Unable to add new startup applications

[Robin Sheat]

When attempting to add a program to start on boot, it isn't saved when it should be.

To reproduce:
1. Go to the gear/power menu thing at the top-right
2. Select Startup Applications (or whatever it actually says in en)
3. Add a new program
3.1. Fill out the three boxes with something you want
4. Note that your program has been added to the list of startup programs
5. Close that window
6. Open it again
7. Note that your program is no longer there
8. Reboot
9. Note that your program doesn't start up.

Expected results:
7. Your program is there.

9. Your program starts up.

Notes:
* Whether or not you perform steps 6-7, the result of 9 is not affected.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: gnome-session-bin 3.2.1-0ubuntu6
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-21.34-generic 3.2.13
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-21-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.0-0ubuntu2
Architecture: amd64
Date: Wed Apr 4 07:44:44 2012
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release amd64 (20101007)
SourcePackage: gnome-session
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2012-03-16 (18 days ago)

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report, I can't confirm that here type "gedit" in the 3 fields, does it depend of what you try to type? Could you run gnome-session-properties on a command line and see if any error is printed?

[Robin Sheat (eythian)]

It works with gedit, but it doesn't work with network manager. The fields I enter are:
Name: Network Manager
Command: /usr/bin/nm-applet
Comment: Network Manager applet

The only message that shows in the terminal is:

(gnome-session-properties:3602): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: g_object_set_valist: object class `GsmAppDialog' has no property named `allow-shrink'

but I don't think that's relevant.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

using the same field than you the entry is still listed after closing and reopening the dialog. Does it happen every time? What do you have in ~/.local/share/applications?

[Robin Sheat (eythian)]

$ ls .local/share/applications/
alacarte-made.desktop number-none_com-braid_1.desktop
bit-blot_com-aquaria_1.desktop PenumbraOverture.desktop
frozenbyte-Survivor.desktop wine
frozenbyte-Trine.desktop wireshark.desktop
galaxy-nexus.desktop wolfire_com-lugaru_1.desktop
mimeapps.list

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

ok, not sure what creates the issue, it would need debugging by somebody getting the bug, it's not happening for all softwares nor to all users in any case

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Iuri L. Machado (imetallica)]

I discovered that this might be the case if somehow your ~/.config/autostart changes it's owner to root. To check if that's the case, do:

ls -l ~/.config
if the output is something like this:
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Out 19 17:22 autostart

Then all u need to do is:

cd ~/.config && sudo chown -R autostart "yourusername"

And you are good to go. At least fixed my problem.

Cheers

[Robin Sheat (eythian)]

The details above didn't fix my problem, but I ended up deleting the existing nm-applet config from there and it got readded automatically (so far as I could tell) and that seemed to solve my issue.