[Solved] Ubuntu 22.04 - strange goings on with the desktop Home folder

PJH

No idea what's going on there, and nothing I can google seems to be returning any reasonable results.

It's annoying because

it's going on all the time
every time the folder reappears, any popup menus disappear in whichever application is running (burger menus, search suggestions, etc.)
occasionally another window pops up while I'm typing because, presumably, I'm triggering a shortcut (Find Files on Desktop)

I thought, earlier, before I caught the folder doing that, that it might be something generating key presses (because of the cancelling popups) and a google search led me to xev, the output of which is the following every time it goes through that little dance:

`xev` output

FocusOut event, serial 34, synthetic NO, window 0x1600001,
    mode NotifyNormal, detail NotifyNonlinear

PropertyNotify event, serial 34, synthetic NO, window 0x1600001,
    atom 0x10f (_NET_WM_STATE), time 1136773, state PropertyNewValue

PropertyNotify event, serial 34, synthetic NO, window 0x1600001,
    atom 0x13c (_GTK_EDGE_CONSTRAINTS), time 1136773, state PropertyNewValue

FocusIn event, serial 34, synthetic NO, window 0x1600001,
    mode NotifyNormal, detail NotifyNonlinear

KeymapNotify event, serial 34, synthetic NO, window 0x0,
    keys:  15  0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   
           0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   

PropertyNotify event, serial 34, synthetic NO, window 0x1600001,
    atom 0x10f (_NET_WM_STATE), time 1136800, state PropertyNewValue

PropertyNotify event, serial 34, synthetic NO, window 0x1600001,
    atom 0x13c (_GTK_EDGE_CONSTRAINTS), time 1136800, state PropertyNewValue

Whether that's useful or not, I can't tell - again, my google-foo is failing me.

I'm none the wiser about what's going on - anyone any pointers?

dkf

@PJH said in Ubuntu 22.04 - strange goings on with the desktop Home folder:

every time the folder reappears, any popup menus disappear in whichever application is running (burger menus, search suggestions, etc.)

That'll be because it is briefly stealing the focus (or something closely related). Most popups of that kind are set to disappear when that sort of thing happens because it is insanely annoying when they don't do that (you end up with popups stuck over everything).

But why the damn thing is happening in the first place...

Captain

If you think something is generating key presses, maybe something is. I've had some bad luck with USB dongles that randomly spammed mouse clicks. It appears it was related to my motherboard's PCI system and maybe the linux drivers for it. Finding and removing the dongle ended the problem (Firefox choosing to zoom out if I pressed Ctrl).

Both times. This has happened to me with two different USB mice.

None of what is listed in your xev log appears to be key presses, though. But I'm not familiar with what can trigger all the events.

Maybe watch your /var/log/daemon log. Maybe a systemd service for the home folder is in a restart loop or something.

PJH

@Captain said in Ubuntu 22.04 - strange goings on with the desktop Home folder:

If you think something is generating key presses, maybe something is.

Having serendipitously caught the stuff happening in that cast, I'm disinclined that that is what's happening. (It's certainly not the actual keyboard on that system; I unplugged it and it carried on.)

This is a desktop system, should it matter. I have that OS on two laptops that don't exhibit the symptoms.

acrow

@PJH Does the motherboard have a bluetooth transceiver? It may be paired to a mouse somewhere.

Although that behavior reminds me more of a touchscreen error; a mouse would have a hard time hitting the same folder.

If it were scripted behavior from a simulated mouse, maybe... but why would you have something like that running?
If this were Windows, I'd suspect a serial port being interpreted as a mouse. But you're on Linux, even if it's ubuntu. So if it's not some weird motherboard extension making mice out of serial devices, that'd be unlikely to say the least. Then again... the motherboard you use isn't something made for industrial use, is it?

PJH

Does the motherboard have a bluetooth transceiver

No, its a fairly old HP desktop; doesn't even have WiFi.

If it were scripted behavior from a simulated mouse, maybe... but why would you have something like that running?

I wouldn't. Not deliberately anyway.

Then again... the motherboard you use isn't something made for industrial use, is it?

The boxen I develop for, yes. But this is on my regular desktop used for development.

acrow

@PJH Turns out, you can get serial mouse support on Ubuntu. TIL.

SerialMouseHowto - Community Help Wiki

Do you have any serial ports? Used to be that many motherboards had at least one port, for debugging purposes.

