Gnome settings daemon randomly does not work

[LCID Fire]

Binary package hint: gnome-control-center

Even with the current gutsy I still get the bug #138277. It doesn't matter what theme I use - it crashes anyway - every 2nd startup or so.
Strangely - starting it manually always works.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thanks for your report. It crashed or it doesn't start? please take a look to /var/crash to see if there's a log about it. thanks

[LCID Fire (lcid-fire)]

It rather is not starting since /var/crash does not contain a crash report.

[Damiano Dallatana (damidalla)]

I can confirm the bugreport.
Randomly, and without an apparent cause, gnome-settings-daemon does not start, and it shows the standard theme / icons, the mounted drives not appearing on the desktop or under the 'places' menu, with a window telling me g-s-d did not start. As LCID Fire said, starting it manually does work, and restarting x.org does resolve everything. That problem was really frequent until a couple of weeks ago, but it still continue to appear.
With the manual start, I can tell that's not the known and resolved situation of g-s-d not starting at all, as it starts.
I am at your disposal for every information you could need.

[David Tansey (djtansey)]

I can confirm this. I am booted into a no-daemon setup right now. Similar issues as Damiano details -- mounted drives don't appear, etc. I think it is a pretty serious bug, since it gives a bad impression of Ubuntu (not to mention cuts down on productivity due to the mounted drive issue.)

This is what I get when I run it manually (which works.)

:~$ gnome-settings-daemon

** (gnome-settings-daemon:7652): WARNING **: Unable to connect to dbus: Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-vxgf8S5VVv: Connection refused

(gnome-settings-daemon:7652): GnomeKbdIndicator-WARNING **: Unable to connect to dbus: Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-vxgf8S5VVv: Connection refused

(gnome-settings-daemon:7652): GnomeKbdIndicator-WARNING **: Not connected to dbus, will not register the object
xrdb: "*Label.background" on line 220 overrides entry on line 150
xrdb: "*Text.background" on line 226 overrides entry on line 191
xrdb: "*Label.foreground" on line 232 overrides entry on line 151
xrdb: "*Text.foreground" on line 238 overrides entry on line 192

** (gnome-screensaver:7659): WARNING **: failed to register with the message bus

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

The new comment looks like a dbus issue

[Jeffrey Ratcliffe (jeffreyratcliffe)]

I can confirm all of this, including the behaviour on restarting the gnome-settings-daemon

[murmelhunter (d-drehlich)]

same issue here using Gutsy Studio (RT Kernel) all updates installed error message appearance is randomly and the error is gone when I close the current session and log in again.
Gutsy was a clean install from Beta and have all Updates upgrade to Studio was done 3 days ago

Yesterday I upgraded a PC from Feisty to Gutsy and I noticed the issue too by using the fast user switch.
2nd Session came up with the same error message =>closing the 2nd session and returning to the 1st session did not showed any problems.

The closed bug #138277 covers the same reported issue

[Juan Pablo Salazar Bertín (snifer)]

Confirmed. No crash file.
Looks like bug #84876.
gnome-control-center version 1:2.20.1-0ubuntu1.
dbus version 1.1.1-3ubuntu4.

snifer@snifer-laptop:~$ ps -ef | grep dbus
103 4901 1 0 22:34 ? 00:00:00 /usr/bin/dbus-daemon --system
root 4945 4944 0 22:34 ? 00:00:00 dbus-daemon --session --print-address --nofork
dhcp 5687 5202 0 22:35 ? 00:00:00 /sbin/dhclient -1 -lf /var/lib/dhcp3/dhclient.eth1.leases -pf /var/run/dhclient.eth1.pid -q -e dhc_dbus=31 -d eth1
snifer 5984 5935 0 23:00 pts/1 00:00:00 grep dbus
snifer@snifer-laptop:~$ gnome-settings-daemon

** (gnome-settings-daemon:5920): WARNING **: Unable to connect to dbus: Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-6PYnSE6u7Z: Connection refused

(gnome-settings-daemon:5920): GnomeKbdIndicator-WARNING **: Unable to connect to dbus: Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-6PYnSE6u7Z: Connection refused

(gnome-settings-daemon:5920): GnomeKbdIndicator-WARNING **: Not connected to dbus, will not register the object
xrdb: "*Label.background" on line 220 overrides entry on line 150
xrdb: "*Text.background" on line 226 overrides entry on line 191
xrdb: "*Label.foreground" on line 232 overrides entry on line 151
xrdb: "*Text.foreground" on line 238 overrides entry on line 192

** (gnome-screensaver:5927): WARNING **: failed to register with the message bus

[Petr Nemec (nemecpe-deactivatedaccount)]

I can confirm this bug too. Even it is not happening very often, its very annoying.

