GTK switches to default ugly theme unexpectedly

[Hendrik Schrieber]

Binary package hint: unity-2d

When I start Natty in my VM and open controll center at first it shows all icons and looks like it is supposed to do. But after a few seconds, without me doing anything, it falls back to the Gnome 2 icons and the whole system falls back to Gnome 2 appearence partially (at least I think that's what it is), icons for Launcher & Menus, computer janitor etc. get lost and control center only shows a red cross instead of the icon.

The new Ubuntu slide bars also disappear when this problem occurs and the appearence falls back to this old ugly greyish style that reminds me of Windows 95.

I attached a screenshot after the problem occured.

This bug may be related to this one (you'll also find another screenshot here):
https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity-2d/+bug/760051

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: unity-2d 3.8.2-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic 2.6.38.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Fri Apr 15 11:20:02 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Beta i386 (20110405)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=de_DE:en
 LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: unity-2d
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

This happens because gnome-settings-daemon crashes.

Henrik, when that happens, could you please open a terminal, execute the following command in it, and see what happens?

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

If it crashes again, could you please attach the output of the terminal to this bug report? Thanks!

[Hendrik Schrieber (hennekn)]

I get the following output:
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1620): WARNING **: Failed to acquire org.gnome.SettingsDaemon

** (gnome-settings-daemon:1620): WARNING **: Could not acquire name
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1620): DEBUG: SettingsDaemon finished

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Henrik, this happens because you’re trying to run gnome-settings-daemon when it hasn’t crashed, so it refuses to run a second instance. Please do the above when it has actually crashed (i.e. when the theme is reset to the ugly default), and let me know the output when it crashes again. Thanks!

[Hendrik Schrieber (hennekn)]

Ok, so here is what I did:

I booted the VM and waited until the ugly theme came up. I then ran the above command and got the output above.

Maybe that means gnome-settings-daemon did not crash and it's a different problem?

Or what else should I do?

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Now, that is weird! The switch to the ugly theme is almost certainly a consequence of gnome-settings-daemon crashing, and it’s in fact a rather common issue. But it may be a different issue indeed, I may have been following a false trail.
Could you please paste the output of the following command just after the ugly theme comes up?

    ps -ef | grep gnome-settings-daemon

(oh, and sorry for misspelling your name in the previous comments…)

[Hendrik Schrieber (hennekn)]

There you go:
hendrik 1230 1 0 12:11 ? 00:00:01 /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gnome-settings-daemon
hendrik 1881 1827 3 13:31 pts/0 00:00:00 grep --color=auto gnome-settings-daemon

Also found some warnings in syslog, maybe they are related? :
Apr 15 12:11:10 hendrik-VirtualBox gdm-simple-greeter[1062]: Gtk-WARNING: /build/buildd/gtk+2.0-2.24.4/gtk/gtkwidget.c:5687: widget not within a GtkWindow
Apr 15 12:11:11 hendrik-VirtualBox gdm-simple-greeter[1062]: WARNING: Unable to load CK history: no seat-id found
Apr 15 12:11:12 hendrik-VirtualBox gdm-session-worker[1063]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_value_get_boolean: assertion `G_VALUE_HOLDS_BOOLEAN (value)' failed

Hope that helps and don't worry about the spelling ;-)

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Thanks for the feedback Hendrick. From the output of ps, it looks like gnome-settings-daemon didn’t crash indeed. That doesn’t mean it’s not a problem in g-s-d though.

[exactt (giesbert)]

check out https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-settings-daemon/+bug/728803

[Michele Gastaldo (poomerang)]

exact same issue here, on a standard Ubuntu installation (not on VM!). output of commands
gnome-settings-daemon --debug --no-daemon
and
ps -ef | grep gnome-settings*
look right the same as hendrik's.
Logging out and in again fixes the problem for the whole session, but it randomly (maybe :) ) happens on startup.
It seems bug #649809 is nvidia related, but i'm running on an ati here (old card, drivers radeon). I just gave a fast look at the bug report though, so I might be wrong