So, if anything has run e.g.

inputattach --microsoft /dev/ttyS0

and you have a serial port on the motherboard next to some noisy cable, that's still a potential source.

PJH

@acrow said in Ubuntu 22.04 - strange goings on with the desktop Home folder:

Do you have any serial ports?

Nope. Got PS2 mouse+keyboard sockets though! (Unused.)

PJH

Ding ding ding!!!

Screencast from 15-08-22 13:29:38.webm

The process concerned, plus command line, and parents:

 /lib/systemd/systemd --user
  \_ /usr/bin/gnome-shell
  |   \_ gjs /usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/ding@rastersoft.com/ding.js -E -P /usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/ding@rastersoft.com -M 0 -D 0:0:1920:1080:1:27:0:0:42:0

No idea what it's doing yet, why it's doing it, nor whether or not it should even be there. First few google searches haven't shown much to try yet.

I'm rather guessing it's something that should be run once on login, and maybe occasionally if new icons need to be added to the desktop.

Found this by creating a new user, and seeing if this happened to that login - it didn't.

So that narrowed it down to a process that was running under my login. And when I tried killing this one, it obviously wasn't there when I pressed return, but was still there in the process list...

But, given I'm not really interested in having icons on my desktop, I might simply remove/re-permission that dign.js script, if I get nowhere with google.

PJH

Fixed: https://www.reddit.com/r/pop_os/comments/q3dgu6/comment/hfsur49/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3#CommentTopMeta--Created--t1_hfsur49

dns_failure 10 mo. ago

Try this

gnome-extensions disable ding@rastersoft.com

Carnage

@PJH I've been ignoring gnome and ubuntu to the best of my abilities, but why is there javascript in the gnome shell? I definitely do not want.

aitap

@PJH So the problem was in the desktop icons themselves? No wonder we couldn't find anything.

Filed under: Why are desktop icons a third-party extension, again?, Is there a leftpad extension, too?

PJH

@aitap said in [Solved] Ubuntu 22.04 - strange goings on with the desktop Home folder:

So the problem was in the desktop icons themselves?

Rather the process that creates them.

But yes.

Repeatedly, in my case it seems...

dkf

@PJH said in [Solved] Ubuntu 22.04 - strange goings on with the desktop Home folder:

Fixed: https://www.reddit.com/r/pop_os/comments/q3dgu6/comment/hfsur49/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3#CommentTopMeta--Created--t1_hfsur49

dns_failure 10 mo. ago

Try this

gnome-extensions disable ding@rastersoft.com

The image from that thread is full of too:

All it needs is a little more Zalgo...

PJH

@dkf said in [Solved] Ubuntu 22.04 - strange goings on with the desktop Home folder:

The image from that thread is full of too:

Well...

I had actually seen that thread previously a month or so ago, for exactly the thing that arrow is pointing to; I recognised it immediately...

PleegWat

@Carnage said in [Solved] Ubuntu 22.04 - strange goings on with the desktop Home folder:

@PJH I've been ignoring gnome and ubuntu to the best of my abilities, but why is there javascript in the gnome shell? I definitely do not want.

Yup, gnome shell UI and extensions are written in javascript. There's a graphical UI for them in gnome-tweak-tool (simply 'Tweaks' in the app list).

Back when I ran dual-boot I wrote an extension myself to create a menu option which triggered reboot to windows. Never uploaded it though.

Arantor

Also don’t you add extensions to Gnome through their website, for which you have to install a browser plug-in?

I left this behind a year or so ago when I stopped working for the “you will use Linux on the desktop” folks.

Tsaukpaetra

@PleegWat said in [Solved] Ubuntu 22.04 - strange goings on with the desktop Home folder:

Never uploaded it though.

You should! Get more internet points!

acrow

@PJH said in [Solved] Ubuntu 22.04 - strange goings on with the desktop Home folder:

@acrow said in Ubuntu 22.04 - strange goings on with the desktop Home folder:

Do you have any serial ports?

Nope. Got PS2 mouse+keyboard sockets though! (Unused.)

(Problem solved, but lemme just comment on this little detail...)

I don't mean in the back panel, but somewhere on the board itself. I have had motherboards that didn't have any externally visible serial ports on the back panel, but a listing of serial ports still returned a "COM 1" (on Windows), which from the description text was a feature of the motherboard. A further perusal of the board's manual confirmed that, yes, there was indeed a 3v UART header on the board. These have since come up every now and then, on random computers.