[Forceflow (baertman)]

I can confirm this too.

Been using Gutsy for 2 weeks now, this is the first time it happened. Rebooting solved the problem.

[Anonym25712 (anonym25712)]

I randomly face the same issue, let's say once every 2 weeks. If I log in again, the issue /seems/ to be fixed but the GNOME panel crashes quickly when I use any application launcher. The only real solution I found is to reboot.

[Jan Jergus (janjergus)]

I'm in the same situation, about once a week this message appears with no apparent reason and some settings (desktop background, GTK+ theme, ...) are lost until reboot/logout. I think it might somehow be relevant that I am using autologin - I've heard of similar problems caused by something (dbus?) not loaded soon enough, before something else (gnome-settings-daemon?) when using autologin. I will try setting GDM to login after five second delay to see if it helps. Unfortunately, it will take a few weeks to say with reasonable accuracy if there is any difference.

[Jan Jergus (janjergus)]

Forgot to note: Gutsy Gibbon, clean install, same problem on two different computers. Also, I have had this problem in at least two previous Ubuntu versions as well.

[Bastanteroma (bastanteroma)]

A workaround: I put gnome-session-daemon in my session startup and
haven't had the problem since.

On 11/8/07, Jan Jergus <email address hidden> wrote:
> Forgot to note: Gutsy Gibbon, clean install, same problem on two
> different computers. Also, I have had this problem in at least two
> previous Ubuntu versions as well.
>
> --
> [gutsy] Gnome settings daemon does randomly not work
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/146946
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Artemis3 (artemis3)]

I think you might want to read this: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=3664438

I can also confirm this bug. Just picking the generic kernel instead of i386 triggers it. It also happens with linux-rt.

[Martin Soto (soto255)]

I was having this problem consistently after rebooting. My first login attempt after a reboot would always fail with the the dreaded "There was an error starting the GNOME Settings Daemon" message box. Logging out and logging in again always solved the problem, but it was quite annoying anyway.

The good news is, I managed to work around the problem by deleting (renaming actually) my ~/.gnome2/session file. This would point to gnome-session as the actual culprit in this case, instead of the real-time kernel. The kernel, however, may still have something to do, because this problem is most probably caused by a race condition during session startup (the fact that it is intermittent, as well as the fact that it didn't affect me on a second login with a warm cache, both suggest it.) A different scheduler will potentially affect process execution order during session startup, and may increase/decrease the chances of this race condition actually triggering.

If you are having this problem, could you please try renaming/deleting your session file and report here your results?

Some additional info about my setup: I'm running a Gutsy installation (upgraded recently from Feisty.) I use the real-time kernel from Gutsy, but this problem didn't start when I installed it. The problem was apparently caused by me fiddling with my desktop configuration: I was playing with Awn and changed my panel and theme configuration many times in a few days.

[Craig N (cnewswanger)]

Same issue here.
Gutsy with Ubuntu studio. Did not happen before Studio install which included RT kernel.
Hardware is Intel core duo.

message includes:
"failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-CmrPFTAOO"

I get the Gnome-settings-daemon message about every third time. Seems random.

Martin,
Not sure what "/.gnome2/session file" is. I don't see it in my .gnome2 directory.
I have this:
/home/craig/.gnome2/accels
/home/craig/.gnome2/deskbar-applet
/home/craig/.gnome2/evince
/home/craig/.gnome2/file-roller
/home/craig/.gnome2/keyrings
/home/craig/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts
/home/craig/.gnome2/panel2.d
/home/craig/.gnome2/share
/home/craig/.gnome2/sound
/home/craig/.gnome2/gedit-2
/home/craig/.gnome2/gedit-metadata.xml
/home/craig/.gnome2/gnome-volume-control
/home/craig/.gnome2/hal-device-manager
/home/craig/.gnome2/main

I can start manually but of course I have to keep the terminal window active.

[Martin Soto (soto255)]

On Mon, 2007-11-12 at 03:03 +0000, Craig N wrote:
> Same issue here.
...
> message includes:
> "failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-CmrPFTAOO"

I managed to reproduce the problem by reinstating the session file that
was causing the it. The complete error message I get is:

        There was an error starting the GNOME Settings Daemon.

