skype GUI disappears at login

chadwick · 12-17-2005, 02:10 AM

When I try to log into skype through its GUI, the whole skype GUI just goes away, not to be found anywhere. Skype is still running as ps testifies, but uselessly it seems. It did work really nicely a few times when I first installed it, but not any more. Has anyone seen this problem before? I understand it's meant to be used with a GUI right, or does someone know how to use it without? When googling I found some instances of people complaining about disappearing skype, but didn't find any solutions. I'm running debian stable on an averatec 3360-EG1 laptop with fvwm window manager.
Any ideas would be much appreciated. - C:

duffmckagan · 12-17-2005, 11:26 PM

Whats the version of the Skype?

chadwick · 12-20-2005, 10:06 PM

Thanks for the reply. Skype is version 1.2.0.18 (Oct 25/05) which is the version currently posted for download from the skype website. -- C.

duffmckagan · 12-21-2005, 08:12 AM

I didn't get it properly.

It must be like Skype is simply crashin' and shutting down.
So you think that the GUI is disappearing.

chadwick · 12-21-2005, 07:43 PM

Well I've figured out a bit (but not much) more of what's going on. It turns out I've not explained it correctly. When I open skype, there are supposed to be two windows: the login window and the main GUI window (the one that you use to dial and so on, once you've logged in). If the system's working normally then the main window's there the whole time and the login window disappears once it's not needed any more. On my system, only the login window is ever visible. After entering my correct username and password, the login window disappears and skype seems to be running somewhere but nowhere that's visible. There are two reasons why I say it's running:

1) I use alt-tab to switch windows. When I do so there's a little display that pops up telling me what windows are available to switch to. It says skype's available, but when I try switching to it, I get nothing.

2) The command 'ps -ef' says skype is running.

Number 2) leads to a new issue altogether. 'ps -ef' claims that there are several instances of skype running at once. On another (normally running) system that I have, only one instance of skype is reported. But on this system that isn't working, I get several, like what's shown below, after only entering the skype command once.

Code:

UID        PID  PPID  C STIME TTY          TIME CMD
chad      4472  3350  0 12:27 pts/0    00:00:03 skype
chad      4473  4472  0 12:27 pts/0    00:00:00 skype
chad      4546  4473  0 12:33 pts/0    00:00:00 skype
chad      4547  4473  5 12:33 pts/0    00:00:00 skype
chad      4548  4473  0 12:33 pts/0    00:00:00 skype
chad      4550  4473  0 12:33 pts/0    00:00:00 skype
chad      4551  4473  0 12:33 pts/0    00:00:00 skype
chad      4552  4473  0 12:33 pts/0    00:00:00 skype
chad      4553  4473  0 12:33 pts/0    00:00:00 skype

I'm not sure yet what the meaning of this is.

chadwick · 12-27-2005, 04:05 PM

Okay, I've resolved this now so I might as well explain how it was fixed.

It seems it had something to do with my fvwm configuration. fvwm categorizes windows differently according to how you want them to behave. For example, a webbrowser should just stay on one workspace whereas you might want a clock to follow you if you switch workspaces. So maybe fvwm was treating that skype window as a window that shouldn't appear at all. I don't know why, but I know that when I replaced .fvwm2rc with something completely different, the problem went away.

As for multiple skypes, maybe that's normal anyway.