gnome-shell Crashes shortly after login

[Bruce Pieterse]

After logging in and after about 30-90 seconds gnome-shell will restart and take me back to the login screen. I have script that enables the backlight on my keyboard which is used at start up, but after logging in this does not work. The same script is bound to Scroll Lock and doesn't work after logging either. After logging in a second time, sometimes three times due to a gnome-shell crash the shortcut works.

I've been having this problem for a few weeks now where gnome-shell just restarts without an error report being generated.

This did not occur in 16.04 or 16.10.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 17.04
Package: gnome-shell 3.23.90-0ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.10.0-9.11-generic 4.10.0
Uname: Linux 4.10.0-9-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.4-0ubuntu2
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: GNOME
Date: Sun Mar 5 10:58:42 2017
DisplayManager: gdm3
InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-10-25 (130 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-GNOME 16.04.1 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20160720)
SourcePackage: gnome-shell
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to zesty on 2017-01-08 (56 days ago)

[dino99 (9d9)]

Are you using a nvidia card ? which one ?
Looks similar to lp:1669374

[dino99 (9d9)]

oops, asking too quickly, you have an amd card; if you login with lightdm, is that better ?

[Bruce Pieterse (octoquad)]

Hey dino99,

I haven't tried lightdm and I don't think I will. Reason being, I would like to debug this issue further if it persists, but not 100% sure how to do so, perhaps one of the devs can advise how I can debug something like this.

Interesting development tonight though, I logged in and after about 20 seconds I switched to a tty, and caught what is attached to this comment. Interesting enough, the fail whale occurred but my desktop was still running (possible, but weird work-around?). After the crash occurred I was also able to enable my backlight on my keyboard with Scroll Lock, which usually won't happen after gnome-shell has crashed at least once.

Definitely something wrong with org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Sharing.desktop.

Regarding your reference to #1669374, that kinda looks like #1559576, which I tried helping Tim Lunn get more information to debug and fix the issue, but I don't think Alberto ever looked at my comment (#45).

Thanks

[Bruce Pieterse (octoquad)]

I also see a reference to Wayland but I'm not using Wayland!

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

Bruce, GDM3 in Ubuntu these days actually uses Wayland by default even though the GNOME login is still X by default.

1. In the GNOME Settings app, is Sharing turned on or off?
Try switching it the other way.

2. If that doesn't work…
Does it work any better if you temporarily remove
org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Sharing;
from
/usr/share/gnome-session/sessions/gnome.session

You may need to restart for this change to take effect.

As for LP: #1559576 does your NVIDIA computer have xserver-xorg-legacy installed?

[Francois Thirioux (fthx)]

We could maybe close this bug as it seems solved by recent patch ?

[Bruce Pieterse (octoquad)]

Hi Jeremey,

Thanks for proposing possible solutions. I tried number 1, Sharing was enabled with only Remote Desktop set to On. I disabled sharing altogether and it seemed to have worked for two days and on the third day it started again.

I did try number two on day 3, but never rebooted. Unfortunately, I had a power failure in the area and my motherboard is now fried, so I am unable to confirm if number two works correctly. I'll let you know later in the week once I'm up and running again.

Regarding LP: #1559576, yes it's installed (I believe this got pulled in recently as a dependency on gnome-shell):

xserver-xorg-legacy:
  Installed: 2:1.18.4-0ubuntu0.2
  Candidate: 2:1.18.4-0ubuntu0.2
  Version table:
 *** 2:1.18.4-0ubuntu0.2 500
        500 http://za.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     2:1.18.3-1ubuntu2 500
        500 http://za.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 Packages

Let me see if the Nvidia driver works now. I am using my work laptop until my main machine is fixed (that's the one that generated this bug report). Also, let me know if you want me to help you with some Nvidia and GNOME related bugs this week.

Thanks

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for gnome-shell (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[claudio@ubuntu (claudio.ubuntu)]

I think this is a gnome-shell-extension-dashtodock + gnome-shell-extension-ubuntu-dock, at least in my case.

Removing gnome-shell-extension-dashtodock and reinstalling gnome-shell-extension-ubuntu-dock allows me to login, however the dock is not visible (it's not auto-hidden either, only visible with the meta key).

C.