gnome-shell crashed with SIGSEGV in meta_compositor_switch_workspace(compositor=NULL) → meta_workspace_activate_with_focus → meta_workspace_activate → meta_x11_display_new → meta_display_open

[errors.ubuntu.com bug bridge]

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/issues/853
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/issues/479

---

The Ubuntu Error Tracker has been receiving reports about a problem regarding gnome-shell. This problem was most recently seen with package version 3.30.0-3ubuntu1, the problem page at https://errors.ubuntu.com/problem/a7a2ba87e4d962b215ce37aaf80089f085e1db97 contains more details, including versions of packages affected, stacktrace or traceback, and individual crash reports.
If you do not have access to the Ubuntu Error Tracker and are a software developer, you can request it at http://forms.canonical.com/reports/.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[brian (brian-redhat-bugs-1)]

Description of problem:
alt-f2, r to restart the shell

Version-Release number of selected component:
gnome-shell-3.30.1-2.fc29

Additional info:
reporter: libreport-2.9.6
backtrace_rating: 4
cmdline: /usr/bin/gnome-shell
crash_function: meta_compositor_switch_workspace
executable: /usr/bin/gnome-shell
journald_cursor: s=9b746aaa333c40b4a7a6884d140d0c1f;i=822eb9;b=c60ec25b4df94ff7af2342937ea36c84;m=6e982ad24;t=579ff3f8bdbb8;x=514352256855e16e
kernel: 4.18.16-300.fc29.x86_64
rootdir: /
runlevel: N 5
type: CCpp
uid: 1001

Truncated backtrace:
Thread no. 1 (6 frames)
 #0 meta_compositor_switch_workspace at compositor/compositor.c:832
 #1 meta_workspace_activate_with_focus at core/workspace.c:636
 #2 meta_workspace_activate at core/workspace.c:665
 #3 meta_x11_display_new at x11/meta-x11-display.c:1291
 #4 meta_display_open at core/display.c:746
 #5 meta_run at core/main.c:686

[brian (brian-redhat-bugs-1)]

Created attachment 1502478
File: backtrace

[brian (brian-redhat-bugs-1)]

Created attachment 1502479
File: cgroup

[brian (brian-redhat-bugs-1)]

Created attachment 1502480
File: core_backtrace

[brian (brian-redhat-bugs-1)]

Created attachment 1502481
File: cpuinfo

[brian (brian-redhat-bugs-1)]

Created attachment 1502482
File: dso_list

[brian (brian-redhat-bugs-1)]

Created attachment 1502483
File: environ

[brian (brian-redhat-bugs-1)]

Created attachment 1502484
File: exploitable

[brian (brian-redhat-bugs-1)]

Created attachment 1502485
File: limits

[brian (brian-redhat-bugs-1)]

Created attachment 1502486
File: maps

[brian (brian-redhat-bugs-1)]

Created attachment 1502487
File: mountinfo

[brian (brian-redhat-bugs-1)]

Created attachment 1502488
File: open_fds

[brian (brian-redhat-bugs-1)]

Created attachment 1502489
File: proc_pid_status

[brian (brian-redhat-bugs-1)]

Created attachment 1502490
File: var_log_messages

[brian (brian-redhat-bugs-1)]

Similar problem has been detected:

Restarted the shell with ALT-F2->r.

This is NOT supposed to KILL the entire session.

reporter: libreport-2.9.6
backtrace_rating: 3
cmdline: /usr/bin/gnome-shell
crash_function: meta_compositor_switch_workspace
executable: /usr/bin/gnome-shell
journald_cursor: s=9b746aaa333c40b4a7a6884d140d0c1f;i=8fdf8e;b=c60ec25b4df94ff7af2342937ea36c84;m=42873e333b;t=57a3add4761cf;x=98e287d4356fa38c
kernel: 4.18.16-300.fc29.x86_64
package: gnome-shell-3.30.1-2.fc29
reason: gnome-shell killed by SIGSEGV
rootdir: /
runlevel: N 5
type: CCpp
uid: 1001

[brian (brian-redhat-bugs-1)]

It is really super hideous that restarting the shell is crashing the entire session.

It wouldn't be so bad except the shell and/or a minimum set of extensions to make GNOME 3 actually usable are just not stable enough to not need to reset the shell occasionally.

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

As the reporter of the duplicate bug 1799787, I thought that I would see if I could reproduce this problem with the latest disco daily (20181205). Unfortunately I can by taking the following steps:

1. Boot to live session
2. Make external monitor the primary display and the laptop's internal monitor the secondary display
3. Install GNOME Tweaks
4. Enable 4 static workspaces
5. Enable workspaces span displays
6. Move to workspace 4
7. Open Firefox
8. Restart GNOME Shell with Alt F2 and enter

Both displays went blank and I was returned to the log in screen just as per my original report.

[Ubuntu QA Website (ubuntuqa)]

This bug has been reported on the Ubuntu ISO testing tracker.

A list of all reports related to this bug can be found here:
http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/reports/bugs/1796607

[mail (mail-redhat-bugs)]

I can also confirm this problem which is easily reproduced on Fedora 29 by moving an application to workspace 4 and restarting gnome-shell from workspace 4. I can restart gnome-shell from workspace 1 with no other workspaces in use which is why I thought that Fedora 29 didn't have this issue which I have seen in both Ubuntu 18.10 and Ubuntu 19.04 (the current development version).

My Ubuntu bug report is at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-shell/+bug/1796607

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

Also reproducible on Fedora 29

[pvl (pvl-redhat-bugs)]

*** Bug 1659662 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[mail (mail-redhat-bugs)]

I've also reported the issue to GNOME - https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/issues/853

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

Reported upstream:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/issues/853

[brian (brian-redhat-bugs-1)]

Similar problem has been detected:

Not sure what caused this.

reporter: libreport-2.9.7
backtrace_rating: 4
cmdline: gnome-shell --sm-client-id 1042634c98a5ee71bc154620326926694000000019330000
crash_function: meta_compositor_switch_workspace
executable: /usr/bin/gnome-shell
journald_cursor: s=eb78483d5a8045488c4de941252d39f6;i=85a3b;b=e9b51add4b044c64ba5edd4854814c55;m=c1cfee5491;t=57f0568689d6b;x=db6169117a9eb595
kernel: 4.19.9-300.fc29.x86_64
package: gnome-shell-3.30.2-1.fc29
reason: gnome-shell killed by SIGSEGV
rootdir: /
runlevel: N 5
type: CCpp
uid: 1001

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

FYI: for me this seems to be fixed in Disco with gnome-shell 3.32.0-1ubuntu1 but another problem has surfaced when restarting gnome-shell: bug 1819890

[Matthijs Kooijman (matthijskooijman)]

Seems upstream diagnosed and fixed this bug in their master branch two weeks ago, and the fix indeed got included in 3.32 (first in 3.31.92, though it seems to have been omitted from their changelog/NEWS file).

Any chance of getting this fix backported into the Ubuntu cosmic package?