xsane preview window blank

[jesnow]

Problem:

Xsane [0.999-r1] preview window will display then disappear on starting. If you bring it up by hand on the
Window menu item, then it is blank. The controls on it have not displayed, but they are receiving messages,
because you can click where (eg) the preview button is and it will draw a preview.

Stupid Workaround 1: # emerge -1 xsane
Stupid Workaround 2: $ mv ~/.sane /tmp/.sane-old

Neither of these is acceptable long-term.
This forum article claims that adding the gimp useflag to xsane solves the problem. It does not.
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-807425

This forum article shows that ubuntu users have the same problem:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1125371

The following command line warning is displayed:
xsane:8234): Pango-WARNING **: /usr/lib/pango/1.6.0/modules/pango-basic-fc.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
But I can't tell if it is relevant to this bug. Recompiling xsane does not resolve this issue. It appears to be a version issue.

jesnow@armstrong ~ $ locate pango-basic-fc.so
/usr/lib/pango/1.8.0/modules/pango-basic-fc.so


This can't be super widespread, or it would be fixed by now, so "works for me" is not helpful.
Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Jon.

[eccerr0r]

Works for me :D

Well, it does flash the preview screen and immediately closes it if I don't have it open by default. But it seems to always draw correctly.

Which video card/driver/version do you have?

so mv your config (probably ~/.sane/xsane/xsane.rc) actually works? This would imply some sort of userland problem - if you create a new user (i.e. fresh GUI config) and started xsane, does this also manifest?

Because Ubuntu users seem to have the same problem, it's likely not a Gentoo build problem... though that error you get implies a Gentoo build issue (I do not get that error/warning.). Try revdep-rebuild to make sure there's nothing there (as well as emerge @preserved-rebuild), but likely this is not the problem. Suspect packages are atk cairo pango and gtk+ .
_________________
Intel Core i7 2700K/Radeon R7 250/24GB DDR3/256GB SSD
What am I supposed watching?

[jesnow]

So, I did solve this problem. The bug is with xsane and has a non-stupid workaround.

When you close the preview window, xsane unchecks "view | preview window" preference
but the main (smaller) scan window stays open. A little counter-intuitive that the smaller
window is the master window and the larger one is subsidiary, but we should be used to
this behaviour from Gimp. I guess.

When you close the main scan window, the preference is of course saved.

Here's where the bug is: If xsane is started with an unchecked preview window preference,
it draws a preview window, then gets rid of it. It then can't paint that window properly when
you (naturally wanting to acquire a preview) check the "view | preview window" preference.

Bug. It should be able to paint that window. I'll bet it has that phantom window handle
stored and is trying to paint that, not the brand new window it just created.

Workaround: Always close the little window first. Doesn't matter if you do it with File | Quit
or the window manager check box. As long as the preview window is active, the preference
is saved, xsane starts with the preview window, and all is good.

I hope this can be fixed. I'll cross post this to some Ubuntu site.

[samo]

Thanks, works also for me.