gnome-settings-daemon crashes during use

[Ramon Casha]

Binary package hint: gnome-settings-daemon

Sometimes while using the system, gnome-settings-daemon crashes with the following output:
-----------------
The program 'gnome-settings-daemon' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)'.
  (Details: serial 5066 error_code 8 request_code 15 minor_code 0)
  (Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
   that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
   To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line
   option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
   backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)
-----------------
Ubuntu 10.10

gnome-settings-daemon:
  Installed: 2.32.0-0ubuntu3.1
  Candidate: 2.32.0-0ubuntu3.1
  Version table:
 *** 2.32.0-0ubuntu3.1 0
        500 http://mt.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-updates/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     2.32.0-0ubuntu2 0
        500 http://mt.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick/main i386 Packages

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

I sometimes see the same thing. Today it happened while playing a long running game of freeciv and the errors in .xsession-errors prior to the one where gnome-settings daemon crashed looked like:

(freeciv-gtk2:22823): Gdk-WARNING **: XID collision, trouble ahead

When gnome-settings-daemon crashes, it is very disconcerting as the entire desktop resets to some global system default theme and repaints itself. The sudden change is very jarring, and without any explanation until you examine .xsession-errors.

[Ben Allen (ben-allen-2)]

I have been experiencing this same problem for several months now. It always starts out as a sudden, dramatic increase in the amount of time that it takes to simulate the AI players moves after I click the "Turn Done" button (CPU is always pegged at 100% when this happens). After that point, scrolling around the map or anything else that requires redrawing a significant portion of the screen lags terribly and will peg the CPU at 100% for brief periods of time. Fairly soon after this happens, I see the same behavior that Phillip reported with the desktop suddenly reverting to a default theme and set of icons. Running the following script usually brings all of the icons and widgets back to the normal theme:
  killall gnome-settings-daemon
  gnome-settings-daemon &
  killall nautilus
This is usually only temporary, and after 10-15 minutes I'll get dumped back to the default theme again. Completely restarting the X server will usually prevent the problem from resurfacing for an hour or so, but it only delays the inevitable.

I have also had this problem occur while running nothing but Firefox, but the vast majority of the time I see this problem is when I'm running Freeciv.

I modified my script to save a copy of .xsession-errors when it tries to restart gnome-settings-daemon. I'll attach it to this ticket in case it contains anything useful. Is there anything else I can provide to help debug this issue?