        Some things, such as themes, sounds, or background settings may
        not work correctly.

        The last error message was:

        Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote
        application did not send a reply, the message bus security
        policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the
        network connection was broken.

        GNOME will still try to restart the Settings Daemon next time
        you log in.

It seems to me that we are dealing with different problems that have
similar symptoms.

> Martin,
> Not sure what "/.gnome2/session file" is. I don't see it in my .gnome2 directory.
> I have this:

I guess you have to save your session to get one. I save my session
automatically when I close, i.e., "System|Preferences|Sessions|Sesion
Options|Automatically remember running applications when logging out" is
checked.

[dwan (dwanafite)]

Same issue here with an RT kernel.

[LCID Fire (lcid-fire)]

RT kernel here, too

[patrick_g (patrick-guignot)]

I encounter this bug in Gutsy (clean install and normal kernel) just after the login. This is the third or fourth time that I have found this bug and I would like to mention here.
Just after the login there is an error popup (in french) and the icon theme of my system is changed.
You can see a screenshot of my screen here (note that the icon theme is not the normal ubuntu theme) :
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2173/2042090445_1cc8341abc_b.jpg

The translation of the error message is :

"There was an error during the startup of the Gnome preference daemon.
Some features, like themes, sounds or wallpapers may not operate correctly.
The last error message was :

Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-f55Haym6uz :
Conection denied

Gnome will try to restart the preference daemon the next time you log in."

When i restart everything is fine (no error message and the ubuntu theme is normal).
The frequency of this bug is (roughly) one per ten boot.

[thorwil (t-w-)]

On my first Gutsy installation, I had this bug appearing once in a while since some time. On another fresh installation, the first time I saw it was right after I enabled remembering running applications in the Session preferences.

So far I thought the only problem with that setting and Compiz would be Compit putting all windows on the first workspace the next time you log in. But now I have to wonder if this the cause for the gnome-settings-daemon startup problem? Although this wouldn't answer why it happens randomly.

[P4man (duvel123)]

I just had this same issue booting from a live CD (ubuntu gutsy).
/var/crash also empty

[Florin Andrei (florin-andrei)]

Clean install of Gutsy 7.10 on a ThinkPad T60 with ATI card. Using the realtime kernel (Ubuntu Studio).
At some point I installed Compiz, then removed it, but I don't know if it's related.

Anyway, maybe 1 out of 5 logins, I get this error message:

####################################
There was an error starting the Gnome Settings Daemon.
Some things, such as themes, sounds, or background settings may not work correctly.
The last error message was:
Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-IKulmccHNE: Connection refused
GNOME will still try to restart the Settings Daemon next time you log in.
####################################

The theme looks bad, the fonts are too big, some applets are missing.
If I logout, then log back in, it's usually fixed.
Also see attached screenshot of the error message.

[Andy Cawte (k-launchpad-cawte-org-uk)]

I have the same - fresh install of Gutsy on a Dell Inspiron 8200. My Windows partitions don't get desktop icons, and the desktop theme looks rather old-fashioned.

In my case it started misbehaving after I changed the login screen from the default 'human' to 'happy Gnome with browser' - maybe just coincidence.

I never saw the problem with Edgy, and although I only ever ran Feisty on this PC for a day before changing to Gutsy, I never saw the problem there either.

[ktulu77 (ktulu-highwaytoacdc)]

I have this kind of problem too.
perhaprs 1/3 time I change the user session.

very annoying :( And it doesn't give a good image of Ubuntu because this bug is very tawdry for new users :(

[Kasimir Gabert (kasimir-g)]

I can confirm that this occurs on a clean Gutsy install with all updates applied on a Dell Inspiron 1420N. It seems to be relatively random and sporadic.

[Henriël Veldtmann (prince-unreal)]

I've been struggling with this same issue since yesterday now. I believe I may have fond a solution (note - A solution, not THE solution, because from the varied responses I've seen so far, I don't think that the error is always caused by the same problem).

In my case, the problem was never intermittent - I literally got the error message on every boot, without fail.

The specific message that I got, was:

There was an error starting the GNOME Settings Daemon.

Some things, such as themes, sounds, or background settings may not work correctly.

The last error message was:

Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.

GNOME will still try to restart the Settings Daemon next time you log in.

