nautilus doesn't create interactive desktop

[Eliah Kagan]

Binary package hint: nautilus

In a fully-updated Oneiric i386 system with no graphics acceleration, running nautilus 1:3.0.2-0ubuntu1 and (in case it's relevant, as may be suggested by output to stderr) appmenu-gtk 0.2.1-0ubuntu3, Nautilus doesn't create an interactive desktop when run in an "Ubuntu Classic (no effects)" session. The desktop is blank, contains no icons (even when there are files in $HOME/Desktop that don't start with .), and does not respond to right-clicking or to clicking-and-dragging).

Until the large number of updates I installed earlier today (/var/log/dpkg.log attached), a Nautilus folder window would launch when I logged in. I had assumed that was occurring instead of Nautilus creating an interactive desktop. Now no Nautilus folder window is created. Running nautilus manually successfully brings up a folder window, but does not render the desktop functional.

When Nautilus is run from a Terminal window, the following messages (each with a blank line after it) are printed 24 times after the initial "Initializing nautilus-gdu extension" message:

`menu_proxy_module_load': nautilus: undefined symbol: menu_proxy_module_load
(nautilus:1891): Gtk-WARNING **: Failed to load type module: (null)

However, those messages are also printed when I run other GTK+ applications from the Terminal (such as gedit), so they might not really be related in any way to this bug. I've included them in case they are.

The Oneiric system on which this occurred and on which I am reporting this bug was created several weeks ago by changing "natty"s to "oneiric"s in sources.list and running "apt-get update" followed by "apt-get dist upgrade". But I was also able to reproduce this problem on an Oneiric i386 20110526.1 daily-live system running on a machine with identical hardware (also in an "Ubuntu Classic (no effects)" session).

This bug has some degree of resemblance to bug 708525, bug 749703, and probably others, but those bugs seem to lack the necessary degree of specificity (at this time) to determine if they are similar in cause to this bug.

UPDATE: This is not classic desktop specific, as it also occurs on an amd64 machine in a Unity session with the Oneiric amd64 20110527 daily-live CD.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: nautilus 1:3.0.2-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.39-3.9-generic 2.6.39
Uname: Linux 2.6.39-3-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu May 26 19:17:30 2011
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/nautilus
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Beta i386 (20110416)
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
SourcePackage: nautilus
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure)]

.xsession-errors in my home folder contains a number of entries not included in the XsessionErrors.txt file automatically attached by Apport, so I'm attaching it manually.

[Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure)]

I am able to reproduce this on a different machine running an Oneiric amd64 20110526.1 daily-live system.

[Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure)]

I am now able to run a Unity desktop from the Oneiric amd64 20110527 daily-live CD on that machine, and this bug occurs. So it is not specific to classic desktops.

[Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure)]

For a while (and following an update to a number of packages, a number of weeks ago) I have no longer experienced this bug on any Oneiric systems, and no one else ever provided sufficient information to confirm it (or *any* corroboration at all), I'm closing this bug as Invalid (rather than Fix Released).