Version tested: xfce4-panel 4.8.2 (arch linux build) Steps to reproduce: 1) Login to XFCE4 desktop 2) open a terminal (e.g. urxvt) 3) Click with the mouse in the panel area (the terminal still keeps the focus). 4) Press ALT-F4. The terminal window closes. 5) Press ALT-F4 again. The panel dissapears. xfce4-panel process is not running at this point. The directory: $HOME/.config/xfce4/panel Has lost all panel configuration setup by the user (subdirectories and files) despite not being empty. A directory list (ls) comparing the output before and after the accident, only reports lost files. After exiting and login again, the panel appears as an empty, few pixels-width area in a strange position in the screen, requiring entire user reconfiguration from scratch (I restored my account backup instead). The first time I wasn't able to figure the circumstances (other than I was just pressing ALT-F4). It was difficult to create a way to reproduce this behaviour, the 5 reported steps must be exactly run in this order (I have not tested any other computer or setup, though). Additional Notes (in case may help): I don't show icons in my desktop, and the options to show applications menu or window list on mouse click are disabled (in general, I use minimalistic, clean settings).
I forgot to mention, but may be useful to know, that that I have removed all desktop keyboard bindings in my setup (Settings -> Keyboard -> Application shortcuts) except for a couple (XF86Display, Ctrl-Alt-Delete). I don't remember if the default XFCE4 keyboard settings included a binding for ALT-F4 or not.
I have managed a way to consistently reproduce this in a clean installation, after creating a new unix user account and choosing "use default panel" in the first XFCE login. The only required configuration change in order to reproduce this problem is: Setings -> Desktop -> Icons -> Icon Type => NONE With the screen empty, use a xterm/urxvt as proposed in the 5 steps listed above (the default Terminal window seems not to reproduce the problem). It is not necessary to close the second bottom panel created by default during the first logon.
Most of the panel configuration is stored in xfconf (stored in ~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-panel.xml ), however I can't reproduce this problem. Does starting xfce4-panel in a terminal afterwards restore the panel? Any output in .xsession-errors or vt1?
(In reply to comment #3) > Most of the panel configuration is stored in xfconf (stored in > ~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-panel.xml > ), however I can't reproduce this problem. Does starting xfce4-panel in a > terminal afterwards restore the panel? Any output in .xsession-errors or vt1? Yes, I see that there is data in ./xfce-perchannel-xml/, but anyway the contents of .config/xfce4/panel (initially with data) are nearly fully deleted after ALT-F4, and the panel becomes unconfigured. There aren't errors dumped into .xsession-errors. Maybe you haven't exactly followed the steps, since I reported them in several messages. I join and sort all of them here: 1) Login to an empty XFCE4 desktop in a clean account After the question "Welcome to the first start of the panel": choose "Use default config" 2) In Setings -> Desktop -> Icons select "Icon Type" as NONE. (This step is *essential*. When the desktop has icons, ALT-F4 is not dangerous). 3) launch a xterm (e.g. from "Run program...") 4) Click with the mouse pointer in the top panel area (the xterm still keeps the focus). 5) Press ALT-F4. The xterm window, which had the focus, correctly closes. 6) Press ALT-F4 again. The panel dissapears. It is dead, and even after restarting it, all configuration has been lost.
Can't reproduce this. Could you attach the output of the panel when PANEL_DEBUG=1 is set before starting Xfce.
Created attachment 3706 logs and settings Here I attach the logs generated with DEBUG enabled, using very recent XFCE4 packages. In addition I took a snapshot of the log file just before and after the panel became lost. I'm not sure if this is a crash or, simply, a panel closed and deleted by accidentally hitting ALT-F4 when the panel has got some kind of special focus. In my current XFCE4 installation, I can only reproduce the problem by closing a xterm window (xorg xterm). In the past, other applications (like firefox) were also suitable, IIRC. Thunar also can't close the panel. In the attachment I also include the .config/xfce4 directory (before/after the panel accidentally closed by ALT-F4). This is the configuration generated by default by my Arch linux after a clean login, which creates two panels (one at the top and other at the bottom of the desktop). Today I wasn't able to make the bottom panel dissapear by ALT-F4 (even being the only one after the top is lost). Maybe this exact initial configuration could be useful to reproduce the problem (despite it may be the XFCE4 default, since Arch Linux usually doesn't modifies the original software).
I have actually just run into this issue. In my case, it happened while creating a plugin. If the plugin calls xfce_panel_plugin_focus_widget, hitting alt-f4 seems to be caught by the panel and the panel is immediately deleted, along with its configuration. I don't know how the original reporter managed to pass focus onto the panel in their configuration, but it seems like once the panel does have keyboard focus, alt-f4 is quite dangerous.
The deleting issue is fixed in master.
Alt+F4 should be fixed as well in commit 5d15b8b.