MEnus not working

Help
1

I have a weird issue: I cannot use the menus anymore since updating to v5.2 They open if I click (permanently) on them but if I release the mouse they are closed. So I cannot activate any menu item.

What am I doing wrong?

1 Like
2

Hi,

it would be helpful if you could provide some more details about your operating system/desktop environment

3

You are completely right, sorry for not having provided this in the first place.

Jabref: Version 5.2 (portable)
Java: Version 1.8.0_281
OS: Windows 20 (64 bit), Version 10.0.19042.804

4

same here on my linux workstation.

openjdk version “21.0.8” 2025-07-15
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 21.0.8+9-Ubuntu-0ubuntu124.04.1)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 21.0.8+9-Ubuntu-0ubuntu124.04.1, mixed mode, sharing)

5

At Menus do not properly pop up on Xwayland · Issue #12377 · JabRef/jabref · GitHub you say that you are using JabRef 3.8. This version is not supported anymore, but it is interesting to see that whatever is broken right now even seems to be broken in that old version. (Btw., what keeps you back from updating to a newer version of JabRef? I can recommend the portable versions for linux distributions.

(Sorry Morten for having this necro-thread revived. Hope your issue had been resolved for the longest time.)

1 Like
6

Thank you for your reply. Updating jabref 6 solved the problem for me.

I wonder why such an old version still is part of an ubuntu distro.

7

I wonder why such an old version still is part of an Ubuntu distro.

Because

  1. No one of the JabRef maintainers and users is into packaging
  2. No one of the JabRef maintainers and users wants to spend time into packaging
  3. No one of the JabRef maintainers and users wants to spend money to pay someone to work on packaging
  4. No one of the JabRef maintainers and users wants to build and coordinate a team working on packaging
  5. The JeabRef maintainers see snap as a valid work around and prioritize working on the 1.000 issues (we have several repositories with issues; this repo here is just the tip of the ice berg) and interacting with contributors higher than diving into packaging.
    Maybe, this is a bit clearer now?
  6. I spent dozens of hours to coordinate packaging of version 3.8.1, because 2.9.2 was in debian back then. Tony Mancill and Gregor Herrmann did most of the work. All of this in their free time. They are still open to support, but do not want to do the main work again.

Maybe, things are clearer now. I can provide mor explanations. Covering voluntary work, working for the community, etc.