Comment #10 on issue 402 by daniel.wagner: Xmonad becomes unresponsive. No focus changing (using keys or mouse), workspace changing or recompile. http://code.google.com/p/xmonad/issues/detail?id=402 Yeah, okay, your pipe to xmobar is filling up. You have two choices. One is to use the StdinReader add-on or module or whatever they call it for xmobar (adding it both to the list of commands *and* to the template). The other is to change your xmonad config to use spawn instead of spawnPipe and take xmobar out of your log hook. It would look something like this: main = do xmonad $ withUrgencyHook NoUrgencyHook $ defaultConfig { terminal = "urxvt", modMask = mod4Mask, borderWidth = myBorderWidth, workspaces = ["1", "2", "3", "4", "5", "6", "7", "8", "9"], normalBorderColor = "#00e0ff", focusedBorderColor = "#f92672", manageHook = myManageHook, keys = myKeys, mouseBindings = myMouseBindings, layoutHook = myLayout, startupHook = spawn "xmobar" } See also http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Xmonad/Frequently_asked_questions#XMonad_is_f...