Xubuntu/XFCE logout fails/is delayed: session manager must be in idle state when requesting a shutdown

Update: when I uncheck "save session on logout" in XFCE's settings manager (and then on the logout dialog as well), logout just works fine and instantly. For me, this a valid workaround and the culprit seems to be somewhere inside that session save feature.

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

From upstream bug:

"When logging out, and 2+ application issue interact requests during their save-yourself-s, and (at least?) one of them actually starts interacting, the session manager will not continue normally when the interaction completes. Instead, it will wait 1 minute, and then forcibly close the session. During this period, a second logout attempt will say that the session manager must be idle when requesting shutdown."

"I can reproduce probably this bug with:
- start empty xfce4-session
- start firefox
- start gedit and type something to have unsaved changes
- do a xfce4-logout ("/usr/bin/xfce4-session-logout --logout")
=> 60s timeout, then logout. incomplete session at startup (no gedit, no xfwm4 started by session manager)."

"Yes. Unfortunately, with 4.8, even a single xsmp interact request may break the session logout."

[ Note - I can always reproduce this test case under Ubuntu/XFCE. Run Firefox, run gedit, hit some keys, click logout, get "ICE I/O Error" & "Disconnected from session manager." After 60s xfwm4 is terminated.]

This bug affects a colleague of mine. The restarting of xfwm4 aspect of the bug has been fixed in bug #978333 however the slow logout time described still affects his machine.

I am affected by this bug but not the bug #978333.

I have just installed Ubuntu with a LAMP environment with VMWare player 6.0; when i tried to shutdown the machine i received this message. I have waited more than 5 minutes and i could not log out; i was still receiving the same message.
thanks

I am seeing this kind of bug starting in Ubuntu 14.04. The logout does occur eventually but it takes > 10 s.

This is happening in Debian Wheezy as well,installed XFCE-4 and from there in the session manager seems to be stuck in a loopnot allowing the user to log out or even restart or shutdown unless you do it from a Terminal as anything ask of the exit system is being twarted with the error "Session manager must be in an Idle state when requesting a shutdown".
unfortunately i'm a complete newbie so thats about all I can offer.
Over to the experts
cheers for all you guys do here, much gratitude and thanks.
jcinAuz

It still happens on Xubuntu 14.04 LTS.
I am not sure that it is duplicate of https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xfce4-session/+bug/978333

Looks like I found solution.

I created custom xsession in /usr/share/xsessions/

with Exec=xfce4-session

instead of Exec=startxfce4

.

Also maybe this work for somebody: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-general-1/reboot-shutdown-button-of-xfce4-not-working-937263/ .

No, it does not helps really.