Running Ardour 6.3.0 on (X)Ubuntu Studio 18.04, windows are bigger than my screen and so some controls are unreachable. My standard resolution is 1366x768. I have seen the problem outside of Ardour too, which may indicate that the problem resides with my installation, but most programs work as expected.
I prefer to work with maximised workspace. When starting Ardour the Editor window starts correctly at the top, but continues outside the bottom of my screen. To fix it I have to deselect and select again View > Maximise Editor Space.
However, that does not prevent dialog windows from overflowing. For example, opening the export dialog and then clicking to ‘Edit Export Format Profile’, the ‘Save’ and ‘Cancel’ buttons of that window are off screen.
I am aware of this post Ardour 4.7 window size weirdness but opening a new topic since quite a few things have changed since Ardour 4.7
I run Ardour 6.3.x (compiled from source) on Ubuntu Studio 20.04, which currently uses the XFCE desktop environment at a 1366x768 resolution. Sometimes updating Ardour can break configuration file items, which could cause some visual artifacts like this. When this happens, I usually move the Ardour configuration folder to a backup (for in case I want to restore it):
$ mv ~/.config/ardour6 ~/.config/ardour6-backup
Unfortunately you will have to spend a few minutes afterwards setting up Ardour 6.3 from scratch, but this should hopefully take care of the window size issue you are experiencing.
Thank you for answering. I tried doing as you suggested and start over configuration (also declining to use config from Ardour 5 that I still have), however the problem persists.
I tried looking at the config file and while most of the windows are defined with sizes “-1”, all of those with other values are well within my screen resolution (1366x768). I guess the settings I have trouble with is this window:
<Window name="audio-midi-setup" visible="1" x-off="200" y-off="0" x-size="580" y-size="300"/> but they just get reset when opening Ardour again, to “-1” all over.
When opening a new project, the Editor window is also overflowing past the bottom of my screen. If I select Maximise Editor Space it will adjust correctly, if deselecting it will overflow again. Clicking the maximise button in the window titlebar does nothing.
Sorry I cannot replicate your specific issue, since my installation differs from yours in at least two key areas:
I am on Ubuntu Studio 20.04.1
I build Ardour from source
As a “long-shot” question - what video graphics interface are you using? Mine is the built-in Intel® HD Graphics 4000 that came with my old Lenovo X230 laptop, which is as “vanilla” as one could reasonably wish for.
Is there a specific reason why you cannot upgrade to 20.04? Since 20.04.1 have been released, things are very stable in general. The only gripes I have with it are completely non-Ardour related (e.g. the Chromium/Snap controversy). My suggestion is that you install the downloaded binary version of Ardour 6.3.x in 18.04 and 20.04 live sessions (you can use unetbootin to create a USB live drive with “persistent local storage” on the USB media, which is handy if you want to keep things between live sessions as well as install persistent copies of your own software), which will possibly help you to isolate whether the issue is with 18.04 in general (or unique to your installation), and whether the issue is still present in 20.04 on your particular hardware. You can download unetbootin here:
I don’t have any fancy graphics, just using the one that came with my laptop (Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller). Seems pretty vanilla to me.
As for updgrading to 20.04 I kinda wanted to wait until I have the (now close to 10 years old) laptop replaced by newer hardware, but maybe that is a consideraton to reevaluate…
I’ll report back after playing around with a live image.