Troubleshooting

Check everything at once

glimpsectl doctor

doctor checks the configuration and every provider glimpse depends on, and tells you what is missing. glimpsectl status shows which glimpse components are running.

Read the logs

Each part of glimpse is a systemd user service, and its log is in the journal:

journalctl --user -u glimpse-panel.service

The other units follow the same pattern: glimpse-wallpaper.service, glimpse-lock.service, glimpse-sunset.service (the night light), glimpse-notifications.service, glimpse-idle.service, glimpse-weather.service, glimpse-settings-daemon.service, glimpse-desktop.service (sets the session identity) and glimpse-shot-portal.service (screenshots requested by apps). Weather and the screenshot portal start when an app requests them.

The panel does not appear

glimpse's services hang off glimpse-session.target, which, once enabled, starts with graphical-session.target. If it was never enabled, or your compositor never starts that target, nothing comes up. Start glimpse by hand and check the panel's status:

systemctl --user start glimpse-session.target
systemctl --user status glimpse-panel.service

If the bar appears and your session reaches graphical-session.target, enable glimpse once with systemctl --user enable --now glimpse-session.target and it starts with every graphical session. If your session does not reach that target, start and stop glimpse with your compositor as shown in Start the shell.

Restart one part

Saving the config reloads it, but to restart a component outright:

systemctl --user restart glimpse-panel.service

Start glimpse-session.target before restarting weather, idle, notifications, settings or the screenshot portal; those services refuse to start while the target is stopped.

Never restart or stop glimpse-lock.service while the session is locked. Stopping or restarting glimpse-session.target leaves the lock screen running; it belongs to graphical-session.target.

A setting has no effect, or the config is broken

glimpsectl config validate

Validation reports the key that is wrong, plus the file and line for a syntax error. glimpsectl config path lists the files in the order they apply: config.toml and panel.toml whether or not they exist, panel.d files only when they do. Unknown keys are refused, so a misspelled key fails validation instead of being silently ignored. Only the panel reads panel.toml, so a mistake there leaves the other programs alone. If config.toml fails to load at startup, idle timers and the night light stay off until it is fixed and everything else uses its defaults. A broken save made while glimpse runs is not applied, and the previous configuration keeps running. Either way the panel posts one notification.

The lock screen rejects the right password

If the lock screen shows "Can't verify passwords" and hides the password field, switch to a text console with Ctrl+Alt+F2, log in and run:

glimpse-lock check

It prints one line per check and exits with status 5 if any fails. Failures identify a missing service, a user namespace, NoNewPrivs blocking privilege changes, or a unix_chkpwd helper without setuid or setgid permissions or on a nosuid filesystem. Do not sandbox the lock screen service; that can prevent it from checking passwords.

The lock screen authenticates through PAM. The service name is [lock] pam-service (default glimpse-lock), read from /etc/pam.d/<name> or /usr/lib/pam.d/<name>. A missing PAM file, a service name containing /, or a service containing pam_permit.so fails the check. A service that accepts any password is refused on purpose. Changing pam-service takes effect after the lock screen restarts; log out and back in to apply it.

Only local password authentication unlocks the screen; logind's Unlock signal does not. Restarting the lock screen does not recover access: it locks again if the session is already marked locked, and the compositor keeps the session locked if the lock screen process dies.