Most settings panels suddenly missing from gnome-control-center

[n.st]

When I launch it from my default (non-root) user account, the gnome-control-center is missing all settings panels, except "Printers" and "Software & Updates".
Launching it with a commandline parameter to open a specific settings panel fails, too:
  $ gnome-control-center display
  ** (gnome-control-center.real:10217): WARNING **: Could not find settings panel "display"

I can only access the panels that aren't listed by launching gnome-control-center as root.

I previously had access to the panels that are now only displayed for root, but I can't pinpoint what caused them to vanish. Is there anything I could do to find and fix whatever caused this?

I have already reported this bug on bugzilla.gnome.org[1], but apparently version 3.6.3 of the gnome-control-center is no longer supported by the GNOME developers and neither are Ubuntu's patched versions of it.
[1]: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=734349

I'm using Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 with i3 as my window manager, but with the gnome-settings-daemon running to handle keyboard shortcuts and display configuration.

  $ lsb_release -rd
  Description: Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS
  Release: 14.04

  $ apt-cache policy gnome-control-center
  gnome-control-center:
    Installed: 1:3.6.3-0ubuntu56.1
    Candidate: 1:3.6.3-0ubuntu56.1
    Version table:
   *** 1:3.6.3-0ubuntu56.1 0
          500 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-updates/main amd64 Packages
          100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
       1:3.6.3-0ubuntu56 0
          500 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 Packages

[Tim Lunn (darkxst)]

what is the output from `env | grep XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP`?

[cdarken (cata-en)]

I have exactly the same problem, with exactly the same configuration.
For me the output of the above command is i3.

[n.st (n.st)]

  $ env | grep XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP
  XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=i3

If I unset XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP before starting gnome-control-center, it lists all the settings panels, just as usual. That's probably also the reason why `sudo gnome-control-center` works, since the environment created by sudo doesn't have XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP set.

[student (student-5)]

I have almost the same problem (with xmonad instead of i3) after my upgrade from ubuntu 14.04 to 15.04. However sudo gnome-control-center doesn't work either. env | grep XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP doesn't return anything.

env | grep xmonad gives:

DESKTOP_SESSION=xmonad
MANDATORY_PATH=/usr/share/gconf/xmonad.mandatory.path
DEFAULTS_PATH=/usr/share/gconf/xmonad.default.path
XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP=xmonad
GDMSESSION=xmonad
XDG_CONFIG_DIRS=/etc/xdg/xdg-xmonad:/etc/xdg
XDG_DATA_DIRS=/usr/share/xmonad:/usr/local/share/:/usr/share/

I tried DESKTOP_SESSION=gnome; XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP=gnome; GDMSESSION=gnome; gnome-control-center without success.

[student (student-5)]

If I use gnome instead of xmonad, gnome-control-center works . If I change the variable XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP in this gnome session, it doesn't work anymore. If I change it back, it works again. But the same variable doesn't seem to have an effect in xmonad (same problem in i3).

[student (student-5)]

Sorry, by setting XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=GNOME in i3wm it works, but not in xmonad.

[student (student-5)]

Added the line X-LightDM-DesktopName=GNOME to my /usr/share/xsessions/xmonad.desktop file, that looks now like this:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=XMonad
Comment=Lightweight tiling window manager
Exec=xmonad-session
Icon=xmonad.png
Type=XSession
X-LightDM-DesktopName=GNOME

Now the panels work.

[Sebastian (sebastienmonnet)]

Fixed on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS with i3 4.11 by adding in my .profile file:

   export XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=GNOME

Gnome-control-center is now working

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

That's not a bug, the settings are made to be used under GNOME