Multiple GUI issues in Raspberry OS Bookworm (Wayland)

[sailoog]

Raspberry Pi 5 and a new Raspberry OS based on Debian Bookworm are officially here.
Wayland is the default protocol instead of X11 for Raspberry Pi 4 and 5. Raspberry Pi 3 and older will keep using X11.

I have tested OpenCPN 5.8.4 in the official Raspberry OS Bookworm running in Raspberry Pi 4 (Raspberry Pi 5 will be available in the middle of October). The test was done installing OpenCPN from PPA (jammy), Debian backport (bookworm) and flatpak.

The result is the same for all sources, OpenCPN becomes unusable due to multiple GUI issues and frequent crashes causing the system to log out. In fact, this not only happens with OpenCPN, other applications cause a logout when an error occurs.

The zoom menu is always in the center and cannot be dragged. The main menu is always on the top layer and cannot be dragged either. The main menu items work randomly, sometimes they work and sometimes they don't and sometimes they cause a crash.

What do you think? My impression is that the system is not yet very stable and still receives daily updates. Should we let the dust settle before working on this?

[leamas]

hm... Overall, you could accuse Debian of many things, but perhaps not releasing too soon. The main problem with the Debian universe is that it moves so damned slow.

When I build opencpn on native Fedora which is way ahead of Debian, this does not happen. Likewise, Flatpak on Arch does not show these problems either; all this tested on RPi-4 or Orange Pi 5.

Which boils down to that we need to look into this.

[leamas]

First of all: I can reproduce this on Rpi-4

Secondly: it's not like Wayland is something new. We have been living with Wayland since 2020, see for example #1166.

It seems like this is some interaction between the OS and opencn. Next step would be to install vanilla Debian and try that. We already know that Bookworm on other platforms does nto exhibit this behaviour

[sailoog]

You are right, wayland is stable in Ubuntu Jammy and opencpn 5.8.4 works ok there. It seems something wrong in the implementation in Raspberry OS bookworm. This is why I think we should wait some time. My next test is to force X11 into the Raspberry OS bookworm to see if everything falls back into place again.

[leamas]

Here is one interesting data point: On vanilla Bookworm/RPi-4 this issue seemingly does not exist.

Ergo: I have tested opencpn 5.8 on Arch, Fedora-38, Debian-12 and Raspbian-12. Only raspbian is showing this error. My conclusion is that this is not a bug in opencpn, it's Raspbian which somehow have messed up things.

Since this is not an opencpn bug: Can we agree to convert this to a discussion instead?

EDIT: Add OS versions.

[leamas]

Late here, but as I was going to bed I sort of figured it out: it must be the window manager. Reason: this is the code which is most modified by the Raspbian team (yes, I don't really trust them...)

And indeed: installing gnome on top of raspbian solves this problem, opencpn looks normal. This means that you should probably file a bug against Raspbian's xfce component which most likely is the culprit.

Anyway, this is yet another sign that this is not an opencpn problem.

[leamas]

Reopening. We need @sailoog's input before either closing or converting to a discussion.

[sailoog]

forced x11 in Raspberry OS bookworm and everything works again.

yes, that makes sense, let's create a discussion of this. Learning about wayfire now...

thanks

[leamas]

Done.

Wayland or not, OpenCPN always interfaces to an X11 display server. In the wayland case, this is the x11 emulation layer. The important snippet is this one in ocpn_app.cpp:

#ifdef __linux__
// Handle e. g., wayland default display -- see #1166.
  if (wxGetEnv( "WAYLAND_DISPLAY", NULL))
    setenv("GDK_BACKEND", "x11", 1);
#endif   // __linux__
}

Questions:

• What does the "force x11" thing actually do? Does it use a native xorg X11 server, or does it force the use of wayland x11 emulation?
• Why does the snippet above doesn't work on Raspbian-12?

[tkurki]

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/bookworm-the-new-version-of-raspberry-pi-os/

[leamas]

Reading @tkurki 's link once again, not the first time.

@sailoog : Now also they recommend TigerVNC. I told you so ;)

[bdbcat]

In real life:
https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f134/chart-bar-in-wrong-location-281254-5.html#post3843929

[leamas]

Answering my self:

What does the "force x11" thing actually do? Does it use a native xorg X11 server, or does it force the use of wayland x11 emulation?

It uses xorg/X11 instead of Wayfire/Wayland.

Why does the snippet above doesn't work on Raspbian-12?

Because the Wayfire x11 emulation is broken. It does work if using Gnome i. e., the mutter compositor.

[cliffsojourner]

hi, signed in to say I'm experiencing these issues (crashes) on RPi4, Bookworm, running X11 not Wayland. The crash is in openCPN code. it happens with and without a real monitor connected, and with and without VNC session.

I'm trying to build a navigation demo kiosk on a WWII museum ship.

I can try the openGL=0 workaround

[leamas]

@cliffsojourner

If you have time, it would be great if you could help us track down your crashes. The discussion here is so far not so much about crashes as weird display issues using the Raspbian wayland environment.

The first question is, as you say, if this is about the graphics driver. This could indeed be checked by disabling OpenGL (there are many ways to do that), and check if it still crashes.

If it does, the next question is if this is about plugins. The easiest way to check this is to use the dialog which is visible when restarting OpenCPN after a crash. It says something like Do you want to run in safe mode without plugins and other possibly problematic features . The default answer is No, but by pressing the Yes button instead you will be running without both plugins and opengl

It is also possible to use the -safe_mode command line option to achieve the same result.

