startup compiz

[poymode]

Hello. Sometimes when I startup, compiz and emerald fails to load. I can't even type something in a typing area. Can't run using alt+f2. What I did was logout and login again. That solved it but I don't want to do that every time I startup. Any solutions?

[Forlong]

Please give us more informations. Mainly what distribution (and desktop environment) you are using and how you installed Compiz.

[poymode]

Hello. Sorry for the delay.

Im running Kubuntu Gusty. Window manager? I think its kwin, I really dont know.

When I was installing, I followed what was given here

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CompositeManager/CompizFusion

I also followed the commands that made compiz start on start-up but when I typed it in the konsole, nothing shows. Is that normal?

I was referring to this

echo "compiz --replace" > ~/.kde/Autostart/startcompiz.sh
chmod +x ~/.kde/Autostart/startcompiz.sh

[Deciare]

From the information you've provided, it sounds like Compiz is auto-starting when you log in, but sometimes crashing as or very shortly after it starts. Compiz crashing would leave you without a window manager, which is why your keyboard focus gets stranded in an arbitrary window, therefore preventing you from typing into any other window.

The simplest way to avoid having to log in and log out whenever that happens is to create a panel icon (right-click on a panel, then Add Application to Panel->Add Non-KDE Application) that launches "compiz --replace" when clicked.

The proper way would be to find out why it's crashing, but since it happens randomly, that may not be easy... Can you paste your entire ~/.xsession-errors file onto http://pastebin.ca ? I'd like to see if Compiz left any interesting messages in there.

[poymode]

Okay. So I've made some shortcuts to "compiz --replace" to avoid logging out and in. This made it less hassle free. Thanks a lot.

Much as I would like to give you the errors, I'm still a noob on Linux and don't know how to access ~/.xsession-errors. I believe ~ is the home directory or not...I'd like to get some tutorials on these things. Thanks!

[Forlong]

I believe ~ is the home directory
That's correct and when there's a . in the beginning of a file name, that means it's hidden.

But you could just open a text editor and put ~/.xsession-errors for the "open" command. Or simply type this in a terminal:
kate ~/.xsession-errors

[poymode]

Hello. That worked all right. Thanks.
Here's the error log.
http://pastebin.ca/765716

[Deciare]

Unfortunately, too much time has passed between your last crash and the pasting of this log, so it doesn't contain any usable information... Ideally, you'd be able to post a log immediately after a startup crash.

[poymode]

Okay.Will do that!..Waiting for a crash..

[Deciare]

Since you're doing that, can you make sure that the Crash handler plugin is enabled, the ccsm->Crash handler->Enable Crash Handler option is enabled, and that Crash Dump Directory is set to a directory to which you have write access? That will cause a backtrace named "compiz_crash-(something).out" to be dumped into that directory when a crash does come.