aw-watcher-windows & aw-watcher-afk not working when launched outside of console on AwesomeWM

[bricebasty]

• [x] I am on the latest ActivityWatch version.
• [x] I have searched the issues of this repo and believe that this is not a duplicate.

• OS name and version: Fedora 38 with AwesomeWM
• ActivityWatch version: 0.12.2

Describe the bug

When launching the executable outside of the console, aw-watcher-windows and aw-watcher-afk don't work. Same for launching from the recommended start.sh here

2023-07-29 10:49:19 [INFO ]: window-watcher stopped because parent process died  (aw_watcher_window.main:101)
2023-07-29 10:49:19 [INFO ]: afkwatcher stopped because parent process died  (aw_watcher_afk.afk:80)
2023-07-29 10:49:19 [INFO ]: Connection to aw-server established by aw-watcher-window  (aw_client.client:436)
2023-07-29 10:49:19 [INFO ]: Connection to aw-server established by aw-watcher-afk  (aw_client.client:436)

When launching both of them separately from the console, then it works (but is very annoying to do).

In red launched from console directly/In green launched from script or from executables:

Steps to reproduce

Just use the start.sh recommended.

Expected behavior

AW logging the time from launching with the executables.

[github-actions[bot]]

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[bricebasty]

Hey there!

So, I've been tinkering a bit and finally found the solution! It was not a bug, but a misunderstanding of how X sessions work.

I used systemd to create a daemon in the user's session.

Back to the solution

How to make ActivityWatch run automatically on AwesomeWM

1. Create these 3 files in your preferred text editor at /home/YOURNAME/.config/systemd/user (create folder if non-existent)

MODIFY THE PATHS IN ALL CAPS IN ExecStart TO BE IN ACCORDANCE WITH YOUR ACTIVITYWATCH FOLDER

aw-server.service ⏬

[Unit]
Description=ActivityWatch Server
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/PATH/TO/activitywatch/aw-server/aw-server
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

aw-watcher-window.service ⏬

[Unit]
Description=ActivityWatch Window Watcher
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/PATH/TO/activitywatch/aw-watcher-window/aw-watcher-window
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

aw-watcher-afk.service ⏬

[Unit]
Description=ActivityWatch AFK Watcher
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/PATH/TO/activitywatch/aw-watcher-afk/aw-watcher-afk
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

2. Run these commands

$ systemctl --user daemon-reload
$ systemctl --user start aw-watcher-afk
$ systemctl --user start aw-watcher-window
$ systemctl --user start aw-server
$ systemctl --user enable aw-watcher-afk
$ systemctl --user enable aw-watcher-window
$ systemctl --user enable aw-server

3. Enjoy!