Installed GSettings schemas not detected on PowerPC

[Keith]

Binary package hint: gnome-system-tools

Trying to launch the Users and Groups - the window bar shows a window (but nothing on screen) for the users and groups, then it disappears. If I try to launch users-admin from a terminal I get the following error:
"GLib-GIO-ERROR **: Settings schema 'org.gnome.system-tools.users' is not installed

aborting...
Aborted"

This is on a new install on a Mac Powerbook G4 17" 1.3GHz system. Ubuntu 10.10 for PowerPC installed from CD.

This occurred from first login, and after all updates were applied. I have tried reinstalling the system-tools but to no avail.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: gnome-system-tools 2.32.0-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-22.35-powerpc 2.6.35.4
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-22-powerpc ppc
Architecture: powerpc
Date: Mon Nov 8 22:34:36 2010
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release powerpc (20101008)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnome-system-tools

[Milan Bouchet-Valat (nalimilan)]

Do you get any problems with other programs too? Do you have the file /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/org.gnome.system-tools.gschema.xml installed? What does the following command say:
grep org.gnome.system-tools.users /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/gschemas.compiled

[Keith (entwash)]

yes the /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/org.gnome.system-tools.gschema.xml file is present and when I run "grep org.gnome.system-tools.users /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/gschemas.compiled" I get the message "Binary file /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/gschemas.compiled matches"

This is the only place that I have noticed any weird so far, but I am fairly new to Linux and just trying to get my feet wet.

[Milan Bouchet-Valat (nalimilan)]

Thanks. So this is weird, because all the needed schemas seem to be present, and yet it doesn't find them. Could you try reinstalling GLib by running 'apt-get install --reinstall libglib2.0-0' and see if something changes?

Are you able to start Evince, the document viewer ('evince' command from a terminal)?

[Keith (entwash)]

When I run 'apt-get install --reinstall libglib2.0-0' I get the following error:
"E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (13: Permission denied)
E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), are you root?"

When I enter 'evince' from the terminal I get: "Glib-GIO-ERROR **: Setting schema 'org.gnome.Evince.Default' is not installed
aborting...
Aborted"

Could it be a problem with my install media? For the record, I downloaded http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/releases/maverick/release/ubuntu-10.10-desktop-powerpc.iso and burned to a CD using Nero (following the overburn instructions from one of the Ubuntu forums, since the image is 710 MB). The CD seemed to verify ok when I ran the verify disc. Would it be worth a try to download and try reinstalling from a different source? If so which source should I try?

Thanks again for the help.

[Milan Bouchet-Valat (nalimilan)]

Sorry, the command should have been 'sudo apt-get install --reinstall libglib2.0-0'.

Your install media is not likely to be in cause here. More probably, the fact that you're on PowerPC could trigger a bug elated to endianness. So reinstalling won't help.

At any rate, the fact that Evince suffers from the same bug means it lies in GLib, and not in users-admin.

[Keith (entwash)]

Tried that, still getting the same errors. The 'sudo apt-get install --reinstall libglib2.0-0' runs with no errors, but when complete both evince and users-admin are still giving the same errors as before.

[Milan Bouchet-Valat (nalimilan)]

OK, thanks, this seems to be a real bug that has been solved upstream in the master branch. Ryan Lortie pointed me to two commits that are likely to be backported to 2.26 at some point, and then will possibly enter Maverick.

These commits are from October 2 and 3, IDs are c84441 and 9211d2b.

[Kiera Carman (musicman432-deactivatedaccount)]

I am also having this problem, Is there going to be a patch soon?

[Nicolas Delsaux (nicolas-delsaux)]

Also having this bug (on an iBook G4). is there any ETA for bugfix in Ubuntu 10.10 ?

[Nicolas Delsaux (nicolas-delsaux)]

Besides, one might take a look at a bug I reported concerning empathy : Bug #674374 "Schema org.gnome.Empathy not installed ", as it has some common points (from my user point of view) with this one.

[Milan Bouchet-Valat (nalimilan)]

Yes, that's most likely a duplicate. There's no real ETA, but the patch has been committed in the series that will go into Natty, and it will probably be released in a few weeks at most; then it will be up to Ubuntu to backport it, but that shouldn't be an issue.

[Sébastien Taylor (sebastient)]

Would it be possible to post the patch or a link to it here, a few weeks for such a major bug is a bit much.

[Milan Bouchet-Valat (nalimilan)]

As I said above, fixes are commits c84441 and 9211d2b. So:
http://git.gnome.org/browse/glib/commit/?id=c84441
http://git.gnome.org/browse/glib/commit/?id=9211d2b

It would be nice if you're ready to apply these patches and check they fix the bug. But you may also test the latest GLib from Natty...

[Sébastien Taylor (sebastient)]

Thank you Milan, that's what I was looking for I wasn't sure where to get patches based on patch numbers. Patch 9211d2b is not applicable to the glib in 10.10 as the gvdb_table_get_raw_value is still called gvdb_table_get_value (the code is the same in both, just a function name change as far as I can tell). But patch c84441 did apply correctly, though it did not fix the problem for me. It's possible I made an error or there's something else missing but that's the result thus far.

I'll try out the package from Natty next when I get a chance.

[Sébastien Taylor (sebastient)]

The Natty package does fix the issue.

[Keith (entwash)]

Where could I find the Natty package and how do I install it? Thanks,

[Sébastien Taylor (sebastient)]

I'm not sure what the normal procedure is, but here's what worked for me. I downloaded the three files from the source package.

http://packages.ubuntu.com/source/natty/glib2.0

I then just extracted the orig packages (tar zxf glib2.0_2.27.3.orig.tar.gz) and applied the patch from the created directory (gunzip -c ../*.diff.gz | patch -p1) and then run debuild -us -uc

Once the build is done just dpkg --list | grep glib2.0 and compare which packages you have to install, the glib2-cil is from the mono-gtk package so you can ignore that.

