GLib-GObject-CRITICAL failures during Ubuntu 16.04 bootup

[SunBear]

I submitted this question a week but did not receive an answer or advice to solving them. https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-session/+question/293479

These failures are still plaguing my syslog every time I activate Nautilus.

Appreciate help to resolve these failures.

============ Earlier question ============================
After a recent updating, I notice these failures in the systemlogs.

May 9 16:34:59 Eliot gnome-session[1562]: gnome-session-binary[1562]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 9 16:34:59 Eliot gnome-session-binary[1562]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 9 16:34:59 Eliot gnome-session[1562]: gnome-session-binary[1562]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 9 16:34:59 Eliot gnome-session-binary[1562]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 9 16:34:59 Eliot gnome-session[1562]: gnome-session-binary[1562]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 9 16:34:59 Eliot gnome-session-binary[1562]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 9 16:34:59 Eliot gnome-session[1562]: gnome-session-binary[1562]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 9 16:34:59 Eliot gnome-session-binary[1562]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 9 16:34:59 Eliot gnome-session[1562]: gnome-session-binary[1562]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 9 16:34:59 Eliot gnome-session-binary[1562]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 9 16:34:59 Eliot gnome-session[1562]: gnome-session-binary[1562]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 9 16:34:59 Eliot gnome-session-binary[1562]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 9 16:35:01 Eliot org.gnome.zeitgeist.Engine[1400]: (zeitgeist-daemon:2197): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_unref: assertion 'object->ref_count > 0' failed
May 9 16:42:54 Eliot gnome-session[1576]: (nautilus:2606): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_signal_connect_object: assertion 'G_TYPE_CHECK_INSTANCE (instance)' failed
May 9 16:59:53 Eliot gnome-session[1576]: (nautilus:2842): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_signal_connect_object: assertion 'G_TYPE_CHECK_INSTANCE (instance)' failed
May 9 17:00:19 Eliot gnome-session[1576]: (nautilus:2857): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_signal_connect_object: assertion 'G_TYPE_CHECK_INSTANCE (instance)' failed

The last three failures appears whenever I activate nautilus. Nautilus will appear and work as usual.

How can I resolve these failure notices? Thanks in advance.

[SunBear (sunbear-c22)]

Clarification on the above mentioned failures observed during bootup (see below for syslog). The same gnome-session process, in this case [1940], appears to trigger 16 GLib-GObject-CRITICAL failures and 1 Gtk-CRITICAL failure.

I have not found a way to resolve them. Pls help.

========================================================
$ cat /var/log/syslog | grep fail

May 19 08:13:03 Eliot gnome-session[1940]: (gnome-software:2387): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_draw: assertion '!widget->priv->alloc_needed' failed

May 19 08:16:22 Eliot gnome-session[1940]: gnome-session-binary[1940]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 19 08:16:22 Eliot gnome-session[1940]: gnome-session-binary[1940]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 19 08:16:22 Eliot gnome-session[1940]: gnome-session-binary[1940]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 19 08:16:22 Eliot gnome-session[1940]: gnome-session-binary[1940]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 19 08:16:22 Eliot gnome-session[1940]: gnome-session-binary[1940]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 19 08:16:22 Eliot gnome-session[1940]: gnome-session-binary[1940]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 19 08:16:22 Eliot gnome-session[1940]: gnome-session-binary[1940]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 19 08:16:22 Eliot gnome-session[1940]: gnome-session-binary[1940]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

May 19 08:16:22 Eliot gnome-session-binary[1940]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 19 08:16:22 Eliot gnome-session-binary[1940]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 19 08:16:22 Eliot gnome-session-binary[1940]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 19 08:16:22 Eliot gnome-session-binary[1940]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 19 08:16:22 Eliot gnome-session-binary[1940]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 19 08:16:22 Eliot gnome-session-binary[1940]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 19 08:16:22 Eliot gnome-session-binary[1940]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
May 19 08:16:22 Eliot gnome-session-binary[1940]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Fabian Köster (maestro-alubia)]

It also happens on Gentoo Linux using gnome-session-3.20.2:

https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=601160

[Dave Burke (1dbup)]

I don't know if the following will help in tracking this down but I'm developing code in openCV and sometimes see this. It happens after creating a 'namedwindow()'. If the new window isn't loaded with an image, it seems to time out and give the error. I was investigating some timing issues in my code and decided to put a waitkey() delay to allow window generation to finish before doing the timing checks and I started getting the "G_IS_OBJECT (object)" failure. I got rid of it by inserting an imshow() for each new window and the problem disappears.

The following snippet may help, if the three lines after the comment are removed then the report occurs three times

  namedWindow("Input-Gray", WINDOW_NORMAL);
  createTrackbar("StdDevVal", "Input-Gray",&SDPosn,255, SDTBEvent);
  createTrackbar("MeanVal", "Input-Gray",&MeanPosn,255, MeanEvent);
  createTrackbar("Deriv", "Input-Gray",&DerivPosn,255, DerivEvent);
  namedWindow("SDMasked", WINDOW_NORMAL);
  namedWindow("MeanMasked", WINDOW_NORMAL);
  namedWindow("DerivMasked", WINDOW_NORMAL);
  imshow("Input-Gray", M_gray);

  // the following stops the reporting of :-
  //(Input:4135): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_unref:assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

  // seems to be associated with creating a window and not showing an image!

  imshow("SDMasked", M_gray);
  imshow("MeanMasked", M_gray);
  imshow("DerivMasked", M_gray);

  if( cv::waitKey(0) != 0x20 ) // wait for windows to settle
.....

