Text fields and areas in swing applications become non-editable when forwarding X11 session with XMing using openjdk

Question

I'm attempting to run intellij from a Linux machine that is connected with putty that has had the display forwarded by Xming. Intellij is able to come up and I'm able to use most of the widgets, however I'm unable to select or type into any of the text fields.

I've found the following bug report: https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8040662 however, since this is not a common use-case, the bug is sitting at "won't fix."

I also keep finding similar questions, such as: X11 forwarding affects Java Swing GUI dropdowns - Items not selectable, Menus collapse immediately but it seems like nobody has an answer.

Currently I'm running with the following versions:

Intelij: IC-141.1532.4
Openjdk: 1.7.0_76
XMing: 6.9.0.31

I'm able to edit in Eclipse, but that's backed by SWT and not swing. When I run a simple toy Java program, I have the same problem. The bug report seems to suggest it's an issue with Swing. I was hoping that someone may have encountered this problem and had a workaround. — lordoku, Sep 11 '15 at 16:32

F. Stephen Q · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-11T17:14:58.337

1

The solution is to use the current Oracle Java 7 JDK, which has been patched to fix this issue.

edited Sep 11 '15 at 17:14

answered Sep 11 '15 at 16:37

F. Stephen Q

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Just to confirm, do you mean setting this in the windows machine where XMing is running or on the Linux machine that is being forwarded and where InteliJ is running? – lordoku Sep 11 '15 at 16:45
The linux machine, sorry – F. Stephen Q Sep 11 '15 at 16:46
Actually I just saw your comment about this working on Java 1.6 and earlier. I'm running with Java 1.7 – lordoku Sep 11 '15 at 16:47
Darn. If updating your JDK, I'd say. If that also doesn't work, it looks like the Oracle JDK might have fixed this bug; I'd try switching to it. – F. Stephen Q Sep 11 '15 at 16:55
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Yep it looks like the Oracle version works, so this is a problem in just open JDK. If you type this up as an answer, I can give you credit. – lordoku Sep 11 '15 at 17:13
Fantastic! Glad you got it sorted out – F. Stephen Q Sep 11 '15 at 17:15
Thanks again btw. I got used to having my servers set up to use Oracle JDK that I forgot that open jdk is different. – lordoku Sep 11 '15 at 17:15
The issue will not be fixed in OpenJDK 7 (see https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8040662). – SEBiGEM Dec 03 '15 at 11:59

Text fields and areas in swing applications become non-editable when forwarding X11 session with XMing using openjdk

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