Forwarded notifications missing in dualhead extended desktop setup

[totaam]

Issue migrated from trac ticket # 1304

component: core | priority: major | resolution: fixed

2016-09-13 04:34:21: jiang.qian created the issue

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Desktop notification forwarding enabled from the menu and is working properly (e.g. firefox gmail notification appears properly on the local desktop) when the local machine (laptop, xpra client) is only using its own screen.

However, the forwarded desktop notification is entirely missing when the local machine (laptop, xpra client) is connected to an external monitor in a dual-head, extended desktop configuration. The notification appeared neither on the external monitor nor on the laptop display.

The external monitor, on the left, has a resolution of 1280x1024, the laptop display, on the right, has a resolution of 1440x900.

Both client and server run ubuntu 64-bit 14.04, gnome-flash-back desktop:
https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeFlashback
the window manager is metacity.

The version of xpra on both end is 20160912r13671 downloaded from xpra beta area.

As noted in an earlier bug filing, this is not a blocker bug---I can use my android phone as notification, basically. So if you have other bigger bug to quash for the 1.0 release, this is not a priority.

But it would be nice to have notification working on my, admittedly, unconventional, dual display setup. Thank you for your work!

[totaam]

2016-09-13 07:00:23: antoine changed owner from antoine to jiang.qian

[totaam]

2016-09-13 07:00:23: antoine commented

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I am confused now: are you missing an application notification window or a system notification bubble ([https://developer.gnome.org/notification-spec/])?
If a firefox window is missing then we have to re-open #1284, and include the -d geometry client output of when the window is meant to be shown.
If system notifications are not forwarded instead, please see #1284#comment:10, in particular:

• make sure the python-dbus and / or python-notify packages are installed at both ends
• start both the client and server with "-d notify,dbus" and include the full logs as attachments
• as of r13678 (latest trusty beta builds) you can also test notifications forwarding using the dbus interface (dbus interface for control channel #904) or xpra control, ie:

xpra control :100 send-notification "foo" "hello world" "*"

will send the message to all clients.

I have created a wiki page for notification forwarding: Notifications.

[totaam]

2016-09-13 08:12:07: jiang.qian changed status from new to closed

[totaam]

2016-09-13 08:12:07: jiang.qian set resolution to fixed

[totaam]

2016-09-13 08:12:07: jiang.qian commented

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I'm sorry for all the confusion. With your help, I figured out the problem and it is not xpra. Firefox is doing something strange with its notification, which is not the standard libnotify notification.

So what did I do? I checked that python-notify and python-dbus are both installed. Sending notification directly via xpra control also result in a correct notification popping up. So I installed this extension:
https://github.com/mkiol/GNotifier
All it does is to convert firefox's native notification implementation, into the standard notification of the desktop running (be it linux or windows). With this, all the notifications from firefox showed up properly!

So, the culprit is not xpra, but firefox doing something non-standard with its linux notification.

Strangely, however, when I am running on single monitor on the client side, the firefox native notification shows up correctly through xpra. It also shows up correctly when I'm running dual head, but launching firefox locally (not through xpra).

In any case, I don't think the bug lies with xpra, but with firefox's nonstandard notification implementation. So I'm closing the bug. Thank you for helping me out!

[totaam]

2016-11-22 14:26:42: antoine commented

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See also #1284, 1.0 which may solve your problem without needing any extensions.