Compiz no longer working on my machine, and unable to start.

Can't seem to find a way to link the xml file from checkbox. However, this little excerpt from the xml file might prove informative to someone (I HAD requested the Compiz test):

Gathering information about your system...

 Distribution: Ubuntu 10.10
 Desktop environment: GNOME
 Graphics chip: ATI Technologies Inc M880G [Mobility Radeon HD 4200]
 Driver in use: fglrx
 Rendering method: None

Checking if it's possible to run Compiz on your system... [SKIP]

 Checking for hardware/setup problems... [SKIP]

At least one check had to be skipped:
 Error: No rendering method in use (AIGLX, Xgl or Nvidia)

Can you please give the output of:

sudo lshw -C display; lsb_release -a

Thanks

Thanks for the response. Here 'tis:

mannex@Leviathan:~$ sudo lshw -C display; lsb_release -a
[sudo] password for mannex:
  *-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: M880G [Mobility Radeon HD 4200]
       vendor: ATI Technologies Inc
       physical id: 5
       bus info: pci@0000:01:05.0
       version: 00
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=fglrx_pci latency=0
       resources: irq:43 memory:80000000-8fffffff ioport:3000(size=256) memory:90300000-9030ffff memory:90200000-902fffff
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 10.10
Release: 10.10
Codename: maverick
mannex@Leviathan:~$

Try to update the compiz packages:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:compiz/ppa && sudo apt-get update

Then update your compiz packages.

Luky, thanks for the response. I had tried updating before without the lines above (just from synaptic), but this time I did it again with your suggestion. Still not working.

Would you mind give me the output of this command?
glxinfo | grep rendering

It will say 'Yes' or 'No'
Thank you..

Here's the whole top of the glxinfo command, including the rendering, which appears to be on. Hope this helps. Thanks.

mannex@Leviathan:~$ glxinfo
name of display: :0.0
display: :0 screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: ATI
server glx version string: 1.4
server glx extensions:
    GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_import_context, GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap,
    GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_OML_swap_method,
    GLX_SGI_make_current_read, GLX_SGI_swap_control, GLX_SGIS_multisample,
    GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, GLX_SGIX_pbuffer, GLX_SGIX_visual_select_group
client glx vendor string: ATI
client glx version string: 1.4

Hmmm... It seems your VGA card can running 3D application. Now, let's check that your computer is supported to install compiz.

Download this compiz-check:
wget http://blogage.de/files/9124/download -O compiz-check

Make it executable:
chmod +x compiz-check

Then running it:
./compiz-check

Copy all the output then paste in here... Thank you...

Interesting. Said the same thing Checkbox said:

mannex@Leviathan:~/.w3m$ wget http://blogage.de/files/9124/download -O compiz-check
--2011-04-24 22:29:42-- http://blogage.de/files/9124/download
Resolving blogage.de... 178.63.199.65
Connecting to blogage.de|178.63.199.65|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 28360 (28K) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: `compiz-check'

100%[======================================>] 28,360 31.2K/s in 0.9s

2011-04-24 22:29:48 (31.2 KB/s) - `compiz-check' saved [28360/28360]

mannex@Leviathan:~/.w3m$ chmod +x compiz-check
mannex@Leviathan:~/.w3m$ ./compiz-check

Gathering information about your system...

 Distribution: Ubuntu 10.10
 Desktop environment: GNOME
 Graphics chip: ATI Technologies Inc M880G [Mobility Radeon HD 4200]
 Driver in use: fglrx
 Rendering method: None

Checking if it's possible to run Compiz on your system... [SKIP]

 Checking for hardware/setup problems... [SKIP]

At least one check had to be skipped:
 Error: No rendering method in use (AIGLX, Xgl or Nvidia)

Hmmm.. very interesting.

My bad, please re-download again compiz-check from this url:
http://blogage.de/files/70708/download

Please do it like you did before.
wget http://blogage.de/files/70708/download -O compiz-check
chmod +x compiz-check
./compiz-check

Then copy all the output then paste here..