Could you please try this and report back?

[cliffsojourner]

hi @leamas , thanks for your reply. sorry for the histrionic word "crash" but that's what I am seeing. main window isn't drawn, and program quits with a log message:

 $ flatpak run org.opencpn.OpenCPN&
...
00:17:33: Debug: Device: 0: bcm2835 Headphones: - (hw:2,0)
00:17:33: Debug: Device: 1: pulse
00:17:33: Debug: Device: 2: default
*** BUG ***
In pixman_region32_init_rect: Invalid rectangle passed
Set a breakpoint on '_pixman_log_error' to debug

Generating RSA key...
Generating x509 certificate...
Writing key and certificate to disk...
Success!
Local IPv4 address: 192.168.1.238
Local IPv6 address: 2600:1700:9750:3730::f
Opened 2 sockets for mDNS service
Service mDNS: opencpn-object-control-service.:8000
Hostname: rpi4nav
Sending announce

[2]+  Exit 139                flatpak run org.opencpn.OpenCPN

so I restarted and followed your suggestion of safe mode. the main window comes up but is unuseable, huge lag in redrawing (must be openGL=0). and, missing the AIS and a couple other plugins defeats my purpose of the display kiosk.

exact same OpenCPN version and plugins work fine on another rpi4 running Bulldozer, previous rpi os. but I compiled native there, not running flatpak. I'm going to uninstall the flatpak and compile native on this new Bookworm image

[leamas]

missing the AIS and a couple other plugins defeats my purpose of the display kiosk.

Yes. But we need to make sure whether your problems are related to the plugins or the opencpn core; the possible fixes are different depending on that. But the official package is the first test so we can get results which are comparable to other users.

[leamas]

On a sidenote, running opencpn on Flatpak + Raspbian 12 does not exhibit this behaviour for me. It does display the main window more or less as expected, but the problems described by @sailoog in the first post here are present. So there seems to be something about your specific system (?).

As described above, one possible work around is to install gnome on Raspbian, or just just using vanilla Debian 12 instead. There are no known display problems using these set ups.

[cliffsojourner]

hi again, sorry for my delay in responding,

I am able to reproduce the "*** BUG ***\nIn pixman_region32_init_rect: Invalid rectangle passed..." stderr message and corresponding no-chart-window and exit(1) in all configurations, so I believe it is a bug in OpenCPN.

it is not enough to install flatpak and run it once. run opencpn and operate a little, then exit, several times, eventually you will find the log message and exit(1), occurs. The next run pops up a dialog saying "looks like the previous session terminated with an error, would you like to continue in safe mode?" so it knows it crashed.

I found it easiest to monitor stderr by starting opencpn in a terminal window, instead of by GUI.

configuration:

stock Bookworm on SanDisk 32GB SD card, RPi 4 with nothing on GPIOs, nothing on USB,. OS configured for X11, running TigerVNC - although the crash also occurs with local kybd, mouse,HDMI monitor.

replicated crash regardless of additional plugins or none. replicated crash with flatpack install, and with native (locally) compiled source (git clone 5.9.0) and installed.

so, between this unreliability (unsuitable for an unattended kiosk) and the horrible performance of the chart window (2+ seconds lag on idle system! all other defects as noted in this bug report) - I'll go back to bulldozer, opencpn works great there!

I don't know where the above goes, in this bug or another, that is up to you maintainers.

thanks very much for your attention and support!!

[cliffsojourner]

PS, I am curious about trying backported 5.8.4. I will post my results of that. thanks for the idea.

[cliffsojourner]

ok - 5.8.4 is even worse! chart window won't maximize, it just moves right; in addition to the other gui defects listed above. I think we're done: reproduced, isolated, dissected. starting over with a re-image. thanks again for your expert help.

[leamas]

Your system must be broken somehow. We have no reports which resembles your symptoms, neither for Flatpak nor the native package.

I found it easiest to monitor stderr by starting opencpn in a terminal window,

Indeed. OTOH, opencpn does not log anything to stderr, it logs to a logfile. The location of the logfile is available under the ? (help) icon.

on another rpi4 running Bulldozer

There is no such thing. Debian 11 is Bullseye.

stock Bookworm on SanDisk 32GB SD card, RPi 4

I would generally recommend updating the OS before any other actions. "Stock" is IMHO not the best of breeds when it comes to Debian.

eplicated crash regardless of additional plugins or none

If you want more feedback here you need to describe the exact steps which leads to the crash. This is so we can reproduce the same steps to make sure if this is about opencpn or your system.

As you probably understand, I currently lean to that this is about your bookworm system rather than opencpn. Certainly not sure, though

[leamas]

stock Bookworm on SanDisk 32GB SD c

Stock Debian or Raspbian?

[raininja]

I know that this is an older discussion and all, but I experienced the same issues noted here under wayland in Arch. Seemingly, I need to rebuild my instance. . . I am here to request a versioned list of software used to compile OCPN , specifically, the version of wxWidgets used. Current arch version is 3.2.4, and I have the issues with the undraggable, centered menu, and crashing on start at times.

[nohal]

Whatever is available on the target platform. wxWidgets 3.2.4 on most nowadays, but can even be 3.0.x on older Linux distributions. This specific problem should be gone in current master code. Crash on startup hard to say, that can be "anything", so if reproducible with current master, run it under gdb and post a backtrace please.