Moving windows in Unity causes them to disappear, on Ubuntu 10.10 as the host

[MattHansel]

I'm evaluating VMWare Workstation and can't get Unity mode to work well. Mostly, moving windows (even by a pixel) causes them to end up way off the screen.

I'm running Workstation 7.1.2 on Ubuntu 10.10 as the host. I've tried both Windows 7 and Windows XP as the guest OS, and both have the same problem: when I switch to Unity mode, my initial set of windows shows up. But when I try to move a window, even by a pixel, the window disappears. It looks like it's been moved way off the edge of the scree. If I switch back to window or full-screen mode, that app is way off of the guest OS's screen as well. My only way of getting it "back" is to close the app via the taskbar and re-launch it.

Any suggestions?

[Rwarner174]

I am having this same problem, did you ever find a solution?

[louyo]

Try turnning off compiz. I am running on Ubuntu 10.04 and Unity works OK if I turn it off. Haven't tried 10.10, I stick with the LTS versions.

Lou

[matthewls]

I've seen the same issue. I use 10.10 with kernel 2.6.36.2. I installed emerald and a compiz control icon (I'm on my mac so I can't tell you which). The compiz options include settings that fixed this issue (or correlated with it going away). I'll update this later when I get back on my real machine with details.

OK, finally made it back. The trick is the "compiz fusion icon" which is part of the ubuntu universe. Once installed and started, the icon gives options for, e.g., compiz vs metacity window managers, decorators, and other choices. Now, with compiz selected, no decorators, unity windows stay where they're put.

[MattHansel]

Unfortunately, nothing I've tried works for me.

One thing I forgot to mention: I use a twin view setup with nVidia (as listed with lspci as "nVidia Corporation G98 [Quadro NVS 295] (rev a1)").  Drivers are current (I checked just again today).

I tried compiz, metacity with gnome, KDE and twm.  I tried disabling glx.  I couldn't get the vesa driver to work (half of my screen would be garbage), so not sure whether the driver is at fault.

If there's a control icon that fixes this, I'd love to see it.  I'm not sure what that icon would tweak that I didn't cover by trying to run this under twm, but I'm game for anything...

Thanks!

[louyo]

I am running (host) Ubuntu 10.04, NVIDIA video, dual monitors with expanded desktop. According to System/Administration/Hardware Drivers, I am running latest NVIDIA drivers. I think this is the first version that I allowed it to do that instead of installing them myself. I always stayed a few levels back.

I went to System/Preferences/Appearance/Visual Effects and selected None. Unity was tamed.

Lou

[matthewls]

I forgot to mention that I'm using the latest nvidia drivers installed via command line (260.19.29).

I'm using the compiz window manager, loose binding and indirect rendering, and the Emerald window decorator.

But on a nearly identical machine, I have left the loose binding and indirect rendering unchecked, use no window decorator, and it works fine there too.

I got no explanations.

[MattHansel]

Nope.  All effects are disabled and I still have the the problem on 10.10. 

[Rwarner174]

I am still having this issue as well.  Are you using Kwin and KDE by chance?

[asala201110141 · Accepted solution]

Happening to me in both 10.04 and 10.10 with dual-monitor setup.

The window does NOT dissapear: it is moved. To get it back, quit unity mode, right-click on the windows taskbar (or the thumbnail in win7) and select move... cursor arrows (left in my case) will show it back.

Seems that the issue is with dual monitors. Vmware thinks my second monitor is at the "right" whereas it is actually at the left, so it makes a mess with window positions. My monitor at the "left" has less resolution and is smaller than that at the "right" but Unity thinks that the top-left corner is the top-left corner of my right monitor.

[MattHansel]

This was it.  My primary screen was the right-hand one.  Switching it to be the left-hand one via the Nvidia utility fixes it.

Though a slight nit: the windows were unrecoverable for me -- way off the screen or whatever.  My only option was to switch out of Unity and close the application entirely.

[asala201110141]

Yes, finally you got the workaround. Thanks!!!

In summary:

Unity fails if the top-left screen coordinate is not the top-left corner of the primary display of the X system, at least under Nvidia Twinwiew configuration.

_______________________

My setting is one 1920x1200 (say "A") plus one 1680x1050 (say "B") monitors, both rotated vertically.

Initially (primary monitor A at the right side), each movement made windows move what I wished PLUS 1050 pixels right (the width of my rotated left monitor).

As my left monitor "B" was smaller (aligned with the lower edge), only setting it to be the primary display always made Unity windows to move the actual wished distance PLUS some extra pixels down (the "absolute" coordinates of the top-left corner, 150 pixels measured over the big (1200+1050)x1920 virtual Twinwiew screen).

Hence, these are the reasons why I stated above that "Unity fails if the top-left screen coordinate is not the top-left corner of the primary display of the X system".

Once I put my "large 1920x1200" monitor at the left and set it as primary, Unity seems to work fine.

If some VMware developers read these comments, I think they have enough information to replicate the bug and, hopefully, solve it so that Unity works whatever the position of the displays is.

[Rwarner174]

Thank you very much.  That fixed the issue for me as well.

Hopefully they have a bug fix soon because my left monitor is not centered with respect to my right one, but this work around should be acceptable for now.