When I click on the external editor button (or use shortcut keys) my editor opens fine, but when I try to return to Joplin I just see a white screen. There’s seems no way of getting Joplin to display anything so I end up Force Quitting and then reopening it. The note will have been updated fine from the changes I made in the external editor, but it is no good if it ends up with a blank screen for Joplin each time.
I’ve tried using three different external editors but it is the same problem for all three. I have also tried using the system default and also setting up the path on Joplin’s options, but still the same problem.
Hope someone get help. My reason for needing an external editor is that when I am writing I like to have a full, uncluttered screen and Joplin does quite give me that total blank full screen look.
Maybe a bit more info that could help narrowing down the problem:
I could not reproduce this behavior consistently with git master on macOS. At least not every time. It seems to be a timing issue or a race condition. It can happen after clicking to unwatch the file. But mostly nothing happens, but when I then open general options, change a value, click Apply and then Cancel -> Boom - White Screen.
Only one out of 10 times I got a white screen right after clicking the unwatch button.
This is what I get in the console when the white screen happens:
[68121:0329/213333.842995:ERROR:gles2_cmd_decoder.cc(18047)] [.BrowserCompositor-0x7ff64c851a00]GL ERROR :GL_INVALID_OPERATION : glCreateAndConsumeTextureCHROMIUM: invalid mailbox name
[68121:0329/213333.843060:ERROR:gles2_cmd_decoder.cc(12520)] [.BrowserCompositor-0x7ff64c851a00]GL ERROR :GL_INVALID_VALUE : glScheduleCALayerCHROMIUM: unsupported texture format
It happens every time. I think there may have been the odd time when it didn’t, but I think that was when I didn’t actually edit the file in the external editor. If I even add a full stop and then exit/save out of the other editor then I end up at a blank Joplin.
I tried with three different editors (Mweb, FocusWriter, and Focused) and get same result with each.
Hope that helps Laurent. TBH I’m only using the external editors for the full screen mode. Maybe at some point a full screen editor feature could be added to Joplin. It is already an amazing app, but for me that would make it my go to app not just for notes, but for all my writing.
I think it might be an issue with either chokidar or fsevents, which don’t work properly with latest Electron. The problem is that when the bug happens it kills the debug window so it’s not possible to see any error message, and that makes me think it’s a lower level crash, somewhere in the native code.
Do any of you know how to get a stacktrace from the Joplin processes when the crash happens? I think it would help understand what is happening. Or maybe the macOS console would have some info?
fsevents seems to have issues with Node, so it’s possible the Node process is actually crashing, while the Chrome one stays open. That would explain why there’s a blank window that doesn’t do anything. So I guess if we could somehow listen to this Node process and, if it does crash, print a stracktrace we could get some info.
Just wanted to add to this that I’m experiencing the same issue, using Typora as my external editor on macOS. It’s pretty much the only problem I’m having with Joplin, so if there’s any way I can help solve it, I’d be delighted to. Thanks!
Unfortunately there's no information anywhere how to create coredumps on Mojave. (There's not even any useful info on the Apple dev forums - there hardly is.) All the information is for previous versions of macOS and don't work on Mojave. My /cores directory is empty after the process crashed. But there was a .crash file available, although I'm pretty sure you've seen that already. If not, here's the part that pertains to the crashing thread:
Also noticed that if I don’t quit Typora, just close the window, it works fine and Joplin reflects any changes I made. I can click the ‘Watching’ button again and it seems to return to normal. As soon as I then quit Typora, even if no note is open, then Jopling goes to the white screen.
Thanks for the crash dump @tessus, it would indeed confirm it’s something to do with fsevent as this is the last call before getting to the Electron framework. I’ll file a bug report with them if possible and see if it helps. Hopefully a future version of either Electron or fsevent will fix this.
Great, please let me know the link to the issue when you have created one. I might be able to help them by collecting a core dump. (That is, if they tell me how to do that on Mojave.)
While we’re at it, I think Electron and react-native should be updated. I believe I read that certain things were fixed that could help with a few problems that occured after the last migration of both components.
I am still new to Joplin (which I love so far) and have also just started to use Linux Mint after many years, so please forgive me my possible lack of knowledge.
I am experiencing a similar problem: after editing a note in an external editor (emacs in my case), saving the note and closing the external editor, when I come back to Joplin, its main window is unresponsive and after a while turns white. The window and the main menu are still responsive (the menus open, you get the visual feedback that you press for instance the "close window" button), but do nothing.
I do not even see any "Watching" element, neither while the external editor is still open nor after closing it.
I am using:
Joplin for Desktop
Joplin 1.2.6 (prod, linux)
Sync Version: 2
Profile Version: 34
Keychain Supported: No
Revision: f5f117c (master)
Here is the beginning of the output of inxi -Fxxxrz :
It took a while until I found the folder where to place the flags.txt file, as I could not find the menu point Open Profile Directory in the Help menu. (It has to go to ~/.config/joplin-desktop under (Ubuntu) Linux.)
The following happens:
I open the external editor with Ctrl+E. In the console:
I edit the note and Save the changed version. No events in the console.
I close the external editor. No events in the console.
The main window is not responsive anymore.
I took a screenshot of Joplin, after that the console window changed to the Sources-Tab, to line 600, and on the main window appears the small element "paused in debugger".
The window does not turn white/blank this time.
I press the "resume"-butten on the small element, no effect on the console.
The window remains irresponsive, although the top menus open. The little element "paused in debugger" remains there. The cursor in the Sources-tab remains in line 600.
When I press the close-window button (top right corner of the window), nothing happens.