Also you'll probably need to install a few packages, compilers and what-not, depends what you have already. You can do apt-get build-dep glib2.0 to install the source dependencies, also apt-get install devscripts dpkg-dev to install the debian package building tools.

[unsound (unsound)]

glib 2.26.1 fixes this issue as well (see release notes: http://git.gnome.org/browse/glib/commit/?id=5ae9936f267f14c296182cbf1786d8a96f2c7f41 ).

It would be great if we could get these changes into the Ubuntu maverick package.

I think the specific commit in the 2.26 branch that fixes the big-endian issues is this one:
http://git.gnome.org/browse/glib/commit/?id=fe225e7e7c7424fbfbdeb63c41db63c21f8f7751

[Jochen Fahrner (jofa)]

I encountered the same problem after installing Maverick on my iMac G5.
Please can someone post a fool proof way how to get the fixed glib?
I don't understand what Sebastien Taylor wrote.
Why will this really serious bug not be fixed in Maverick?

[Jochen Fahrner (jofa)]

The bug also affects other Gnome applications. Empathy also not working:

GLib-GIO-ERROR **: Settings schema 'org.gnome.Empathy' is not installed

[unsound (unsound)]

For eveyone's convenience, I uploaded an 'endian-fixed' version of libglib to my web site:
http://www.catacombae.org/glibfix-ppc/libglib2.0-0_2.26.0-0ubuntu1_powerpc.deb

I only applied the patch specific to endianness (fe225e7e7c7424fbfbdeb63c41db63c21f8f7751) to produce this build. However I think it would make a lot of sense to completely forward to upstream version 2.26.1 as there are more fixes in there.

[Jochen Fahrner (jofa)]

unsound, you are my hero!
Now user administration and Empathy are working.

First I tried it my own, installed glib2.0 source version 26.0 and applied the patch. A "make install" installed the libs to /usr/local/lib, not to /lib. So I copied /usr/local/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0.2600.0 to /lib, and that crashed my whole system. :-(

I had to restore this lib from the live cd.

Now, with your debian package it is working fine. Many thanks for this, and I hope that this fix will find a way to the update manager.

[Milan Bouchet-Valat (nalimilan)]

SRU request: makes several apps unusable for PPC users, among which Evince, Empathy and users-admin. Patches are not intrusive, are available from upstream GLib 2.26.1, and can also be applied to Maverick's 2.26.0. Users have tested these patches and they work.

[Jochen Fahrner (jofa)]

unsound, there is something broken with your .deb package. After installation through ubuntu software center, there is something broken in software center that should be repaired. But software center always gives the same error and goes into an endless loop, asking to repair again and again. I aborted this repair, and now update manager sees an update for the glib package. When letting update manager install this update, I have the old version of glib again. How can I get rid of this old package in update manager?

[Milan Bouchet-Valat (nalimilan)]

That's because unsound's package doesn't use a version name that is superior to Maverick's. It should be 2.26.0-0ubuntu1+bigendian, or something like that. As a general rule, using the very same version as an existing package is not a good idea.

[unsound (unsound)]

Well, it wasn't meant to be a final permanent solution anyway. I just wanted to demontrate that the patch does fix the problem.
I was hoping that these changes could make it into an updated maverick package without much delay.

I can update the package with a new version number to fix this problem, if you think it's worth it. However, I think any effort should be focused on publishing an "official" update with this patch applied. It's almost three months overdue... how do we accelerate the process?

[Milan Bouchet-Valat (nalimilan)]

Instead of fixing your test package, your time would be better spent in generating a debdiff from it, so that developers can just upload the fix to Maverick. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PackagingGuide/Recipes/Debdiff

[Jochen Fahrner (jofa)]

You can install version 26.1 of glib2 from the proposed package. This solves this problem.
How you can do that is described here:
https://wiki.edubuntu.org/Testing/EnableProposed

[Dennis Metzcher (dmetzcher)]

The comment posted by Jochen Fahrner on 2010-12-30 was the perfect solution. Installing version 26.1 of glib2 from the maverick-proposed package worked for me and fixed issues with other applications that would not launch, in addition to the issue described in this bug report.

I'm new to Ubuntu, so I figured I'd type up what I did in case others came through here later looking for a solution and didn't understand the comments posted thus far.

Follow the link Jochen provided (https://wiki.edubuntu.org/Testing/EnableProposed).

Add maverick-proposed to sources. This is outlined in the link, but the simple way is:
-- Simply open Ubuntu Software Center under Applications, click Edit -> Software Sources, enter your password, click the "Updates" tab, make sure that "Pre-released updates (maverick-proposed)" is checked/activated, and then click the "Close" button.

Follow the additional instructions under the section of the page linked above titled "Selective upgrading from -proposed".

Run "sudo aptitude -t maverick-proposed" and select "libglib2" under "libs" (which itself is under "Upgradeable Packages") as the package to update. The version will be 26.1.

Instructions for browsing around Aptitude are provided in the link above, so be sure to read the section under "Selective upgrading from -proposed" for all the information you will need.

That's it. After glib is updated, restart your computer and the issue should be gone. This solved several issues for me, so I'm very grateful.

[Michael Terry (mterry)]

Since natty's packages work, I'm marking this Fix Released for the main Ubuntu task. It has been appropriately nominated for a maverick SRU though.

[Lucazade (lucazade)]

I still have this issue in Natty (fully updated)
GLib-GIO-ERROR **: Settings schema 'org.gnome.desktop.default-applications.browser' is not installed

[Milan Bouchet-Valat (nalimilan)]

Please open a new report, as this bug is fixed. And please attach the output of
rgrep default-applications /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/