Evince: Save Settings as default doesn't work

[Nikolaus Rath]

Binary package hint: evince

 - Open a PDF document,
 - set the zoom level to 100%,
 - select "Save Settings as Default"
 - Exit evince, open a brand-new PDF document that hasn't been opened with evince before
 - Zoom level is at 70%

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: evince 2.32.0-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-23.40-generic 2.6.35.7
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-23-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Sun Nov 28 16:56:29 2010
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/evince
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: evince

[Javier Moreno (elpasmo)]

Confirmed on Maverick 10.10 i386 and amd64 (see bug 690650)

[Peter Northup (peter-northup)]

This really doesn't seem like it should be "low" -- it's extremely annoying for people who work with a lot of PDFs (like academics who read lots of articles)...

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

there is no real win to argue over settings, that bug is maybe annoying for your usecase but it's still only an annoyance, not a crasher or not a bug destroying work on datas or being a security issue

[dejot (gkastner)]

I have the exact same problem (and yes, it's annoying ;)). Pretty sure that it's connected with

GLib-GIO-Message: Using the 'memory' GSettings backend. Your settings will not be saved or shared with other applications.

popping up when running evince from terminal. Hope that helps.

[Lars Volker (lv)]

Is there maybe a hidden configuration option to make evince use another backend (if such exist). Or are there currently no dconf backends except memory?

[Harald (harald-kirsch)]

See bug #757866, Comment #3.

For me, 11.10 (maverick) it was sufficient to run

  apt-get install dconf-tools

The message about GSettings disappeared and 'Edit -> save current settings as default' worked.

Harald.

[Zane (zanetu)]

Installing dconf-tools solves the problem for me as well on 10.10 (Maverick). Thanks Harald.

[dejot (gkastner)]

Can confirm Harald's solution. Thanks! Seems like a logical thing to put dconf-tools into the dependencies.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

The recent comments suggest that libdconf0 is missing (or dconf-gsettings-backend in oneiric), several things bring it in using the default installation but not evince so it could be an issue with custom installations indeed, that will be fixed in oneiric with dh_installgsettings which should add the correct depends to packages shipping a dconf schemas

[John Neffenger (jgneff)]

This bug was fixed today by one of the Evince developers. For details on exactly what the fix does, see my notes here:

    https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=639003#c21

The patch also works when applied to the earlier Evince source code in the current Ubuntu 11.10. For the impatient, you can download the patch into your home directory and apply it locally with something like:

    $ sudo apt-get install gnome-devel
    $ sudo apt-get build-dep evince
    $ apt-get source evince
    $ cd evince-3.2.1
    $ patch -p1 < ~/0001-Save-always-settings-that-can-bse-saved-as-default-i.patch
    $ ./configure
    $ make
    $ sudo make install

This places the fixed Evince in "/usr/local/bin", so you should pick it up right away. There is also a less invasive alternative to working around the bug using a simple Bash script, available here:

    https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=639003#c17

I would really like to see this fix included in the next release of Ubuntu. I switched to Ubuntu back in 2006, and I can think of no bug since then that has been more bothersome—even maddening—than this one.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package evince - 3.3.4-0ubuntu1

---------------
evince (3.3.4-0ubuntu1) precise; urgency=low

  * New upstream release.
    - Fixes "Save Settings as Default" not working (LP: #682492)
  * debian/patches/11_grip_gestures.patch: Refreshed
  * debian/watch: Watch for unstable releases
 -- Jeremy Bicha <email address hidden> Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:01:12 -0500

[zarquon42 (zarquon42)]

I am on Precise (fresh install) using evince 3.3.90 and the problem persists: evince is not remembering my settings (view side pane).
I compiled evince from source - same issue.

[Vadim Rutkovsky (roignac)]

Can't reproduce in 3.3.90-0ubuntu3. zarquon2, could you please repeat the following steps on your machine:
1) Post the output of 'gsettings list-recursively org.gnome.Evince.Default | grep sidebar'
2) Run evince from Terminal (to save output)
3) Close sidebar
4) Select 'Edit - Save Current Settings As Default'
5) Close evince
6) Post a new output of 'gsettings list-recursively org.gnome.Evince.Default | grep sidebar'

Evince version (output of 'apt-cache policy evince') and evince output would also be useful

[zarquon42 (zarquon42)]

After some checks, I recognised that it is only not working, when called from within lyx after compiling a lyx document with pdflatex. Somehow the preferences are not loaded then.

Greetings
Stefan

[zarquon42 (zarquon42)]

It is definitely not an evince bug! Setting the lyx tempdir to ~/tmp solved the issue.

Thank you for your quick response anyway and sorry for the premature bug call.

Greetings
Stefan

[b3nmore (b3nmore)]

I think this is due to a very peculiar behavior of evince , that it does not apply the default settings, if the document is stored somewhere under /tmp. This is annoying, because most of temporarily used documents (e.g. pdfs in firefox) are stored there and hence are being opened in a small window.

[Martin Konôpka (martin.konopka)]

In my experience on ubuntu 11.04, this bug does not have any relation to neither /tmp dir nor to the lyx. You can see my (duplicate) bug report

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/evince/+bug/917666

The bug affects (on ubuntu 11.04, both 32 and 64 bit versions) any PDF document, no matter if in /tmp or in my $HOME. It also does not matter if the document was created from inside LibreOffice or by pdflatex.

[Roquentin (antonio-roquentin-deactivatedaccount)]

I can confirm the reports of #16 and #17: settings are not applied when the opened file is in /tmp. I am on ubuntu 12.04 with evince 3.4.0.

I tried dumping the output of gsettings before and after selecting 'Edit - Save Current Settings As Default'. The variable is correctly set to true by evince

org.gnome.Evince.Default show-sidebar true

but the setting is ignored when opening a pdf file located in /tmp. Same issue apply to window size. This bug is annoying since many applications use /tmp to store local copies of pdf files.

I believe we should open a separate bug report.

[b3nmore (b3nmore)]

The issue with files stored in /tmp is fixed upstream: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=680145

[Mr.T (thau79)]

... it's again NOT working for me on 12.10 ...

[rho (rho-t)]

Not working in Ubuntu Gnome 14.04 with Gnome 3.12.

4 years old bug! :D

[Arnaud Thevenet (aeromousse)]

This issue has lead to several bugs, disparate information, and a lot of frustration.
I think the "real" issue is here : https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/evince/+bug/1355804
and it seems now fixed... in Utopic. Hope that 14.04 will benefit from it soon.

Unitl then, as I was in the case of NFS mounted homes (one of the causes for this bug), the fix is :
sudo dpkg-reconfigure apparmor
+ Add your home location as explained.

I doubt this is the fix for every case, but I hope this will help.