Window Manager Issues with veracrypt and thunderbird under Tumbleweed

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1

Hello Forum,

OS Version: Tumbleweed 20201009 64 bit KDE-Plasma-Version: 5.19.5
KDE-Frameworks-Version: 5.74.0
QT-Version: 5.15.1 Kernel-Version: 5.8.14-1-default
Ryzen 3600 with Radeon RX580

Since a few weeks (sadly I cannot tell exactly when, but in started after an update) I have issues with Thunderbird and Veracrypt. I guess the issue is connected and it probably effects other programs as well in some manner.

The problem: Thunderbird does not show menu boxes any more. For example the window to enter your Email-password is not displayed, thus resulting in an time out. If I try to delete an account the box to ask for verification is empty, thus no yes or no button. But an actual box is displayed which can be closed with the “x”. Sadly there is no diagnostic information.

Veracrypt reports an error at startup:
An assertion failed:
./src/common/sizer.cpp(2124): assert “!(flags & (wxALIGN_RIGHT | wxALIGN_CENTRE_HORIZONTAL))” failed in DoInsert(): Horizontal alignment flags are ignored with wxEXPAND

BACKTRACE:
[1] wxBoxSizer::DoInsert(unsigned long, wxSizerItem*)
[2] wxEntry(int&, wchar_t**)
[3] __libc_start_main

Of course this could be totally unrelated. There are some other glitches as well, for example Extreme Tux Racer does not allow me to change to the correct resolution and some menu buttons seem not to work correctly. On the other hand Firefox seems to be fine.

Thanks a lot for any help.

2

A few days ago Thunderbird was updated from version 68.x to version 78.x.

On my system the update messed up completely. I had to go back to version 68 and restore my profiles from backup. However there seem to be installations of version 78 which are running OK (just search the forum here for details).

So it might be worth testing whether a new Thunderbird profile can solve your problems. If not you could install version 68 again. However if you have run version 78 already then yout profiles will be lost and you will need a backup of your profiles used with version 68.

I can’t help you with veracrypt because i don’t use it.

Regards

susejunky

3

Maybe try another DM and/or WM?
So, for instance

  1. Install another WM, eg i3
zypper in i3
  1. switch to i3
update-alternatives  --config default-xsession.desktop
  1. configure i3
    From kde documentation
    https://userbase.kde.org/Tutorials/Using_Other_Window_Managers_with_Plasma

You’ll probably find articles that describe other WMs that and DMs that people have used with KDE/Plasma.

TSU

4

Hi
Why?

@OP, Hi and welcome to the Forum :slight_smile:
A general recommendation it to check the Development Mailing List if running the likes of Tumbleweed…
Ref 1: https://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2020-09/msg00123.html (Thunderbird 78 and encryption status)
Ref 2: [opensuse-factory] Thunderbird 78.3.1 is broken - openSUSE Factory - openSUSE Mailing Lists (Thunderbird 78.3.1 is broken)

I would not install another environment if checking issues, easier to stick with what you have and create a test user and see if the issue duplicates.

5

The problem: Thunderbird does not show menu boxes any more. For example the window to enter your Email-password is not displayed, thus resulting in an time out. If I try to delete an account the box to ask for verification is empty, thus no yes or no button. But an actual box is displayed which can be closed with the “x”. Sadly there is no diagnostic information.

Try it with deleting MozillaThunderbird-translations-common in Yast/zypper.

6

I can confirm the errors with VeraCrypt.

./src/common/sizer.cpp(2124): assert “!(flags & (wxALIGN_RIGHT | wxALIGN_CENTRE_HORIZONTAL))” failed in DoInsert(): Horizontal alignment flags are ignored with wxEXPAND

BACKTRACE:
[1] wxBoxSizer::DoInsert(unsigned long, wxSizerItem*)
[2] wxEntry(int&, wchar_t**)
[3] __libc_start_main

Error reproduces 7 times, and after the normal VC window appears.
Errors are the same in IceWM.

[size=2][FONT=arial]The system is Ryzen 3600, ASUS X470 Pro, GTX980, nouevau, KDE desktop, Tumbleweed 20201009.[/size][/FONT]

7

Thanks, I will have a look.

8

Thanks for all the suggestions.
I still hope, that some update will cure this.
@tsu2 - interesting solution, but I am worried, that this may break more than it cures. I had Linux-Systems in the past where the graphical user interface would not work anymore after such a step, thus I am rather cautious.
@malcolmlewi - Thanks, sadly I don’t know how to manually install Thunderbird. I still hope that some update fixes this.
@Sauerland - this seems to brake the GUI completely. Basically all menus are now empty.
@voulo - Thanks for the confirmation. Probably it is time to file a bug report.

9

I’m having the same VeraCrypt issue. I tried downloading the generic installer from the VC devs, ran it, and chose to have the tar dumped to /tmp instead of installing it. I extracted the tar.gz and the prebuilt generic binary works fine. No wxWidgets errors. So I assume the issue is with the openSUSE build.

I’ve tried installing it from the Security repo as well as an OBS repo, and both have the same result.

10

I just found this topic after compiling Veracrypt from the github source, and running into the same error. I got it working now though.

Veracrypt uses the wxWidgets-library and I first compiled it with the wxGTK3-3_2-devel lib (because that was recommended on some site). That lead to the errors described here.

After I installed wxWidgets-3_0-devel (zypper will ask to remove the wxGTK-lib then) and recompiled, Veracrypt works fine without any error messages.

Not sure if this information is of any help for the precompiled versions, but I thought I’d share.

11

Last update:

Thunderbird and Veracrypt are now working fine again. Probably some update fixed the Veracrypt-Issue.
However, now I have no sound while media replay in 95% of the cases. Probably I will switch to a more stable distro, since the Hardware-Support-Issue that originally brought me to Tumbleweed is not an issue any more.

Thanks again for all the help.