Terminal apps open with wrong dimensions when launched with key bindings #2164

Masacaai · 2021-01-30T04:20:50Z

Masacaai
Jan 30, 2021

Hello, I've recently switched from qtile to qtile-git and I noticed that my terminal apps were opening with wrong dimensions when launched.

I'll use ranger to illustrate my example but this is the same for all my terminal programs:

This is what ranger is supposed to look like when launched. This is what it looked like when launched in qtile (stable) and this is what it looks like in qtile-git when launched manually (without the use of keybindings):

However, when I try to launch ranger through the use of keybindings in qtile-git, this is what I get:

This is the relevant part of my config file. Let me know if I need to post more of it:

Key([mod], "r",
lazy.spawn("kitty -e ranger"),
desc="Launch ranger"),

I haven't made any changes in my config file when switching from qtile to qtile-git. I'm not sure if this is something I can fix myself, but I wanted to confirm before opening a new issue for this.

ramnes · 2021-01-30T08:51:15Z

ramnes
Jan 30, 2021
Maintainer

It has been discussed in the mailing list: https://groups.google.com/g/qtile-dev/c/mjMKB533GNA/m/f0UGhBxpDgAJ

Apparently it is fixed with:

COLUMNS=
LINES=

That being said, if it used to work without a particular environment, it could mean that we're doing something wrong. Please open an issue and ideally bisect the faulty commit.

0 replies

cjoke · 2021-02-11T18:02:02Z

cjoke
Feb 11, 2021

I installed alacritty from github, and have the same issue when running alacritty locally, it does not happen while ssh to another computer.

1 reply

cjoke Feb 11, 2021

As ramnes mentioned, this fixes issue on my computer running locally.
COLUMNS=
LINES=

This was not an issue for me running urxvt, only on alacritte.

80KiloMett · 2021-03-09T10:59:41Z

80KiloMett
Mar 9, 2021

I also have this issue on kitty 0.19.3 and alacritty 0.7.2. On my old st 0.8.4 installation everything works fine however. This also doesn't seem to affect all tui-programs.
In my case ranger and htop are broken. Midnight Commander, vifm, lazygit, vim all work as expected.

Also concerning the workaround:
I had to specifically call unset on COLUMNS and LINES in zsh for it to work.

0 replies

ep12 · 2021-03-15T14:52:40Z

ep12
Mar 15, 2021

I have that issue, too. For me it's htop and ncmpcpp in scratchpad terminals. Normal windows work fine though. I thought it might be a bug somewhere else (ncurses or some library used by those programs). Glad to see that I'm not alone. But what the heck is going on that this might be qtile's fault? I thought the terminal emulators were calculating the sizes and everything? What has that to do with the WM?

9 replies

ep12 Mar 20, 2021

Nice! I'll try that later, but I've to set up a config for that as mine is broken before 548a7e0.

m-col Mar 20, 2021
Maintainer

Same, I used that commit's default config

ep12 Mar 20, 2021

Okay, I modified the default config of either 6a5f3bd or 908b910 (its parent), I can't remember tbh. They shouldn't be different as far as the commit diff 6a5f3bd tells me. The parent seems to be working correctly, indeed:

After checking out 6a5f3bd the environment variables $LINES and $COLUMNS are somehow magically set, which causes the trouble: htop is screwed up:

The only changes I made to the config were:

add a ScratchPad containing a DropDown('htop', 'termite -e test-script', x=0.05, y=0.05, width=0.9, height=0.9)
add a key binding to toggle that drop down

add a python script test-script to $PATH:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
import os
import datetime
import subprocess
from time import sleep
if __name__ == '__main__':
print('os:', os.get_terminal_size())
print('env:', os.environ.get('COLUMNS', -1), os.environ.get('LINES', -1))
sleep(1)
subprocess.check_output(['imlib2_grab', f'/tmp/{datetime.datetime.now().strftime("%Y%m%d%H%M%S")}.png'])
sleep(10)
os.execv('/sbin/htop', ['htop'])

htop is not visible in the screen shots, but as far as I know htop is definitely screwed up if the environment variables are set and if they don't match what os.get_terminal_size() reports.
Btw: If I run this script in a terminal, it reports the same tuple twice and htop behaves normally.
Others also experienced the graphical issues this with termite -e test-script bound to keys AFAIK. I have not tried that.

Another thing I tried is to reboot with 6a5f3bd checked out. Even directly after a reboot the issue appeared.

To conclude that: I think you are right @m-col, 6a5f3bd breaks it. As to why: I have no clue whatsoever.

m-col Mar 21, 2021
Maintainer

Brilliant, a real head-scratcher this one! I suppose the next step could be to bisect the actual changes within the commit.

ep12 Mar 21, 2021

Hum, yes. But qshell <~> qtile shell should never be invoked during nominal operation apart from the user doing it manually I guess? Still not 100 % sure if that really is it. There is no indication that those changes have to do anything with environment variables being set system-wide...

Uh oh!

Terminal apps open with wrong dimensions when launched with key bindings #2164

Uh oh!

Replies: 4 comments · 10 replies

Uh oh!

ramnes Jan 30, 2021 Maintainer

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

m-col Mar 20, 2021 Maintainer

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

m-col Mar 21, 2021 Maintainer

Uh oh!

Replies: 4 comments 10 replies

ramnes
Jan 30, 2021
Maintainer

m-col Mar 20, 2021
Maintainer

m-col Mar 21, 2021
Maintainer