Bug#1098315: mystery GTK issue involving inability to move window around

[Simon McVittie]

On Fri, 06 Jun 2025 at 12:09:33 +0200, Alex Baur wrote:
>With "gsettings set org.gnome.calculator refresh-interval 0" I can use
>gnome-calculator. I forgot I set that before the mentioned reboot.
>
>But I still am unable to move or resize the calculator's window. Which
>is another bug – I suppose.

Please report that bug separately, using reportbug to collect full 
details of your system. In the new bug report, please describe the 
desktop environment, compositor or window manager you are using.

Bug number #1098315 is specifically about the symptom originally 
reported by Mike Haag, "gnome-calculator opens when starting from Gnome, 
then freezes", which you say you have successfully worked around with 
`gsettings set org.gnome.calculator refresh-interval 0`. Any other 
problem with gnome-calculator is out-of-scope for #1098315.

>I think the issues with gnome-calculator [and inability to move its
>window around] are just symptoms
>for a deeper problem with gtk. I have problems with other gtk-related
>software as well.

If this bug affects multiple GTK programs, it is perhaps best to treat 
one of the other programs as your primary example, to avoid getting it 
confused with unrelated gnome-calculator bugs. The simpler the program 
you can choose, the better.

If that issue affects the example programs in the gtk-3-examples 
package, such as /usr/bin/gtk3-widget-factory, then that would be a 
great place to start.

If there are apps that you use more frequently that are still working 
fine on the affected system, it would probably help to mention a few of 
those in the new bug report (especially if they are GTK apps), so that 
maintainers can look for common factors among them. Something like this:

     While running the foobar desktop environment, I cannot move or 
     resize the windows of gnome-calculator Brave-Browser, Inkscape, 
     a self compiled version of freeciv-gtk client or a self compiled 
     version of endless-sky. I *can* move and resize the windows of 
     other similar applications such as foo, bar and baz.

>I am unable to approximately pinpoint the time when this all started
>since I use all of the mentioned programmes rather rarely.

On 4 June 2025 you said that the affected software "worked flawlessly a 
couple of months ago", so presumably it was working OK in early April 
2025, or at least in March 2025.

Please check /var/log/apt/history* to find out what has been updated on 
your system since then: if you're using the Debian 12 stable release, 
then the list of updated packages will be somewhat long, but not 
massive. Please send that information to the new bug report (not to 
#1098315).

Thanks,
     smcv