Then, try to run compiz from terminal.
compiz

You can install fusion-icon,
sudo apt-get install fusion-icon

Fusion-icon is a simple panel applet for starting and controlling Compiz Fusion. Upon launch, it will attempt to start Compiz Fusion automatically. You may need to select a window decorator, if one does not appear.

The output follows. Manually starting Compiz worked, but as soon as I attempted to set my screen effects to Normal, it killed Compiz.

mannex@Leviathan:~$ cd .w3m/
mannex@Leviathan:~/.w3m$ wget http://blogage.de/files/70708/download -O compiz-check
--2011-04-25 10:53:51-- http://blogage.de/files/70708/download
Resolving blogage.de... 178.63.199.65
Connecting to blogage.de|178.63.199.65|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 28462 (28K) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: `compiz-check'

100%[======================================>] 28,462 32.8K/s in 0.8s

2011-04-25 10:53:53 (32.8 KB/s) - `compiz-check' saved [28462/28462]

mannex@Leviathan:~/.w3m$ chmod +x compiz-check
mannex@Leviathan:~/.w3m$ ./compiz-check

Gathering information about your system...

 Distribution: Ubuntu 10.10
 Desktop environment: GNOME
 Graphics chip: ATI Technologies Inc M880G [Mobility Radeon HD 4200]
 Driver in use: fglrx
 Rendering method: AIGLX

Checking if it's possible to run Compiz on your system...

 Checking for texture_from_pixmap... [ OK ]
 Checking for non power of two support... [ OK ]
 Checking for composite extension... [ OK ]
 Checking for FBConfig... [ OK ]
 Checking for hardware/setup problems... [ OK ]

mannex@Leviathan:~/.w3m$ compiz
Backend : ini
Integration : true
Profile : default
Adding plugins
Initializing core options...done
Initializing composite options...done
Initializing opengl options...done
Initializing decor options...done
Initializing zoom options...done
Initializing scale options...done
Initializing expo options...done
Initializing move options...done
Initializing place options...done
Initializing wall options...done
Initializing staticswitcher options...done
Initializing resize options...done
Starting gtk-window-decorator
mannex@Leviathan:~/.w3m$

Attempted to start fusion, and this was the result:

mannex@Leviathan:~$ fusion-icon
 * Detected Session: gnome
 * Searching for installed applications...
Backend : ini
Integration : true
Profile : default
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/fusion-icon", line 57, in <module>
    from FusionIcon.interface import choose_interface
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/FusionIcon/interface.py", line 21, in <module>
    from util import env
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/FusionIcon/util.py", line 419, in <module>
    decorators = CompizDecorators(_installed)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/FusionIcon/util.py", line 226, in __init__
    self.command = context.Plugins['decoration'].Display['command']
KeyError: 'decoration'
mannex@Leviathan:~$

Note that the default installation for the menu item runs as "fusion-icon --no-start" which doesn't seem to do anything (and certainly doesn't start a window manager, as --no-start seems to indicate should be the case in the man pages.

Sorry to clog your inboxes, but I neglected to mention that I get the same kind of python error when I attempt to run fusion-icon with the -f option to force Compiz start.

OK, I attempted to run compiz manually in the background. I used the --replace option, because metacity is running by default. Here's the terminal output:

mannex@Leviathan:~$ compiz --replace &
[1] 4716
mannex@Leviathan:~$ Backend : ini
Integration : true
Profile : default
Adding plugins
Initializing core options...done
Initializing composite options...done
Initializing opengl options...done
Initializing decor options...done
Initializing zoom options...done
Initializing scale options...done
Initializing expo options...done
Initializing move options...done
Initializing place options...done
Initializing wall options...done
Initializing staticswitcher options...done
Initializing resize options...done

At this point, everything seems to be working. I went to System->Preferences->Appearance, and set my visual effects to Normal. It attempted to download some drivers, then the screen redrew itself a couple of times, and finally Compiz quit and I was back at Metacity. The appearances window was completely greyed out, and would not close without asking it to from the system monitor (with a nice exit, not a kill -9). After pressing Enter in the terminal window, I got this:

[1]+ Done compiz --replace
mannex@Leviathan:~$

Not very informative, so I checked the syslog, and saw this:

Apr 25 11:54:01 Leviathan kernel: [ 1286.019006] show_signal_msg: 24 callbacks suppressed
Apr 25 11:54:01 Leviathan kernel: [ 1286.019011] ccsm[4496]: segfault at 0 ip 00709770 sp bfb72478 error 4 in libc-2.12.1.so[695000+157000]

So, it looks like something on which Compiz was relying, or Compiz itself, segfaulted. I do not know what ccsm is, but I'm guessing it's compiz related, and the sm stands for session manager (hopefully).

