[Xquartz-dev] Not autoswitching X11 -> Aqua -> X11

Eeri Kask Eeri.Kask at inf.tu-dresden.de
Tue Aug 25 08:01:30 PDT 2009


Hello Xquartz users,

Having now used MacOSX and Xquartz for a couple of weeks let me
report about (and ask for help in dealing with) the problem of the
periodical, automatic, not by the user initiated switching of
fullscreen X11 to Aqua ... and back to X11 again, this all happening
definitely in a less time in duration than a second.  As Mr Jeremy
Huddleston in a private conversation mentioned this is a known issue
affecting several users and having been reported repeatedly, so I am
not hesitant to pick this issue up here.  :-)

At first sight it seemed this phenomenon happens about once per
hour, a longer observation revealed it happens at the same time
*exactly* once per hour, the time-point probably depending on the
moment the machine is started.

A quick impression mislead this phenomenon being a Finder issue as
the left pane showing mounted local and remote filesystems got
visibly re-rendered at that approximate frequency.  Though, this
proved false (I even disconnected the ethernet cable and ran few
days without a network in order to exclude remote, e.g.
"nmbd"-related issues).

As it seemed like a "cron"-daemon-like problem I purposefully
started shutting down system processes as much as I could, please
find attached the minimal process list I ended up after booting into
running a usable computing environment which still includes a
configuration showing this X11->Aqua->X11 phenomenon.  (Being new to
MacOS, not knowing any better I had to scramble Finder, Dock,
Spotlight, etc *.app/ directories to keep them all off while booting
... I am very grateful to any hint how to accomplish this by some
less-intrusive method, e.g. some appropriate launchd-setting or
whatever is the intended method for that.)

Looking at this process list there seem not very many candidates
hiding the problem, and simply shooting off "UserEventAgent" I
finally could reproduce this screen-switching phenomenon willfully.
 It appears this service is automatically started anew and during
this time I always observed the screen-switching.  So it appears in
my case the problem is in

    /System/Library/UserEventPlugins/iCalAlarmAgent.plugin/

as having wiped away this directory these X11->Aqua->X11 unintended
switches instantly stopped, and having closely observed the
X11-behaviour for few days now since then I can confidently confirm
this phenomenon is gone.

Here I have to stop and humbly ask anybody with access to the
appropriate source code to take a further look at the issue, I am
willing to assist with experimenting by running code should this
turn out helpful. :-)


Greetings,

    Eeri Kask


P.S. Process list:


 UID PID PPID CPU PRI NI    VSZ   RSS WCHAN STAT  TT    TIME COMMAND
   0   1    0   0  31  0 600820   564 -     Ss    ?? 0:00.09
/sbin/launchd
   0  11    1   0  31  0 600256  1292 -     Ss    ?? 0:00.50
/usr/libexec/kextd
   0  12    1   0  31  0  79220  3240 -     Ss    ?? 0:00.50
/usr/sbin/DirectoryService
   0  13    1   0  31  0 600236   444 -     Ss    ?? 0:00.03
/usr/sbin/notifyd
   0  14    1   0  31  0 601332   468 -     Ss    ?? 0:00.12
/usr/sbin/syslogd
   0  15    1   0  31  0 601812  1820 -     Ss    ?? 0:00.33
/usr/sbin/configd
   1  16    1   0  31  0 599644   676 -     Ss    ?? 0:00.07
/usr/sbin/distnoted
  65  17    1   0  31  0 601592  1160 -     Ss    ?? 0:00.03
/usr/sbin/mDNSResponder -launchd
   0  21    1   0  31  0 602020  1844 -     Ss    ?? 0:00.08
/usr/sbin/securityd -i
 213  26    1   0  31  0  77272   916 -     Ss    ?? 0:00.02
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MobileDevice.framework/Versions/A/Resources/usbmuxd
-launchd
   0  27    1   0  31  0 599620   288 -     Ss    ?? 0:00.10
/usr/sbin/update
   0  28    1   0  31  0 599660   680 -     Ss    ?? 0:00.01
/sbin/SystemStarter
1001  32    1   0  63  0 363496  5180 -     Ss    ?? 0:00.25
/System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app/Contents/MacOS/loginwindow
console
   0  33    1   0  31  0 599736   652 -     Ss    ?? 0:00.00
/usr/sbin/KernelEventAgent
   0  35    1   0  31  0 600184   604 -     Ss    ?? 0:00.01
/usr/libexec/hidd
   0  36    1   0  50  0 604856  1016 -     Ss    ?? 0:00.02
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/CarbonCore.framework/Versions/A/Support/fseventsd
   0  38    1   0  63  0 599664   708 -     Ss    ?? 0:00.01
/sbin/dynamic_pager -F /private/var/vm/swapfile
   0  41    1   0  31  0 599744   940 -     Ss    ?? 0:00.07
/usr/sbin/diskarbitrationd
   0  45    1   0  31  0  86976  2012 -     Ss    ?? 0:00.11
/usr/sbin/blued
   0  46    1   0  31  0 599676   672 -     Ss    ?? 0:00.01 autofsd
   0  48    1   0  31  0  75712  1664 -     Ss    ?? 0:00.18
/usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw
   0  53    1   0  31  0  83032  5532 -     Ss    ?? 0:00.46
/System/Library/CoreServices/coreservicesd
  88  56    1   0  63  0 436520 31448 -     Ss    ?? 0:02.44
/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/CoreGraphics.framework/Resources/WindowServer
-daemon
   0  85    1   0  31  0 135500  3220 -     S     ?? 0:00.02
/usr/libexec/aksusbd
1001  91    1   0  31  0 599796   512 -     Ss    ?? 0:00.04
/sbin/launchd
1001  98   91   0  63  0 341436  2836 -     S     ?? 0:00.15
/usr/sbin/UserEventAgent -l Aqua
1001 100   91   0  31  0 600716   588 -     S     ?? 0:00.00
/usr/sbin/pboard
1001 101   91   0  47  0 431828 14368 -     R     ?? 0:01.97
/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app/Contents/MacOS/Terminal
-psn_0_20485
   0 102    1   0  63  0  77548  1744 -     Ss    ?? 0:00.06
/usr/sbin/coreaudiod
1001 104   91   0  31  0 116080  2688 -     S     ?? 0:00.35
/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/ATS.framework/Support/ATSServer
1001 195   91   0  63  0 462720 19744 -     S     ?? 0:00.55
/Applications/Utilities/X11.app/Contents/MacOS/X11.bin -psn_0_32776
1001 229   91   0  31  0 600172   688 -     S     ?? 0:00.01 /bin/sh
/usr/X11/bin/startx
1001 279  229   0  31  0 600908   524 -     S     ?? 0:00.00
/usr/X11/bin/xinit /Users/eeri/.xinitrc -- /usr/X11/bin/X :0 -auth
/Users/eeri/.serverauth.229
1001 280  279   0  31  0  76392   628 -     S     ?? 0:00.00
/usr/X11/bin/X :0 -auth /Users/eeri/.serverauth.229
1001 378  279   0  31  0  79932  2612 -     S     ?? 0:00.03 xterm
-geometry 80x60
   0 110  101   0  31  0  76592  1128 -     Ss  s000 0:00.01 login
-pf eeri
1001 111  110   0  31  0 600252  1148 -     S   s000 0:00.13 -bash
1001 379  378   0  31  0 600172  1052 -     Ss+ s001 0:00.03 bash

[end]




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