xdotool fails to recognize alacritty window

[AdrienLemaire]

My keybind to resize windows fails with alacritty (works fine with other windows like chromium or slack). When debugging the issue, I found out that xdtool fails to recognized the alacritty window.

$ xdotool getactivewindow
XGetWindowProperty[_NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW] failed (code=1)
xdo_get_active_window reported an error

Any idea why this this happening, how to debug it further and hopefully resolve it ?

For context, on ubuntu gnome, we have bindings like Super+Up to resize windows, but it only works on landscape screens and I have a portrait monitor. I wrote a script to handle resizing depending on the screen presentation mode. Without the script, ubuntu gnome (Mutter?)'s default keybinding worked fine with alacritty too.

System

OS: Linux 6.1.0-1028-oem
Version: alacritty 0.12.3 (5efb0690)
Linux/BSD: Ubuntu Gnome Wayland X11

Logs

alacritty -vv

alacritty -vv
Created log file at "/tmp/Alacritty-3037749.log"
[0.000002137s] [INFO ] [alacritty] Welcome to Alacritty
[0.000102851s] [INFO ] [alacritty] Version 0.12.3 (5efb069)
[0.000116928s] [INFO ] [alacritty] Running on X11
[0.000730447s] [INFO ] [alacritty] Configuration files loaded from:
"/home/dori/.config/alacritty/alacritty.yml"
[0.008475912s] [INFO ] [alacritty] Using GLX 1.4
[0.053266609s] [INFO ] [alacritty] Window scale factor: 1
[0.054761197s] [DEBUG] [alacritty] Loading "FiraCode Nerd Font Mono" font
[0.066559863s] [DEBUG] [crossfont] Loaded Face Face { ft_face: Font Face: Regular, load_flags: TARGET_LIGH
T, render_mode: "Normal", lcd_filter: 1 }
[0.069271344s] [DEBUG] [crossfont] Loaded Face Face { ft_face: Font Face: Bold, load_flags: TARGET_LIGHT,
render_mode: "Normal", lcd_filter: 1 }
[0.071936411s] [DEBUG] [crossfont] Loaded Face Face { ft_face: Font Face: Regular, load_flags: NO_BITMAP |
TARGET_LIGHT, render_mode: "Normal", lcd_filter: 1 }
[0.074651998s] [DEBUG] [crossfont] Loaded Face Face { ft_face: Font Face: Bold, load_flags: NO_BITMAP | TA
RGET_LIGHT, render_mode: "Normal", lcd_filter: 1 }
[0.080780253s] [INFO ] [alacritty] Running on Mesa Intel(R) Graphics (RPL-P)
[0.080804365s] [INFO ] [alacritty] Using OpenGL 3.3 renderer
[0.089304128s] [DEBUG] [alacritty] Filling glyph cache with common glyphs
[0.100210411s] [INFO ] [alacritty] Cell size: 9 x 19
[0.100246472s] [INFO ] [alacritty] Padding: 0 x 0
[0.100255072s] [INFO ] [alacritty] Width: 800, Height: 600
[0.118426434s] [INFO ] [alacritty] PTY dimensions: 31 x 88
[0.121940126s] [INFO ] [alacritty] Initialisation complete
[0.125610062s] [DEBUG] [alacritty_terminal] Term::resize dimensions unchanged
[1.635964857s] [DEBUG] [alacritty_terminal] [unhandled osc_dispatch]: [['1'],['.''.''n''f''i''g''/''n''v''
i''m''/''l''u''a'],] at line 963
[1.646217160s] [DEBUG] [alacritty_terminal] [unhandled osc_dispatch]: [['7'],['f''i''l''e'':''/''/''d''o''
r''i''-''X''P''S''-''9''3''2''0''/''h''o''m''e''/''d''o''r''i''/''.''c''o''n''f''i''g''/''n''v''i''m''/''l
''u''a'],] at line 963
[1.823246945s] [DEBUG] [crossfont] Loaded Face Face { ft_face: Font Face: Bold, load_flags: TARGET_LIGHT,
render_mode: "Normal", lcd_filter: 1 }
[3.317612266s] [INFO ] [alacritty] Goodbye
Deleted log file at "/tmp/Alacritty-3037749.log"

[chrisduerr]

Linux/BSD: Ubuntu Gnome Wayland

You are not running Ubuntu Gnome Wayland unless you're running Alacritty through XWayland. Are you intentionally not using Wayland here?

[AdrienLemaire]

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS
Release:        22.04
Codename:       jammy

$ ps -e | grep gnome-session
1299675 tty2     00:00:00 gnome-session-b
1299736 ?        00:00:00 gnome-session-c
1299749 ?        00:00:02 gnome-session-b

$ echo $WAYLAND_DISPLAY
$ echo $DISPLAY
:0

You're right, I'm running X11. I thought Wayland was the default on ubuntu, but since the xps13 was pre-installed with ubuntu, maybe Dell set it up like this ?
A bit worried that changing the display server now will break something else 😓

[chrisduerr]

A bit worried that changing the display server now will break something else 😓

I mean it certainly won't make xdotool work any better. Just something I thought you should be aware of.

[iambeingtracked]

+1, basically, try using xdotool key shift+Insert in alacritty 0.13.1 (fe2a3c5)

then downgrade to alacritty 0.12.2 (9d9982d) and do xdotool key shift+Insert again. (Make sure you still have the .yml configuration)

It will insert "^[[2~%" on 0.13.1, but it will insert what you copied on 0.12.2.

Not sure about the exact version that caused this issue, but it isn't there on the older version.

I also recorded a video demonstrating this but I'm a bit too ashamed of my accent so I won't send it :)

[kchibisov]

@iambeingtracked recognize and can't type is a different matter, your issue sounds like #7633.