Logging in to GNOME 40.2.0 causes desktop icon extension to show as application in Activities overview

[Aptivi]

In Ubuntu 21.10 Impish Indri, I have done today's updates, including GNOME 40, and when I rebooted, I saw the desktop icons in the Activities overview that has the grey gears icon and the gibberish name. However, when I clicked on it, I'm taken to the desktop. When I open the Activities overview again, that "application" didn't show up.

I suspect that this "application" came from a GNOME extension that handles desktop icons, called gnome-shell-extension-desktop-icons-ng. Because I thought that it loaded AFTER the Activities overview opened at log in. This repeats every time I reboot or just log off and log back in.

Steps to reproduce:
  1. Update the Impish system to the latest version
  2. Reboot
  3. Log in

Expected results:
  The "application" that came from the desktop icon shell extension doesn't appear in the Activities overview

Actual results:
  This "application" shows up in the overview with the grey gears icon and the gibberish name every time a user signs in to the new GNOME 40 desktop

lsb_release -rd:
Description: Ubuntu Impish Indri (development branch)
Release: 21.10

apt-cache policy gnome-shell:
gnome-shell:
  Installed: 40.2-1ubuntu1
  Candidate: 40.2-1ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 40.2-1ubuntu1 500
        500 http://sy.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu impish/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

If there is any more information needed, let me know.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 21.10
Package: gnome-shell 40.2-1ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.11.0-20.21+21.10.1-generic 5.11.21
Uname: Linux 5.11.0-20-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu67
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: unknown
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Fri Jul 16 15:07:53 2021
DisplayManager: gdm3
InstallationDate: Installed on 2021-02-02 (163 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 21.04 "Hirsute Hippo" - Alpha amd64 (20210123)
RelatedPackageVersions: mutter-common 40.2.1-1ubuntu1
SourcePackage: gnome-shell
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Confirmed. It's because desktop-icons-ng is actually an application window. There are custom hacks in mutter to make it look like a desktop window. Only Xorg sessions have proper native support for desktop windows. So it looks like those custom hacks in mutter (and maybe gnome-shell) need some work.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

This is the same reason why the icons appear to animate in on Ubuntu 21.04, because it's a mostly-transparent window being animated as if it was a regular app launching.

[Leó Kolbeinsson (leok)]

Another quick confirm - tested on ISO 210719 Ubuntu Impish from the Qa testing site.

Tested in VirtualBox and on bare metal. Otherwise all looked good.

[Ubuntu QA Website (ubuntuqa)]

This bug has been reported on the Ubuntu ISO testing tracker.

A list of all reports related to this bug can be found here:
http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/reports/bugs/1936643

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

This is proving tricky to fix (https://gitlab.com/rastersoft/desktop-icons-ng/-/issues/137) but maybe Ubuntu doesn't need such a fix...

GNOME 40 starting in the overview is just to show the dash. Ubuntu doesn't need that if ubuntu-dock is loaded because the main GNOME Dash is deleted. So we could possibly modify ubuntu-dock to ensure gnome-shell does not start in the overview and this bug would never be triggered. Even without this bug, not starting in the overview would be a good idea.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

On 2021-07-21 14:07, Daniel van Vugt wrote:
> Even without this bug, not starting in the overview would be
> a good idea.

It would indeed.

But with that said, there are Ubuntu users who prefer "vanilla" GNOME, so even if changing the startup experience for standard-Ubuntu users would make this bug less important, it's still an Ubuntu interest that it's fixed sooner or later.

[Aptivi (eofla)]

Well, this bug does not only happen in every startup or logout/login, but it seems that whenever you have an application open, focusing on its window, and you locked the system and logged in again, the desktop icons animate. However, when it zooms in, the application window loses focus.

About the "vanilla" GNOME thing, there should be an option that controls how Ubuntu starts on log-in, whether or not to start to the Activities overview.

Either way, this bug needs to be fixed sooner or later.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

The desktop icons will /animate/ whenever the desktop window is recreated. That's an older issue that was visible in 3.38 and separate to this bug. Although I guess many would see it as a nice feature.

And sorry for the delay, I've been sick.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/merge_requests/1925

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

And proposed the fix for Ubuntu again: https://salsa.debian.org/gnome-team/gnome-shell/-/merge_requests/51

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Before anyone asks...

The intended design of desktop-icons-ng is to hide the icons in the overview, as they do after logging in (and more reliably in Xorg than Wayland sessions).

In future it would be really nice to show the icons in the overview, shrunken with the GNOME 40 desktop. But that's not the intended design of desktop-icons-ng and would require a lot more work. So that would be an enhancement for later not related to this bug.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

As a precursor to ubuntu-dock/dash-to-dock preventing gnome-shell starting in the overview I have also proposed: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/merge_requests/1943

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

The ubuntu-dock task would be part of bug 1940925 now...

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package gnome-shell - 40.2-1ubuntu6

---------------
gnome-shell (40.2-1ubuntu6) impish; urgency=medium

  * d/rules:
    - Drop dh_translations workaround. gettext used by LP has been
      updated (LP: #1756547).
    - Fix Lintian warning about DEB_HOST_ARCH assignment

gnome-shell (40.2-1ubuntu5) impish; urgency=medium

  * Fix translation issues (LP: #1941954):
    - Really fix translation import problem as reported in LP: #1756547
    - Add libgtk-3-bin to Build-Depends for dh_translations

gnome-shell (40.2-1ubuntu4) impish; urgency=medium

  * debian/rules:
    - Skip tests when building for ppc64el to fix FTBFS (LP: #1941792)

gnome-shell (40.2-1ubuntu3) impish; urgency=medium

  [ Daniel van Vugt ]
  * Add layout-Make-starting-in-the-overview-optional.patch:
    - So that extensions like Ubuntu Dock have the option of preventing
      the shell starting in the overview. (LP: #1940925)

gnome-shell (40.2-1ubuntu2) impish; urgency=medium

  [ Daniel van Vugt ]
  * Add workspace-Remove-skip-taskbar-windows-while-the-over.patch to stop the
    desktop icons window appearing like an app window in the overview on
    startup (LP: #1936643)

 -- Gunnar Hjalmarsson <email address hidden> Wed, 01 Sep 2021 15:44:38 +0200