It's useful to have a working X server if a client holds a grab when it triggers a debugger breakpoint

[Owen Taylor]

On Tue, 2009-05-26 at 10:00 +1000, David Campbell wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Many/most GUI toolkits implement pop up menus using grabs.  This can 
> cause major desktop lockups when debugging GUI applications, because 
> hitting breakpoints in pop up menu callback code will occur while a grab 
> is active.
> 
> Reaching a breakpoint while a grab is active indefinitely locks up the X 
> server, leaving a standalone desktop user the only option but to power 
> down and suffer potential data loss.

Or kill the debugging process by switching to a VT or remotely.

> Up until recently, the AllowDeactivateGrabs functionality could be 
> configured such that the grabs could be deactivated with certain 
> keystrokes, but this functionality has now been removed from the X 
> server in the following change 
> http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/commit/?id=5e43cd28692bc05cac80f38b47104a26c0524385
> 
> Given the absence of the above functionality, where grabs are used by 
> underlying GUI libraries, it is impossible to debug popup menu callback 
> code where the debugger and the application are running in the same X 
> server due to grab lockout.  This appears to be a critical issue.
> 
> I draw your attention to consideration of this matter....is there a way 
> that the X server could be enhanced to recognise processes that have 
> been suspended and automatically cancel their grabs and avoid this 
> problem?  Should the AllowDeactivateGrabs functionality be restored in 
> the interim while a full solution is thought through?

Qt has traditionally detected that it is running under gdb and turned
off grabs automatically. (I haven't tried it recently, I assume it still
does this.)

GTK+ supports 'export GDK_DEBUG=nograbs'. GTK+ also ungrabs and does an
 XFlush() before running menu item callbacks.

You can debug remotely.

I wouldn't disagree that there is a problem for novice programmers,
debugging a GUI app for the first time. But for these people, an obscure
way to reconfigure their X server doesn't help much either.

- Owen