cygwin 1.7 startxwin failing due to "winMultiWindowXMsgProc - another window manager is running. Exiting."

[Oly <ofrijole at hotmail dot com>]

Not sure when this started happening ... but sometime recently, starting 
the xserver became a hit/miss proposition (mostly miss). I'm running 
Windows XP Pro Service Pack 3 with the cygwin 1.7.7-1 and xorg-server 
1.9.2-1 (as reported by the setup wizard). I am using the installed x 
server start shortcut which executes the following command:

C:\cygwin17\bin\run.exe /usr/bin/bash.exe -l -c /usr/bin/startxwin.exe

The failure to start seems always to coincide with a log like the 
attached. The interesting symptom is (from the bottom of the log):

[214595.953] winMultiWindowXMsgProc - XOpenDisplay () returned and 
successfully opened the display.
[214595.953] winMultiWindowXMsgProc - another window manager is running. 
 Exiting.
[214595.953] winClipboardProc - winClipboardFlushWindowsMessageQueue 
trapped WM_QUIT message, exiting main loop.
[214595.953] winClipboardProc - XDestroyWindow succeeded.
[214595.953] winClipboardProc - Clipboard disabled  - Exit from server
[214596.015] winDeinitMultiWindowWM - Noting shutdown in progress

I've seen a nearly identical report on the forum about a year ago ... 
back in the startxwin.bat days. The closest thing I found to a possible 
resolution was the suggestion of inserting a sleep in the batch file. 
Not sure what might be the trick now.

For what it is worth, I notice consistent failure when I create an empty 
.startxwinrc (to avoid the xterm opening - which I'd really like but 
could live with closing it if the server started every single time). 
When I don't have an empty .startxwinrc in my home directory ... failure 
is frequent, but doesn't occur on every single start attempt. Failed 1 
out of 2 tries tonight. I deleted the log after stopping the server 
(right clicked the task tray icon and chose exit) and the second start 
attempt failed. But sometimes it is the first try.

How could I figure out what is making the startup think some other 
window manager is running? I don't think this is true - the failure 
occurs after a clean reboot (and I don't have any auto-start stuff) ... 
but I also saw in that previous thread something about a restart attempt 
(which may be borne out by what I see in the attached log) ... maybe 
there *are* two managers due to some race condition or something?

Attachment: XWin.0.log
Description: Text document

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