I tried following all the advice in different posts (including ones about reconfiguring networking and time settings), but nothing worked.

Finally, I tried just manually executing gnome-settings-daemon, which did seem to run perfectly. The themes appeared and everything seemed back to normal. Upon rebooting (or restarting xserver), it was back to the same problem though. I then decided to follow the advice about adding the g-s-d line to the startup config in Sessions, with half-successful results. This did eventually get themes up and running upon rebooting, but the error message still showed up first every time (which annoyed me).

When I manually executed gnome-settings-daemon, I did notice something. I got the same warning that some other users have reported:

xxxx@yyyyyy:~$ gnome-settings-daemon &
[1] 5559
xxxx@yyyyyy:~$
** (gnome-settings-daemon:5559): WARNING **: Unable to connect to dbus: Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-zlCjJ68lrb: Connection refused

(gnome-settings-daemon:5559): GnomeKbdIndicator-WARNING **: Unable to connect to dbus: Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-zlCjJ68lrb: Connection refused

(gnome-settings-daemon:5559): GnomeKbdIndicator-WARNING **: Not connected to dbus, will not register the object
xrdb: "*Label.background" on line 220 overrides entry on line 150
xrdb: "*Text.background" on line 226 overrides entry on line 191
xrdb: "*Label.foreground" on line 232 overrides entry on line 151
xrdb: "*Text.foreground" on line 238 overrides entry on line 192

** (gnome-screensaver:5566): WARNING **: failed to register with the message bus

So I scratched around for dbus, since this seemed to be the communication problem that the first error message was talking about.

When I searched packages with 'dbus' in their name in Synaptic, I saw that dbus itself was installed, but the dbus-X11 package was not. The description for this particular package states that it is a "simple interprocess messaging system". I selected it for installation, rebooted after completion and the error has not appeared again since then.

I guess looking into the networking settings couldn't hurt, but like I said, on my system, the problem was never intermittent and all that I eventually actually did, was to install dbus-X11 to fix the problem.

Hope this helps someone else - ...

[Nick Fishman (bsdlogical)]

After a clean install of Gutsy, I ran into this same problem. I tried the fix that Henriël_Veldtmann suggested, and after about 2 weeks, I haven't seen a problem since. I can't confirm the solution 100%, but anecdotal evidence does suggest that it fixes it.

I'm not sure why the dbus-X11 package is needed, though. I took a look in the Feisty repositories, and didn't even find the package. Perhaps it includes files branched out from another package, but isn't included by default in Gutsy?

We'll see what happens in the next few weeks.

[pierre-antoine roiron (contact-guitares-roiron)]

I have the same random problem, maybe 1 time out of 5. Installing the dbus-X11 with synaptic seems to fix it (2 weeks now). I have a PC with an intel core 2 duo processor with Ubuntu Studio (2.6.22-14-rt).

[Zoasterboy (zoasterboy)]

Same, seems like this is a common problem.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Could anybody try if that's still an issue on hardy?

[Nick Fishman (bsdlogical)]

Sebastien, I'll run a test installation within the next week or so and let you know what happens.

Either way, is there any way to push a backport into Gutsy? Maybe require a dependency on one of the standard dbus (or even better, gnome) packages to get this installed?

I'm worried that people are getting turned off from Gutsy because of this error. If I didn't know the fix, it would drive me MAD.

[Flabdablet (flabdablet)]

Gutsy PowerPC on iMac G3, upgraded from Feisty and up to date, experiencing this issue sporadically without ever having saved a session. I've installed dbus-x11 and will report back here if the problem recurs. Message text:

There was an error starting the GNOME Settings Daemon.

Some things, such as themes, sounds, or background settings may not work correctly.

The last error message was:

Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.

GNOME will still try to restart the Settings Daemon next time you log in.

[Marcelo Atie (marceloatie)]

I can confirm it in hardy :(

[Marcelo Atie (marceloatie)]

When i run gnome-settings-daemon i get:

(...)
The program 'gnome-settings-daemon' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadRequest (invalid request code or no such operation)'.
  (Details: serial 3407 error_code 1 request_code 151 minor_code 6)
  (Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
   that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
   To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line
   option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
   backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)
[1204488965,000,xklavier.c:xkl_engine_start_listen/] The backend does not require manual layout management - but it is provided by the application

[Joanmarie (joanmarie-diggs-deactivatedaccount)]

I can confirm in Hardy as well. But just on a freshly-installed 64-bit system. Segfaults 100% of the time. :-( My 32-bit box (also Hardy) continues to be fine.

