XFE - Curiously annoying spinning cursor - [SOLVED]

[geo_c]

Well, I don't know if this a 'fixable' issue, but in Fossapup64 (Jackalpup remaster actually) I added XFE as usual, and it works perfectly except for one thing. The cursor spins for long periods of time, like minutes at a time, or eventually just never really stops spinning. And I guess that means XFE has some kind of background activity going on. It's an annoyance, because I can't always point exactly where I want. I suppose I could change the cursor. Just wondering what on earth is going on underneath that spin.

~geo

[Clarity]

Does the Conky area of your desktop show which programs are active and prevalent while the cursor is spinning wildly?
(should be just below the area showing CPU percentage)

Or, open a terminal and run TOP looking for the tasks that keeps popping highest on the list.

[geo_c]

Yeah, nothing unusual, picom shows up. Don't know if that's related or not.. I'll have to shut everything else off to see.

[wizard]

@geo_c

I'm running xfe in fossa64 9.5 too. Once in a whileI get a slow response to mouse clicks, but think it's mostly when I'm connected to network shares. If you use xfe a lot you might find the fourth reply in this post useful. It lets you mount drives/partitions from inside xfe.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3670

I also have the same kind of workaround for network shares if you're interested.

wizard

[wizard]

@geo_c

Just uploaded a howto on drive/share mounting in XFE here:

viewtopic.php?f=161&t=3733

Would welcome any feedback you might have.

wizard

[geo_c]

Thanks wizard, I downloaded the files, and I'll run them as soon I fix my recently posted backup/permissions issue. viewtopic.php?f=4&p=34183#p34183

I'm thinking it might be time to do a remaster of my system. I've been tweaking this thing for awhile and it's fully loaded, a real productive workhorse. I remastered a version of puppy-studio back in the day, even though I really didn't know what I was doing, but it worked.

[wizard]

@geo_c

If you're going to remaster fossa64 9.5 and want your desktop background, icons, and some other stuff to be included, take a look at this link. Reply number 9 and particularly the section "How to use 95fix.sh"

viewtopic.php?f=146&t=2150&p=17603#p17603

And I agree, fossa64 is a keeper

wizard

[geo_c]

@wizard

Thanks! This works like a charm.

~geo

[wizard]

@geo_c

Started having the spinning cursor problem too. This seems to fix it: uncheck Notify when applications startup in preferences

wizard

[geo_c]

Thanks @wizard,

I never would have thought of that. Other than that one issue, Xfe is a wonderfully stable, low resource, and incredibly useful file manager. I use ROX a lot, but I use Xfe side by side with an open LibreWolf browser as a file view, so I set Xfe to open pdf's, and other docs in the browser with a double click. I also like it for copying pupsaves and such, it's easy on the eyes, as it has lots of theme options.

Mine looks like this:

[bigpup]

Any error messages if you run XFE from the terminal?

[wizard]

@bigpup

In my case, I got the spinning cursor when accessing video files on the lan that opened in VLC. Lots of errors in terminal, but videos open and play fine. The preference setting above stops the problem.

wizard

[JASpup]

I experience this too, 32-bit, and last time I noticed it was in a search window (hence I suspected related to searching).

My question mainly is if it's just a quirk or somehow indicating a problem.

I consider XFE an exotic app that functions well overall and will suffer quirks, all those extra utilities and so small and compatible, big thumbs.

related aside: When I boot XFCE with both PCManFM and Thunar, I often look in About to see which one I'm running as they look so much alike. I've noted recently PCMan has bookmarks like Roxfiler, an important feature.

[geo_c]

I experience this too, 32-bit, and last time I noticed it was in a search window (hence I suspected related to searching).

My question mainly is if it's just a quirk or somehow indicating a problem.

I consider XFE an exotic app that functions well overall and will suffer quirks, all those extra utilities and so small and compatible, big thumbs.

related aside: When I boot XFCE with both PCManFM and Thunar, I often look in About to see which one I'm running as they look so much alike. I've noted recently PCMan has bookmarks like Roxfiler, an important feature.

Xfe has bookmarks, but no handy editor, but if you go to /root/.config/Xfe/ and look at the end of the xferc file you can type them in manually. The quirk there is that they are numbered, and it's a bit of pain to keep the numbers straight. I believe you can't have more than 20 also.

I think the spinning cursor probably does have to do with what @wizard pointed out, as I haven't gotten it since I unticked that choice.

[JASpup]

Good to know. I use the 4 file managers, Thunar & Roxfiler as default most, so XFE is more special purpose (mostly searching and panes in JWM). In XFCE it has little use besides its exceptional search function.

I've used it again since last post and the spinning was present in search again but milder than I remember it.

Perhaps it makes a difference that your inconvenience isn't limited to Fossa64.

[wizard]

@geo_c

If the solution above fixed your spinning cursor, you should mark the topic as: (solved)

wizard

[geo_c]

@geo_c

If the solution above fixed your spinning cursor, you should mark the topic as: (solved)

wizard

Done, thanks!