unity-panel-service crashes when interacting with audio icon

[Lucas Clemente Vella]

Since I updated to 11.10, any attempt to interact with the little loudspeaker icon on the upper right corner of the screen will crash the "/usr/lib/unity/unity-panel-service" process, resetting the upper panel.

I don't know if it is of interest, but I have two audio interfaces, one is the analog interface of the motherboard and the other is my video card (HDMI, digital). The listing is the following:

$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC888 Analog [ALC888 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: ALC888 Digital [ALC888 Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HDMI [HDA ATI HDMI], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: unity-services 4.22.0-0ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.20-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
.tmp.unity.support.test.1:

ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: No value set for `/apps/compiz-1/general/screen0/options/active_plugins'
CompositorRunning: None
Date: Mon Oct 17 21:21:00 2011
DistUpgraded: Log time: 2011-10-14 13:51:15.773435
DistroCodename: oneiric
DistroVariant: ubuntu
DkmsStatus: fglrx, 8.892, 3.0.0-12-generic, x86_64: installed
GraphicsCard:
 ATI Technologies Inc RV770 [Radeon HD 4870] [1002:9440] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: PC Partner Limited Device [174b:0851]
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release amd64 (20110427.1)
JockeyStatus:
 xorg:fglrx_updates - Driver gráfico proprietário FGLRX ATI/AMD (atualizações pós instalação) (Proprietário, Desativado, Não está em uso)
 xorg:fglrx - Driver proprietário ATI/AMD FGLRX (Proprietário, Desativado, Em uso)
MachineType: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. EX58-UD3R
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=pt_BR:pt:en
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=pt_BR.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-12-generic root=UUID=c2147dfb-ae2f-4826-8cc1-e2df946e5484 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: unity
UnitySupportTest: Error: command ['/usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test', '-p', '-f'] failed with exit code 1: Error: no composite extension
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2011-10-15 (2 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 12/10/2008
dmi.bios.vendor: Award Software International, Inc.
dmi.bios.version: F1
dmi.board.name: EX58-UD3R
dmi.board.vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
dmi.board.version: x.x
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAwardSoftwareInternational,Inc.:bvrF1:bd12/10/2008:svnGigabyteTechnologyCo.,Ltd.:pnEX58-UD3R:pvr:rvnGigabyteTechnologyCo.,Ltd.:rnEX58-UD3R:rvrx.x:cvnGigabyteTechnologyCo.,Ltd.:ct3:cvr:
dmi.product.name: EX58-UD3R
dmi.sys.vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
version.compiz: compiz 1:0.9.6+bzr20110929-0ubuntu3
version.fglrx-installer: fglrx-installer N/A
version.ia32-libs: ia32-libs 20090808ubuntu26
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.26-1ubuntu1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 7.11-0ubuntu3
version.libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental: libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental N/A
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 7.11-0ubuntu3
version.xserver-xorg: xserver-xorg 1:7.6+7ubuntu7
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev 1:2.6.0-1ubuntu13
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati N/A
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.15.901-1ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:0.0.16+git20110411+8378443-1

[Lucas Clemente Vella (lvella-gmail)]

I was able to narrow down the problem with GDB, the program crashes inside the gdk_window_new call from Gtk (gdkwindow.c:1359).

For what I could understand, either "attributes" or "attributes_mask" passed arguments is wrong, because the function tries to use "attributes->visual" pointer (which is null) based on the flag GDK_WA_VISUAL of "attributes_mask" (which is set). Either the flag should not have been set or "attributes->visual" should have a valid pointer.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report, do you use a server which doesn't handle compositing?

[Lucas Clemente Vella (lvella-gmail)]

Actually it makes no difference whether I select Unity or Unity-2D, and I always end up in the 2D version. So, yes, I am not using a compositing window manager, but I don't know why.