While not the "ideal" solution, I solved the problem by building gnome-settings-daemon from SVN trunk. <shrugs>

[hdante (hdante)]

Bug persists on gutsy. (March 2008). Screenshot attached.

[Vincenzo Ciancia (vincenzo-ml)]

hdante: did you install the dbus-x11 package? That seems to fix this problem.

[John Wiersba (jrw32982)]

I just started getting this one, too. Yesterday and the day before, for the first time ever, this occurred. After I'm automatically logged in, I see an error dialog with:

   There was an error starting the GNOME Settings Daemon.

   Some things, such as themes, sounds, or background settings may not work
   correctly.

   The last error message was:

   Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did
   not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the
   reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.

   GNOME will still try to restart the Settings Daemon next time you log in.

After I rebooted, I'm OK. I'm running a Dell Latitude d820 with NVIDIA Quadro NVS 110M. From the Restricted Drivers application, the "NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver (latest cards)" is in use. I running Gutsy Gibbon with all packages up-to-date.

I've attached every /var/log file modified during the latest boot when this occurred.

[Nick Fishman (bsdlogical)]

Honestly, I really don't see what the holdup is to get the dbus-x11 package required in backports.

I've yet to see anyone for whom installing dbus-x11 has NOT fixed the problem. I've marked several bugs as duplicates of this one - they all say the same thing. How much confirmation do we need, seriously?

[Joanmarie (joanmarie-diggs-deactivatedaccount)]

w.r.t. "I've yet to see anyone for whom installing dbus-x11 has NOT fixed the problem." Didn't fix it for me. See comment #37.

Given the choice between following advice that has been proven to work -- especially when said advice is simple (install dbus-x11) -- and building an app I'm not familiar with from trunk, I tend to prefer the easier route. :-) Although for me the problem wasn't random; it was constant. so perhaps what I had was a different bug....

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

no need to use a such tone, installing dbus-x11 will workaround this bug but also have side effects, it means that the session bus is started not by GNOME but by xorg so it'll not use the GNOME environment which means applications started using the multimedia keys will not be able to use the keyring for example. Now if you want to be constructive stop ranting and try if the bug is still there on hardy because similar issues have been fixed in a correct way this cycle and that should works fine now without side effects in hardy

[Martin Soto (soto255)]

Sebastian: I just tried to test starting without dbus-x11 but I cannot remove it anymore since some (important) packages in Hardy depend on it:

$ sudo apt-get remove dbus-x11
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  dbus-x11 f-spot gnome-mount gnome-volume-manager policykit-gnome
  ubuntu-desktop
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 6 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 13.5MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

Am I missing something?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

what version of ubuntu are you using?

[Martin Soto (soto255)]

Hardy, last updated earlier today.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

that's expected on hardy where the way things are started changed, the workaround would not work correctly on gutsy though

[Damiano Dallatana (damidalla)]

I can confirm on Hardy (2.6.24-12-generic i686) updated as of yesterday.

I was seeing this bug randomly on Gutsy, and stopped seeing it after installing dbus-x11.
Then I installed Hardy Alpha6 (fresh setup, removed root - also /home). The bug did not appear, until today (obviously, with dbus-x11 installed).
Starting gnome-settings-daemon manually returns the following messages:

$ gnome-settings-daemon
** (gnome-settings-daemon:14409): WARNING **: Failed to acquire org.gnome.SettingsDaemon
** (gnome-settings-daemon:14409): WARNING **: Could not acquire name

The difference from Gutsy is that everything works (I am using the default gtk2 and metacity themes, and all the elements of the GUI are well rendered ant themed). Obviously, the error message starting the session is the same old one.

[LCID Fire (lcid-fire)]

Well the problem is that the error message is just crap. I mean basicly it says - "hey something went wrong but I don't tell you what". So IMO the first thing to do is to replace this one with a more sophisticated error handling (I know it takes a lot of work - but how many of such bug reports do you want to end up with?).
Second - for me (and it seems for all others) the initial problem from gutsy seems fixed in hardy.
BUT - since the error message is general - other bugs, like the one Damiano is stating, are being brought up here.

