gnome-shell crash using ubuntu-dock with dual monitors

[Colin Law]

[ Description ]

Using Ubuntu 17.04 on a laptop with an external display on its right hand side all is well with dash-to-dock provided the laptop display is set to the primary display. However if I set the external display to be the primary display (with dash-to-dock disabled) then as soon as I enable it gnome-shell crashes and I am logged off. See attached excerpt from syslog. I have to remove .local/share/gnome-shell in order to recover the situation.

[ Test case ]

Plug an external monitor to a laptop, with the external monitor on the
right side and configure the externals primary monitor.

Login and Logout

Gnome shell shouold not crash.

[ Regression Potential ]

The dock won't be temporarily shown in a monitor

---

To replicate on Artful daily on a laptop, plug in an external monitor with the external monitor to the right of the laptop and configure the external monitor as the primary display. On configuration it works ok, but on logging out and back in gnome-shell crashes. The problem is only seen if the external monitor is the primary display.

I think it likely that this is the same issue reported for dash-to-dock:
https://github.com/micheleg/dash-to-dock/issues/493

ProblemType: BugDistroRelease: Ubuntu 17.10
Package: gnome-shell-extension-ubuntu-dock 0.3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.12.0-11.12-generic 4.12.5
Uname: Linux 4.12.0-11-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.6-0ubuntu6
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Wed Aug 23 20:29:17 2017
InstallationDate: Installed on 2017-08-22 (1 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark" - Alpha amd64 (20170821)
PackageArchitecture: allSourcePackage: gnome-shell-extension-ubuntu-dock
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Rocko (rockorequin)]

I've got the same issue on the latest Artful and dash-to-dock. In my case, there is only one monitor but it's attached through an HDMI port, and gnome-shell crashes when I turn the monitor off.

Obviously the bug also affects ubuntu-dock (turning dash-to-dock off just reverts to ubuntu-dock and gnome-shell still crashes).

[Rocko (rockorequin)]

Is it possible that this is a problem in gnome-shell rather than dash-to-dock? I uninstalled ubuntu-dock, turned off dash-to-dock, logged out and back in again (and had no dash on the screen), and gnome-shell still crashed when I turned off the external monitor.

[Rocko (rockorequin)]

Actually I think I have misread this bug completely - it's about gnome-shell crashing when you enable the dock, not crashing when you turn off the external monitor. Apologies for the noise.

[guyvdb (guyvdb-gmail)]

I have this issue on 17.10. External HDMI monitor is plugged in, laptop screen turned off. Works fine when configured but when logging in, something crashes and bounces back to the login screen.

[Colin Law (colin-law)]

@guyvdb if you are seeing a problem with only one screen active it is unlikely to be this bug which is specifically related to having two active monitors. I suggest filing a new bug for your issue.

[guyvdb (guyvdb-gmail)]

@Colin my problem occurs regardless of whether the laptop screen is active/on or not. In either case, with a primary external monitor, logging in crashes and loops forever.

[Colin Law (colin-law)]

@guyvdb does it happen with both screens on and the laptop the primary, and does it happen with ubuntu-dock disabled?

[guyvdb (guyvdb-gmail)]

I tried to test it out but found that some update made the problem worse: I was unable to log in at all with my monitor plugged in. I then tried removing $HOME/.config/monitors.xml and starting in X which did allow me to log back in with the monitor. Problem is now that I cannot change anything: primary display, resolution, spatial config, mirror/turn laptop screen of, etc., all crash the system and bounce back to a login screen.

[Colin Law (colin-law)]

Is it ok if you disable ubuntu-dock?

[Sergey Lungu (lungu)]

Same here, when I attach a USB Type-C dock station with no display attached to it.

[Sergey Lungu (lungu)]

The crash does not happen with the ubuntu-dock disabled (by switching to the GNOME session).

[Michele Gaio (michele684)]

Could anybody give a try to this branch https://github.com/micheleg/dash-to-dock/tree/experimental_dashslider_round?

[Sergey Lungu (lungu)]

@michele684, Tested the experimental_dashslider_round branch — the bug is still there. Do you need any info from my side?

[Colin Law (colin-law)]

@Sergy Lungo, what do you mean by your comment in #13? You should not switch to a different session to test disabling the addon but just disable the addon (also make sure that dash-to-dock is not enabled).

[Colin Law (colin-law)]

@michele684 unfortunately at the moment I am unable to do any testing as I am away from base for a while.

[Sergey Lungu (lungu)]

@colin-law, not sure the ubuntu-dock extension could be disabled in the ubuntu session, according to the #1713020. Am I wrong?

[Colin Law (colin-law)]

@lungo, it seems you are correct. In which case if you wanted to ensure that you are definitely seeing the same bug then you could install dash-to-dock in the Gnome session and check that you also see it there. See the link in the description to the equivalent dash-to-dock bug. The two addons use the same code.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package gnome-shell-extension-ubuntu-dock - 63ubuntu1

---------------
gnome-shell-extension-ubuntu-dock (63ubuntu1) cosmic; urgency=medium

  * Merged with latest master
    - Fix crash connecting/disconnecting monitors (LP: #1712661)
    - showApps button label position (LP: #1784920)
    - Add wrapper to properly run in both gnome-shell 3.28 and 3.29.90
    - Update translations, fixed settings typos
  * Updated versioning to match with extensions.gnome.org
  * debian/gbp.conf:
    - updated branches and tags settings accordingly

 -- Marco Trevisan (Treviño) <email address hidden> Thu, 02 Aug 2018 13:29:47 +0200

[Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100)]

Hello Colin, or anyone else affected,

Accepted gnome-shell-extension-ubuntu-dock into bionic-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-shell-extension-ubuntu-dock/0.9.1ubuntu18.04.1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed.Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from verification-needed-bionic to verification-done-bionic. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-bionic. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

[Colin Law (colin-law)]

Hi Lukasz

Unfortunately(?) the bug seems no longer to exhibit itself on my (18.04) system with the current version, 0.9.1, it seemed to fix itself (presumably with an upgrade to something) a little while ago.

[Marco Trevisan (Treviño) (3v1n0)]

Don't see any trace of this for gnome-shell in proposed, so we can safely consider this as fixed.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package gnome-shell-extension-ubuntu-dock - 0.9.1ubuntu18.04.1

---------------
gnome-shell-extension-ubuntu-dock (0.9.1ubuntu18.04.1) bionic; urgency=medium

  * Fix crash connecting/disconnecting monitors (LP: #1712661)
  * Fix showApps button label position (LP: #1784920)
  * Update translations, fixed settings typos
  * debian/control:
    - Point Vcs-* flags to the proper locations
  * debian/gbp.conf:
    - set ubuntu branch and tagging schema

 -- Marco Trevisan (Treviño) <email address hidden> Thu, 02 Aug 2018 21:01:24 +0200

[Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100)]

The verification of the Stable Release Update for gnome-shell-extension-ubuntu-dock has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.