Save session option gets stuck ON

[Bjørn Sandåker]

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#(The bug report has been reconstructed from that described by Bjorn T. Jonsson on 2006-09-17 as the bug seems to appear in a recent Ubuntu release; i.e. 9.10)
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***Problem:-
- "Remember Currently Running Applications" cannot be disabled.
_____________

***Details:-

  **What happened:-
- Clicking "Remember Currently Running Applications" once, from System>Preferences>Startup Applications> Options [tab], (withOUT checking the "Automatically remember..." box) cannot be disabled; the applications just start every time Karmic boots up.

  **What was expected:-
- Clicking the previously mentioned option should either
      1- Remember the session for one time boot only
  or 2- Provide an option to disable this function.

  **Environment:-
- Ubuntu 9.10 (karmic) i386
- Kernel Linux 2.6.31-15-generic
- GNOME 2.28.1
______________

***Additional Notes:-
  **Workaround:-
- Manual removal of the files contained in ".config/gnome-session/saved-session" in Home directory prevents the autostart behaviour.
________________

***Old description as reported by Bjorn T. Jonsson on 2006-09-17

"I fiddled with selecting to save session at logoff/reboot, but decided to deselect it again and go back to the default state. Well, it still saves my session every time, even if the option is deselected. Besides, I just get a message saying session was saved - and no reboot or shutdown. Just the dialog. I have to do reboot/shutdown a second time for it to actually happen."

[Bjørn Sandåker (prognatus)]

Additional info:

This seems to be connected with Skype and only happens when my buddy list is open when I the quit dialog to logoff/restart/shutdown. If I close the buddy window first, by clicking on the x-button, the "session was saved" message isn't displayed.

[Jim Braux-Zin (j-brauxzin)]

I can confirm this exact same skype issue, on an up to date edgy.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug. What option do you change and where? I don't confirm this bug. The skype message is an another subject

[Bjørn Sandåker (prognatus)]

Sebastian,

When I reported this issue, I just saw the message dialog "Your session has been saved" every time I shut down or rebooted and thoguht it was because I've fiddled with the "Save session" option in System->Preferences->Sessions->Session Options so that it somehow got stuck. After clicking "Ok" on that message, I had to make the shut down/restart one more time for it to go into effect. Whatever I did - enabled or disabled that option, I got the same message at shut down/reboot. Hence the heading text in this bug report.

Afterwards I discovered that this "Your session has been saved" was not connected to the save session option after all, but happened every time the Skype window was open on the desktop. Even later I discovered this also is true for Gaim. I have not really tried with all sorts of other application windows. But if these windows are closed - even just to the system tray - I don't get the save session message.

So I now expect this to be connected to Gnome rather than Ubuntu or Skype. I can alter the heading accordingly if you want.

[Bjørn Sandåker (prognatus)]

Correction - doesn't happen with Gaim, only Skype.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

could you try if that's still an issue in hardy?

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Closing this bug report as no further information has been provided. Please feel free to reopen this bug if you can provide the information asked for. Thanks!.

[J.G. (j.gorski)]

happens in hardy also, have remembered session, and on startup opens two instances amarok. I have had amarok on startup, and removed it from the additional startup programs, but still open two instances!

[david_kt (d-kuntadi)]

Happen to me recently on ubuntu Hardy. I have saved session with azureus running.
1. After I disable the session option, it still start azureus on startup.
2. I shutdown azureus and click "remember current running application" and reboot ubuntu, it still launch azureus on startup.
3. I remove azureus and reboot ubuntu, azureus did not start (offcourse, it is not installed).
4. I resintalled azureus and reboot ubuntu, it launched azureus again on start up!!!

DK

[david_kt (d-kuntadi)]

After I search again, I found the culprit of this setting i.e. in /home/username/.gnome2/session
I open that file using text editor and the original file state like below:

.
.
16,RestartCommand=azureus
17,RestartCommand=/usr/bin/system-config-printer-applet
18,RestartCommand=nm-applet --sm-disable
num_clients=19

And I deleted 16,RestartCommand=azureus , and renumbered the rest to become:
.
.
16,RestartCommand=/usr/bin/system-config-printer-applet
17,RestartCommand=nm-applet --sm-disable
num_clients=18

And it does not launch azureus on start up anymore.
May be the session option fail to update the above file.
So, temporary you could edit the above file manually as a work around.

DK

[ENigma885 (enigma-pentagram)]

Another confirmation but on Karmic 9.10
____________
***Details:-
- Clicking "remember currently running applications" once (without checking the "Automatically remember..." box) cannot be disabled; the applications just start every time Karmic boots up.

**Workaround:-
- Manually remove the files contained in ".config/gnome-session/saved-session" in Home directory
____________

[Scott Ringwelski (sgringwe)]

I can confirm this bug also on 9.10. ENigma885's workaround was successful for me.

[Bjørn Sandåker (prognatus)]

Well, I haven't tested this recently. Besides, I'm still using 8.10 (Intrepid), so I haven't tested it in recent releases either.

But I really do object on the policy of removing bugs because the author don't respond with further information. If someone is on vacation for two weeks, he may find many of his bug reports are dismissed when he returns. This is all to common practic in this project and doesn't improve the product even a tiny bit, only the bug count statistics. I've worked as a software developer professionally for more than two decades myself, and I've NEVER EVER dismissed a bug this way! In fact, I can't remember ever dismissing any serious bug report.

This bug is 3,5 years old now (despite its "new" status). If you want a better product, you should consentrate on fixing the bugs and take bug reports more seriously.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

> But I really do object on the policy of removing bugs because the author don't respond with further information. If someone is on vacation for two weeks, he may find many of his bug reports are dismissed when he returns.

The bugs are usually not closed when they lack details to be useful and get no updates in weeks. You can still reopen a bug if you come back to provide informations later

> This is all to common practic in this project and doesn't improve the product even a tiny bit, only the bug count statistics. I've worked as a software developer professionally for more than two decades myself, and I've NEVER EVER dismissed a bug this way!

You maybe didn't receive thousand of bugs a month and had to deal with finding useful ones in the middle of the noise. The bugs which are real issue for users will be opened in an useful way and triaged, there is no need to keep the ton of duplicates, user complains and not detailed enough bug reports there

[Mechanical snail (replicator-snail)]

I just marked bug 461890 as a duplicate of this since it's essentially the same issue.

I should note (from that bug) that "Remember Currently Running Application" does not behave as Help says it should. This is an ambiguity in the help file, which says the button remembers apps only one. That sounds like they will be remembered for only one reboot, but I think it was supposed to mean that apps from this session (not from future logouts) are remembered permanently. I confirm this on Karmic 9.10.

[rusivi2 (rusivi2-deactivatedaccount)]

Thank you for posting this bug.

Is this an issue in Maverick?

[Bjørn Sandåker (prognatus)]

Cannot confirm, I have not tested this in Maverick.

2010/9/15 rusivi1 <email address hidden>:
>
> Is this an issue in Maverick?

[Michał Kozal (panaut0lordv)]

Yes, it still is.
And since no GUI can help with it, user struggle with applications spamming their desktops everytime they launch Ubuntu.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the bug is fixed in natty where session saving has been disabled