[Damiano Dallatana (damidalla)]

I second LCID Fire comment - may be reporting it as an enhancement upstream to gnome bugzilla?
I reported my Hardy bug here as it seems really really similar to the one I had with Gutsy (I am one of the first commenters in this bug). Should I report a new bug, or would it be a mere duplicate of this one?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

better to open new bugs if you have issues on hardy, there is so many different issues described there now that the bug is not really usuable

[Ric Flomag (ricflomag)]

The ubuntu forums thread mentionned by Artemis3 on comment 15 contains a fix given by Joshua Swink that seems to work for most of the people (it does for me):

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=3776732&postcount=15
*******************
This seems to be related to this gnome-session bug:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=395488

Here is a workaround. Two files are modified.

Change /etc/X11/Xsession.d/55gnome-session_gnomerc, adding two lines (identified below by comments):

Code:

# ADD FOLLOWING LINE
rm -f /tmp/session-is-gnome
BASESTARTUP=`basename "$STARTUP" | cut -d\ -f1`
if [ "$BASESTARTUP" = gnome-session -o \
        \( "$BASESTARTUP" = x-session-manager -a \
        "`readlink /etc/alternatives/x-session-manager`" = \
                /usr/bin/gnome-session \) ]; then
  GNOMERC=$HOME/.gnomerc
  if [ -r "$GNOMERC" ]; then
    . "$GNOMERC"
  fi
  # ADD FOLLOWING LINE
  touch /tmp/session-is-gnome
fi

Then change /etc/X11/Xsession.d/99x11-common_start completely, to the following text:

Code:

if [ -f /tmp/session-is-gnome ]; then
  exec /usr/bin/dbus-launch $STARTUP
else
  exec $STARTUP
fi

[Dara Adib (daradib)]

Fixed on Ubuntu Hardy

[Milan Bouchet-Valat (nalimilan)]

Do you mean a recent update did fix this? I can't see it. I can confirm that this bug was occurring even on the beta LiveCD!

[Dara Adib (daradib)]

Can anyone else confirm this bug with Ubuntu Hardy?

[Hendrik Borghorst (djselbeck)]

Hello,

i can confirm this on my eeePC with hardy. But it only occurs if i delete one panel of gnome and tweak the other to fit good on the small screen of eeepc. The workaround mentioned by Ric Flomag seems to work right now.

[Steve Jackson (aearenda)]

The workaround in comment 52 fails on a Gutsy multi-user system, such as Edubuntu with LTSP, because the first user to logon owns the file /tmp/session-is-gnome, and because more than one user might be logging on simultaneously. The flag file name should incorporate a username and/or session id of some sort, so as to be unique.

[kingbarry (b-king)]

Have tried all the "fixes", no joy
Before upgrading to Heron, I had this randomly
Running a newly upgraded Hardly Herring ( ! ) server with gnome-desktop.
All symptoms appear - the message, then the vvvveeerrryyy slow graphical system -
This occurs EVERY time I boot - so I will be rebuilding the server tomorrow.
Anything you fellas / gals want to look at on the box before then ??
email me at <email address hidden>
Thx

[kingbarry (b-king)]

This is not "random" - I can reproduce this bug at will - every time - on 3 different machines
Can we move this to a higher priority ??

[kingbarry (b-king)]

If the internet is unplugged I can reproduce this bug,
plug in internet & bug goes away - running hardy heron / ubuntu server & ubuntu desktop

[nadavkav (nadavkav)]

i have this same issue on updated 8.04 system with kernel 2.6.24
i have reported it also:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-system-tools/+bug/233980

and i think that this is a duplicate for it too:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/control-center/+bug/84876

[BruceBeare (bbeare)]

I'm seeing this with ubuntu 8.04.1 with the standard 2.6.24-19-generic kernel.
I ran gnome-settings-daemon with GDB. here is the backtrace.

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
[Switching to Thread 0x7f518bbcd7a0 (LWP 6629)]
0x00007f517eea473d in ?? () from /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon-2.0/libmouse.so
Shutdown failed or nothing to shut down.
(gdb) bt
#0 0x00007f517eea473d in ?? () from /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon-2.0/libmouse.so
#1 0x00007f517eea48cd in gsd_mouse_manager_start () from /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon-2.0/libmouse.so
#2 0x00007f517eea37f7 in ?? () from /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon-2.0/libmouse.so
#3 0x0000000000404f0c in gnome_settings_plugin_info_activate ()
#4 0x0000000000403c85 in ?? ()
#5 0x00007f5187562e0d in g_slist_foreach () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#6 0x0000000000403e94 in gnome_settings_manager_start ()
#7 0x0000000000403ad8 in main ()
(gdb) info thread
  2 Thread 0x422ad950 (LWP 6634) 0x00007f51873005cb in read () from /lib/libpthread.so.0
* 1 Thread 0x7f518bbcd7a0 (LWP 6629) 0x00007f517eea473d in ?? () from /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon-2.0/libmouse.so

