Sway: [0.15.2] Sway fails to start

[dvejmz]

Problem

Sway fails to start at times. After multiple reboots and attempts to relaunch it, I can get it to run eventually.

Debug logs here

Environment and Configuration

OS: Arch Linux - Linux eir 4.17.6-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Jul 11 19:14:29 UTC 2018 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Graphics drivers: Nouveau
Sway: 0.15.2 (config)

How to Reproduce

Boot up into a login shell, launch sway as usual

$ sway

Sway prints out the last two error messages shown in the debug log attached above and exits.

[idest]

Downgrading mesa to 18.0.4-1 fixed this for me (https://github.com/swaywm/sway/issues/2126)

[dvejmz]

Hi @idest , I tried your suggestion of downgrading mesa to 18.0.4-1 but the issue persists. It happened just now and it took me 3 reboots to get it to launch correctly again. I guess there's not really much else I can do other than to wait for sway 1.0 to go stable. Thanks for your suggestion anyway.

[ddevault]

I'm closing issues that are resolved by the yet-unrelated sway 1.0.

[keithbowes]

I went out of my way to compile Sway 1.0 alpha 5 and it reports the same problem that Weston does: eglInitialize fails. However, at least Weston has the --use-pixman argument (which enables it to start), but AFAIK, Sway doesn't have a similar option.

The log

@dvejmz, same here. However, I looked at mesa's dependencies and started downgrading them as well until I found the culprit: libdrm. Now, both Sway 0.15.2 and Sway 1.0 alpha 5 work, until I update my packages again, natch.

[ddevault]

Sounds like a mesa regression, you should reportit to them.

[dvejmz]

Thanks for the info @keithbowes , what version of libdrm did you downgrade to to resolve the issue?

[keithbowes]

It's a complicated issue. I just discovered that my problem turned out to be that I had LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE set in ~/.bashrc; when I removed it, Wayland compositors started working again (among other things). I don't know where in the ecosystem it failed (I tried downgrading Mesa and its dependencies, and libdrm seemed to be where the issue resided, but that may just have been coincidental; after I did that, I went ahead and re-upgraded the packages and decided to settle to continue using X for the foreseeable future).

I'm now using Sway 1.1.1. Even with my distro's latest (unstable) packages, if I set LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE, I can't get Sway, SDL 2 games, etc to start up out of X. It's definitely a bug in the OpenGL stack, but one that probably affects few people.

[dvejmz]

Can confirm this is now resolved from sway 1.0 onwards.