Gnome desktop preferences fail to load

[SanketMedhi]

Binary package hint: gnome-settings-daemon

The symptoms of this bug are exactly like https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/352362 . However, trying to fix a clean partition is not a solution. The problem is still persistent for me.

My system is an HP Pavilion 9000 series entertainment notebook. I have a completely up-to-date system.

It started for me after I upgraded to Jaunty. My desktop preferences don't work. I have tried everything I found on the Internet including the ones mentioned above. Please find a screenshot attached.

This is definitely a problem with the gnome-settings-daemon as you can see in the screenshot.

I first tried deleting the ~/.gconf/monitors.xml file which worked for several users who reported similar problems, didn't work for me though.
I tried running e2fsck for my root partition (I do not have a separate partition for /home). It is clean and no errors are detected.
Amazingly, I found the above mentioned bug file and I am facing exactly the symptoms that have been mentioned by the users, but fixing the broken file system worked for them, I don't have a broken file system in the first place. And, this problem is for all users in the system not just me.

Most applications don't work including media players, etc. Also, keyboard shortcuts don't work for the most part. I am just happy Firefox and Synaptic are working. Please suggest a solution.

[SanketMedhi (sanketmedhi-gmail)]

Check screenshot for the output of gnome-settings-daemon command in terminal.

[nospoon (ben-james-jones)]

Same problem here. Happened with upgrade to Jaunty. Affected programs are banshee, evince, preferences applications. I tried the fixes mentioned elsewhere. Reinstalling gnome-settings-daemon does not solve the problem. Please let me know what other info would help.

[nospoon (ben-james-jones)]

Actually, reinstalling gnome-settings-daemon and REBOOTING, fixed the issue here.

[SanketMedhi (sanketmedhi-gmail)]

Not for me. I have even tried completely removing the package and installing again, failed.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report, could you run gnome-settings-daemon --no-daemon --debug and copy the log there?

[SanketMedhi (sanketmedhi-gmail)]

$ gnome-settings-daemon --no-daemon --debug

** (gnome-settings-daemon:4981): WARNING **: Failed to acquire org.gnome.SettingsDaemon

** (gnome-settings-daemon:4981): WARNING **: Could not acquire name
** (gnome-settings-daemon:4981): DEBUG: SettingsDaemon finished

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the current log suggests that a gnome-settings-daemon is already running when you try to start the debug one, is that the case or not?

[SanketMedhi (sanketmedhi-gmail)]

Yes it is...

$ ps -el|grep gnome-se
0 S 1000 8271 1 0 80 0 - 35035 pipe_w ? 00:00:00 gnome-settings-
1 S 1000 8276 8271 0 80 0 - 51891 pipe_w ? 00:00:00 gnome-settings-
1 S 1000 8286 8276 0 80 0 - 197908 futex_ ? 00:00:00 gnome-settings-
0 S 1000 13463 13376 0 80 0 - 35035 pipe_w ? 00:00:00 gnome-settings-
1 S 1000 13469 13463 0 80 0 - 51825 pipe_w ? 00:00:00 gnome-settings-
1 S 1000 13473 13469 0 80 0 - 201153 futex_ ? 00:00:00 gnome-settings-

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

you have it running correctly then?

[SanketMedhi (sanketmedhi-gmail)]

Well I gave you all the command outputs. I don't know what conclusion to draw from this.

[SanketMedhi (sanketmedhi-gmail)]

Although its running as you can see in the ps output, the problem still persists.

[SanketMedhi (sanketmedhi-gmail)]

I downloaded the Jaunty ISO and re-installed Jaunty. Now it is working fine. Although, I wouldn't say that this bug was resolved.

[Ambricka (petter-ambricka)]

I removed .gnome* and .gconf* from my homedir to make gnome-settings-daemon work again.
Not sure I had to remove all of them, (just mv, ok) but now it works, and seems to be blazingly fast compared to what it was before...

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

does anybody still get the issue?

[Id2ndR (id2ndr)]

I'm marking this bug as invalid since there is no recent activity on it about the reporters.