Gnome does not remember new workspace names

[akahige]

On Gnome 2.26.1 build 04/14/2009, when you rename a workspace, the new name is forgotten and the old name is restored when logging out / restarting X / rebooting. Expected behavior is to have the new name persist.

Running the Jaunty beta on AMD64, with all packages up to date.

[Dougie Nisbet (dougie-highmoor)]

I'm observing the same thing with Gnome 2.26.1. It's happened before and I can't recall how I fixed it. I'm adding this note because I've noticed some interesting behaviour.

If I change one of the 5 workspace names, then log out and back in again. the change IS REMEMBERED. But only for a few seconds. Once the desktop icons start being placed (it's quite an old machine so takes a few minutes to start a session) then the Workspace list refreshes and defaults to the Workspace 1 thru 5 defaults.

Running Jaunty with everything up to date.

[Dougie Nisbet (dougie-highmoor)]

This seems to be
http://bugs.gentoo.org/277361

[Dougie Nisbet (dougie-highmoor)]

After searching around the following two bugs seem to be the same thing.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-panel/+bug/108520
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-panel/+bug/110420

[Dougie Nisbet (dougie-highmoor)]

I've found a way around this. I have absolutely no idea why it's working. It's based entirely on trial and error and hunches. But it may be useful to others.

From reading other bug reports I kept noticing references to metacity. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling that with no effect. By find-ing and grep-ing I found the file

~/.gconf/apps/metacity/workspace_names/%gconf.xml

and noticed that it was mostly unaffected by tinkering with workspace preferences on the desktop. Sometimes it changed, sometimes it didn't. I couldn't see a pattern. I tried editing it manually and restarting and it seemed to be ignored.

So I did a "find ~ -exec grep 'Workspace 1' {} \;" from my home directory and found

 ~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml

contained the workspace names. I checked that I was running gdm as my window manager and there were no processes that looked like they had any obvious connection to xfce desktop. But I have run it in the past when I was investigating trying to use a more lightweight window manager so I guess it's assimilated in there somewhere.

Put briefly, by editing xfce-perchannel-xml directly I saw the changes partially reflected in the desktop after restart. Not fully. There were problems with the number of workspaces. After a bit more digging I discovered that by running:

 xfwm4-workspace-settings

from the command line I could adjust the workspace settings, and they were retained after a restart.

I guess that somewhere in my configuration I have a reference to the xfce4 workspace config file. I don't have time to try and track it down right now.

I hope this is useful to anyone else who may have similar workspace and would be interested to know if it also solves the problem.

Dougie

[Fabio Marconi (fabiomarconi)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better.
Is this bug reproducible with the latest Lucid packages ?
Tanks in advance.

[Fabio Marconi (fabiomarconi)]

 Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This bug did not have a package associated with it, which is important for ensuring that it gets looked at by the proper developers. You can learn more about finding the right package at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage .

When reporting bugs in the future please use apport by using 'ubuntu-bug' and the name of the package affected. You can learn more about this functionality at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs.

[Fabio Marconi (fabiomarconi)]

We'd like to figure out what's causing this bug for you, but we haven't heard back from you in a while. Could you please provide the requested information? Thanks!

[akahige (michael-ronin-group)]

In the almost year and a half since this bug was initially filed, I am no longer running Jaunty, and the bug no longer seems to apply to Karmic.

[Fabio Marconi (fabiomarconi)]

Sorry for delay.
Fabio.

[Fabio Marconi (fabiomarconi)]

This bug report is being closed due to your last comment regarding this being fixed with an update. For future reference you can manage the status of your own bugs by clicking on the current status in the yellow line and then choosing a new status in the revealed drop down box. You can learn more about bug statuses at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Status. Thank you again for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please submit any future bugs you may find.