#951327 thunar: Does not respect DISPLAY variable. Always opens on the primary X screen.

Package:
thunar
Source:
thunar
Description:
File Manager for Xfce
Submitter:
Harri Suutari
Date:
2026-02-15 11:17:01 UTC
Severity:
important
#951327#5
Date:
2020-02-14 14:16:21 UTC
From:
To:
Hi,

I have four monitors as separate X screens. So on each screen I get a different
value for the DISPLAY environment variable:
DISPLAY=:0.0
DISPLAY=:0.1
DISPLAY=:0.2
DISPLAY=:0.3

But in Buster on Xfce desktop now Thunar window now always opens up on the
primary :0.0 monitor. Like if it didn't realize the existence of several
monitors. No matter how it's started: either from the desktop icons or from the
applications menu. This was not the case with Stretch and earlier releases.

Xfce is now quite awkward to use, as the file manager can be used on only one
of the monitors.

Regards,
Harri
#951327#10
Date:
2026-01-25 21:02:45 UTC
From:
To:
Hi,

sorry for the extra delay in answer. Thunar usually has a running daemon
started with the first process, and subsequent processes only call to it.

So you might want to force a daemon per display, using DISPLAY=:0.1 thunar --
daemon maybe?

Regards,
#951327#15
Date:
2026-02-15 11:14:34 UTC
From:
To:
Thanks, better late than never. 😇

At that time (Buster) Thunar was the only program behaving that way
incorrectly on my XFCE environment with several X screens. Since
Bookworm and now also on Trixie, the whole XFCE does not recognize
other X screens - only the mouse cursor is drawn on the other than the
primary X screen. That a topic of its own. I switched to Fluxbox.
Still using Thunar, though.