tried to create binaries locally with Archlinux tools package builder (PKGBUILD), but, in my current environment, compilation of sqlitebrowser-3.10.1.tar.gz fails
/work/dev/sqlitebrowser/src/sqlitebrowser-3.10.1/libs/qscintilla/Qt4Qt5/Qsci/qsciscintillabase.h:2334:2: error: expected declaration before « } » token };

[justinclift]

Cool. 😄

And yeah, the next release should be pretty soon (#1656 for progress, if you're interested), so it's probably not worth filing a bug for 3.10.1. 😄