Running ccsm from the command line gave this:

mannex@Leviathan:~$ ccsm
Info: No sexy-python package found, don't worry it's optional.
Backend : ini
Integration : true
Profile : default
Adding plugins
Initializing core options...done
Loading icons...
Initializing compiztoolbox options...done
Initializing wall options...done
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/ccm/Utils.py", line 250, in ParseSettings
    plugin.Update ()
  File "compizconfig.pyx", line 766, in compizconfig.Plugin.Update
KeyError: 'show_switcher'

Selected "Gnome Compatibility" and got:

Initializing gnomecompat options...done
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/ccm/Widgets.py", line 1420, in enable_plugin
    if conflict.Resolve ():
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/ccm/Conflicts.py", line 380, in Resolve
    for setting in GetSettings(self.Plugin):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/ccm/Utils.py", line 396, in GetSettings
    display = group.Display.itervalues()
  File "compizconfig.pyx", line 945, in compizconfig.Plugin.Display.__get__
  File "compizconfig.pyx", line 766, in compizconfig.Plugin.Update
KeyError: 'main_menu_key'

Pressed "General Options" and got:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/ccm/Pages.py", line 1303, in ShowPlugin
    pluginPage = PluginPage(plugin)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/ccm/Pages.py", line 126, in __init__
    sortedGroups = sorted(plugin.Groups.items(), key=GroupIndexKeyFunc)
  File "compizconfig.pyx", line 939, in compizconfig.Plugin.Groups.__get__
  File "compizconfig.pyx", line 766, in compizconfig.Plugin.Update
KeyError: 'active_plugins'

After selecting a few options, it just disappeared. None of the options were saved. So, it looks like Compiz will run, but there is no way to configure it.

Very nice info, Mannex...

It looks like your compiz is running well on your hardware. But the ccsm package didn't run like used to be. What it the version of this package?
ccsm --version

Did you install it from the repository that I gave to you before?
Thank you for very nice information here... It very very useful

Here's what I got for version info:

mannex@Leviathan:~$ ccsm --version
Info: No sexy-python package found, don't worry it's optional.
CCSM 0.8.2
mannex@Leviathan:~$

I don't recall where I got this one, but I think it's the one that came with the 10.10 distribution plus any updates that may have automatically happened.

Okay... let remove comiz preferences from your home directory.

rm -rf ~/.compiz ~/.compiz-gnomecompat

Let's see the result now...

Neither of those paths were present. However, there was a couple compiz folders under ./config. I removed those. And a 'find . -iname "*compiz*"' revealed no additional folders with that name. Same problem. Sorry.

Okay.. no problem.. it's the challenge to me... :-)

Now, give me the output of this command:
cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep -i AIGLX

and also this command:
fglrxinfo

I'm afraid it was your fglrx driver that made your compiz unstable.

mannex@Leviathan:~$ cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep -i AIGLX
[ 22.873] (II) AIGLX: Loaded and initialized /usr/lib/dri/fglrx_dri.so
mannex@Leviathan:~$ fglrxinfo
display: :0.0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200 Series
OpenGL version string: 3.3.10237 Compatibility Profile Context

mannex@Leviathan:~$

Sorry to bail out on this, but I installed 11.04, so this is no longer an issue for me. Whatever I broke was wiped out in the new install.

Hi Mannex,

I'm really sorr, I've been busy lately.
I'm glad that you have new version of Ubuntu and I'm sure the new one has good kernel to detect your hardware.

Have fun with the new Ubuntu...