[SOLVED] Firefox on -current: failed to find gam_server

Today i installed kde on -current, logged in kde, reboot, logged in xfce and then was hit by that crashing firefox.
As it is a testing system i did some brute-force debugging:
After "rm -rf ~/.config/*", firefox worked again, so that may be a starting point.

Originally Posted by franzen Today i installed kde on -current, logged in kde, reboot, logged in xfce and then was hit by that crashing firefox. As it is a testing system i did some brute-force debugging: After "rm -rf ~/.config/*", firefox worked again, so that may be a starting point.

I just edited

/etc/gamin/gaminrc
and for all used fs (ext4 in my case) changed
fsset ext4 poll 15
to
fsset ext4 poll 104

no more crashing though error persists

Originally Posted by Aeterna I just edited /etc/gamin/gaminrc and for all used fs (ext4 in my case) changed fsset ext4 poll 15 to fsset ext4 poll 104 no more crashing though error persists

After some investigation, the culprit seems to be ~/.config/gtk-3.0 which is created when logging into kde.
Removing ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini is sufficient to make firefox work again, no message about gam_server anymore.
So something is broken with these gtk settings.

Originally Posted by franzen After some investigation, the culprit seems to be ~/.config/gtk-3.0 which is created when logging into kde. Removing ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini is sufficient to make firefox work again, no message about gam_server anymore. So something is broken with these gtk settings.

Nice one! I just tested that in awesomewm, and removing ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini makes the gamin errors go away, although as you say logging into Plasma recreates the file so the problem starts again.

The line that causes the problem is this:

gtk-modules=colorreload-gtk-module:window-decorations-gtk-module

commenting that out stops the gamin errors, although it induces this stuff:

(firefox:28295): Gdk-WARNING **: 12:17:45.218: ../gdk/x11/gdkproperty-x11.c:224 invalid X atom: 1935754093

but at least it narrows down the problem.

*edit* scratch the "invalid X atom" stuff, I think that happens anyway.

Perhaps there's a way to also compile Firefox with inotify instead of gamin?

kde/kcoreaddons-5.79.0-x86_64-2.txz: Rebuilt. Use inotify, not gamin. This should improve performance and fix a few random deadlocks. Thanks to Heinz Wiesinger.

Originally Posted by drgibbon Perhaps there's a way to also compile Firefox with inotify instead of gamin?

Here firefox still starts after

removepkg gamin

, but i didn't test after logging into plasma.
Thunar had a dependency on gamin/fam, but this is not the case anymore.
To completely get rid of gamin, at least rebuilding glib2 with

-Dfam=false # default, btw.

and rebuilding samba is needed.
Both glib2 and samba do support inotify.

Originally Posted by franzen To completely get rid of gamin, at least rebuilding glib2 with -Dfam=false # default, btw. and rebuilding samba is needed. Both glib2 and samba do support inotify.

Nice one, this is the fix, thanks! I was going to test rebuilding glib2 but Pat beat me to it:

l/glib2-2.66.8-x86_64-2.txz: Rebuilt. Rebuilt using -Dfam=false. Thanks to franzen.

"failed to find gam_server" problem solved.