[Dimitry Andric (dimitry-andric)]

I'm having precisely the same problem as BruceBeare, and almost exactly
the same backtrace. :)

I downloaded the debug symbols, and this is what I got:

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
[Switching to Thread 0x7f1966f937a0 (LWP 19394)]
set_touchpad_enabled (state=<value optimized out>) at gsd-mouse-manager.c:420
420 gsd-mouse-manager.c: No such file or directory.
 in gsd-mouse-manager.c
(gdb) bt
#0 set_touchpad_enabled (state=<value optimized out>) at gsd-mouse-manager.c:420
#1 0x00007f195a26a8cd in gsd_mouse_manager_start (manager=0x660af0, error=<value optimized out>) at gsd-mouse-manager.c:836
#2 0x00007f195a2697f7 in impl_activate (plugin=0x660ac0) at gsd-mouse-plugin.c:78
#3 0x0000000000404f0c in gnome_settings_plugin_info_activate ()
#4 0x0000000000403c85 in ?? ()
#5 0x00007f1962928e0d in g_slist_foreach () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#6 0x0000000000403e94 in gnome_settings_manager_start ()
#7 0x0000000000403ad8 in main ()
(gdb) print devicelist
$1 = (XDeviceInfo *) 0x0
(gdb) print numdevices
$2 = 32537

In my case, I'm running a GNOME session under VNC server, which does NOT
support the XInputExtension. However, the set_touchpad_enabled()
function in plugins/mouse/gsd-mouse-manager.c (which was introduced by
debian/patches/08_extra_touchpad_options.patch) uses XListInputDevices()
to get a list anyway:

static int
set_touchpad_enabled (gboolean state)
{
        int numdevices, i;
        int values[2];
        XDeviceInfo *devicelist = XListInputDevices (GDK_DISPLAY(), &numdevices);
 [...]
        for (i = 0; i < numdevices; i++) {
                if (strcmp (devicelist[i].name, "Synaptics Touchpad") == 0) {

The problem, as you can see in the gdb conversation above, is that if
devicelist is NULL, numdevices is *not* set to zero by the call to
XListInputDevices. Later on, the for loop will segfault in the first
strcmp() call.

I've attached a patch which fixes at least this particular problem.

[Dimitry Andric (dimitry-andric)]

Sorry, that patch contains a typo... That'll teach me to test
compilation before uploading. ;) Revised patch attached.

[James Westby (james-w)]

Hi Dimitry,

Nice work. Using #ifdefs like the upstream code may be a good idea, but
you seem to have found the cause of your issue.

The bug report is about a different issue though it seems, but that doesn't
mean we can't fix yours.

Thanks,

James

[Dimitry Andric (dimitry-andric)]

Well, since set_touchpad_enabled() and other functions that were
introduced by 08_extra_touchpad_options.patch also didn't contain any
#ifdef HAVE_XINPUT sections, I thought it would be a bit overkill.

It all depends on whether the extra_touchpad_options code will be sent
upstream later. If that's the case, it should probably be cleaned up a
little more anyway. Any idea if it's going to be sent upstream?

As to the issue other people in this bug report have, when I apply my
own fix, gnome-settings-daemon does startup now, but sooner or later I
also get the dreaded "The program 'gnome-settings-daemon' received an X
Window System error" message. :)

So back to stack-tracing again...

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

could you open a new bug using apport about the crasher, that seems to be a different issue than the one described there

[Dimitry Andric (dimitry-andric)]

Sorry for the pollution, I've filed my story under bug 204850 here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-settings-daemon/+bug/204850/comments/9

[BruceBeare (bbeare)]

It didn't occur to me to report it... but YES, I also run gnome under VNC. Sounds like the same problem.

[Dara Adib (daradib)]

According to upstream (last bug comment on bug watch):

"This doesn't apply to 2.23/2.24 anymore since we changed the way we launch dbus."

That means this bug is fixed (obsolete) in Ubuntu Intrepid, which uses Gnome 2.23.