notify-send fails with scary output -- "GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_unref: assertion `G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed", "aborting...", "Aborted" -- when running in ssh with DISPLAY unset

[Daniel Holbert]

Binary package hint: notify-osd

STEPS TO REPRODUCE:
$ ssh -x localhost # the "-x" means "no x forwarding"
[authenticate if necessary]
$ notify-send ohai

EXPECTED RESULTS:
Nothing happens, probably. Or maybe an innocuous warning message saying that no desktop could be contacted.

ACTUAL RESULTS:
This output:
{

GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_unref: assertion `G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
aborting...
Aborted
}

[Daniel Holbert (dholbert)]

VERSION INFORMATION:
I'm running up-to-date Ubuntu 11.04, with notify-osd package version 0.9.30-0ubuntu4.
"notify-send --version" reports "notify-send 0.7.2"

[Daniel Holbert (dholbert)]

The situation in which I encounter this is: I have some long-running scripts & aliases that include a "notify-send" message when they complete, using Dustin Kirkland's "alert" alias:
http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2010/07/dear-command-line-please-ping-me-when.html

When I run these commands on a local machine inside of a terminal, everything's fine. But when I run them on a remote machine, then my command output ends with "aborting... Aborted." which is a bit scary. (took me a little while to figure out exactly what was aborting, too - at first I assumed it was the commands themselves, but no -- it was notify-send.)

[gna (nagy-gergely)]

suggestion:

export DISPLAY=:0 ; notify-send -t 15 "Check env before using X commands in CLI"

Try this