Changing theme causes 100 % CPU & hang

[Piraja]

Binary package hint: community-themes

Ubuntu 8.10 64-bit (on HP Compaq 6735S).

Changing a Gnome theme (System > Pref. > Appearance) while running several applications (Firefox has been mentioned in other bug reports, but as far as I can see none of them match these symptoms exactly) causes 100-% CPU usage, a quick rise in ACPI temperature (from ca. 50 to > 60 C) and a hang that forces to hard-reset.

What is more, the chosen theme does not look as it should after reboot: DarkRoom has elements of Kin (Kin colour scheme but DarkRoom window decorations). Somehow, the Kin theme belonging to the community-themes package (containing also Dust and NewWave themes) seems to occasionally override other themes — I have seen this happening more than once, also without the symptoms mentioned above.

[Piraja (piraja-deactivatedaccount)]

Steps to reproduce (this has worked every time so far):
1. Start Conky, showing CPU usage & acpi_temp.
2. Start Firefox.
3. Open System > Preferences > Appearance > Themes.
4. Change the theme.
5. Verify CPU usage rising quickly into 100% and staying there.
6. Verify a quick increase in ACPI temp (Conky works all the time during this), e.g. from 45 C to 63 C.
7. Verify that the Firefox window "has darkened" and that mouse clicks produce no response.
8. Drop into VT (Ctrl+Alt+F3), log in and start top; try killing relevant processes (I killed Firefox and the process beginning gnome-appearance--- as well as some 3rd process...) and return to the X session (Alt+Ctrl+F7).
9. Verify that the session situation has not changed (X hangs?).
10. Drop into VT (TTY 3) and do sudo poweroff.
11. Restart the computer and log in to X.
12. Verify that the theme appearance has changed, but not as expected: the theme seems like a mixture of two themes.

Sorry for the possible terminological confusion &c; I am a non-tech user.

Please request extra info if needed.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

thank you for your bug report, is that specific to one theme?

[Piraja (piraja-deactivatedaccount)]

Thank you for your attention. I took the following steps: (1) Closed Firefox. (2) Went to System > Preferences > Appearance > Themes, tried to change from my Custom theme to Human default theme. By this procedure, I could reproduce the 100-% CPU usage, fast increase of ACPI temp (from ca. 48 to ca 62 C) and partial X session hang (not possible to affect the "Appearance" window by using the touchpad). I dropped into VT and rebooted. I noticed for a second time that the Conky window appearance had changed (seems "normal" instead of "desktop", but restarting Conky restores my "desktop" setting). And the Human theme had an unusual hue too, I think, after reboot.

Next I changed the theme again, from Human to my Custom theme (I call it DustyFox because it's based on Dust, colours modified, with Foxtrot icons), without problems. In order to be able to post this, I will not experiment further, until I have submitted this comment...

Nevertheless, this MIGHT be specific to my custom theme, or the community-themes package, containing Dust, Kin and New Wave. As I said, my DustyFox custom theme is based on Dust. Its window decorations are from the DarkRoom theme.

Strangely enough, Kin seems to "infect" other themes with its remarkable colouring: even Human had this strange light yellowish tint after reboot.

[Piraja (piraja-deactivatedaccount)]

Once again, I reproduced the bug. I changed from my custom DustyFox to DarkRoom and the same symptoms occurred. I rebooted, observed that DarkRoom did not look as expected but rather as a mixture of DarkRoom and Kin. Then I changed into Human, and the Kin colours remained. Cf. the attached screenshot to see what I mean. It should be the default Human theme, but is not.

I suppose the next step might be to remove the community-themes package and try whether I can still reproduce the bug without it.

This does not seem to depend on whether Firefox is running or not (there are a few bug reports with remotely same kind of behaviour, which mention FF).

[Piraja (piraja-deactivatedaccount)]

A couple of additions to the above:

After I removed the community-themes package and rebooting everything works as expected and the themes look as intended. No problems at all.

I realized that my custom theme DustyFox, which I thought depended on Dust, was actually modified to the degree that it had nothing to do with Dust any longer. Sorry for the misinformation, therefore.

All this seems to indicate, at least to such a layman as I am, that the bizarre behaviour depended on the community-themes package.

Thank you for your attention on this report!

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

does anybody get the issue in jaunty and could describe an easy way to trigger it?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

We are closing this bug report as it lacks the information, described in the previous comments, we need to investigate the problem further. However, please reopen it if you can give us the missing information and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future.