[Alex Tu (alextu)]

I get the similar message, but have different issue here.
http://paste.ubuntu.com/23617526/

gnome-session-binary[9336]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_
IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

The issue here is that it need to wait minutes after clicking "log out" on the menu panel.
It's also could be reproduced by a flesh created account.

[JP (tremendo)]

Hello there!

The bug reported here is not only valid for Ubuntu 16.04

I'm using Ubuntu 14.04 in an old desktop PC (32 bits).

Everything worked fine until the latest update.

Now I cannot start Firefox, not even with "-safe-mode".

What I get is:
-----
OLDEST-ubuntu:~> firefox -safe-mode

(firefox:2609): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_ref: assertion 'object->ref_count > 0' failed

(firefox:2609): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_unref: assertion 'object->ref_count > 0' failed

(firefox:2609): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_ref: assertion 'object->ref_count > 0' failed

(firefox:2609): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_unref: assertion 'object->ref_count > 0' failed
ExceptionHandler::GenerateDump cloned child 2644
ExceptionHandler::SendContinueSignalToChild sent continue signal to child
ExceptionHandler::WaitForContinueSignal waiting for continue signal...

OLDEST-ubuntu:~>
-----

Do you know when would appear a patch for this issue???

Thanks in advance,

[Jan Niggemann (jn-hz6)]

Not sure if this helps but I'm experiencing the same gnome-session error as OP on a Debian 8.6 Jessie (amd64) system (regardless of kernel version, in case that matters) with gnome-session 3.14.0-2.

[mickEDK (mickedk)]

As of 30 Dec 2016 when I did my latest s/w update I still see the same CRITICAL error messages in syslog, BUT to make a frozen application window close, I now only have to use the Alt-Tab switcher
instead of, previously when I had to momentarily press the power-reset button
- progress of a sort.

Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS
SW RELEASE:
Linux hostname 4.4.0-57-generic #78-Ubuntu SMP Fri Dec 9 23:50:32 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[dark-vader (inigo-delgado)]

Same problem in ubuntu 16.10

[SunBear (sunbear-c22)]

It's coming to a year since I reported this issue. Below are the messages plaguing my syslog when Nautilus is started and when I press the items on the left are pressed. The look to be the same issues. I am using:
kernel 4.4.0-64-generic
nautilus 1:3.18.4.is.3.14.3-0ubuntu5.
libglib-perl 3:1.320-2
libglib2.0-0:amd64 2.48.2-0ubuntu1
Can an importance be defined and someone fix them?

Mar 12 22:14:46 Eliot gnome-session[2264]: message repeated 5 times: [ (nautilus:2558): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_container_foreach: assertion 'GTK_IS_CONTAINER (container)' failed]
Mar 12 22:15:05 Eliot gnome-session[2264]: (nautilus:26639): GLib-GIO-CRITICAL **: g_dbus_interface_skeleton_unexport: assertion 'interface_->priv->connections != NULL' failed
Mar 12 22:15:05 Eliot gnome-session[2264]: (nautilus:26639): GLib-GIO-CRITICAL **: g_dbus_interface_skeleton_unexport: assertion 'interface_->priv->connections != NULL' failed
Mar 12 22:15:05 Eliot gnome-session[2264]: (nautilus:26639): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_icon_theme_get_for_screen: assertion 'GDK_IS_SCREEN (screen)' failed
Mar 12 22:15:05 Eliot gnome-session[2264]: (nautilus:26639): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: invalid (NULL) pointer instance
Mar 12 22:15:05 Eliot gnome-session[2264]: (nautilus:26639): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_signal_connect_object: assertion 'G_TYPE_CHECK_INSTANCE (instance)' failed
Mar 12 22:15:05 Eliot dbus[1432]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.hostname1' unit='dbus-org.freedesktop.hostname1.service'
Mar 12 22:15:05 Eliot gnome-session[2264]: ** (nautilus:2558): CRITICAL **: nautilus_menu_provider_get_background_items: assertion 'NAUTILUS_IS_MENU_PROVIDER (provider)' failed
Mar 12 22:15:05 Eliot systemd[1]: Starting Hostname Service...
Mar 12 22:15:05 Eliot dbus[1432]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.hostname1'
Mar 12 22:15:05 Eliot systemd[1]: Started Hostname Service.
Mar 12 22:15:13 Eliot gnome-session[2264]: ** (nautilus:2558): CRITICAL **: nautilus_menu_provider_get_background_items: assertion 'NAUTILUS_IS_MENU_PROVIDER (provider)' failed
Mar 12 22:15:15 Eliot gnome-session[2264]: message repeated 2 times: [ ** (nautilus:2558): CRITICAL **: nautilus_menu_provider_get_background_items: assertion 'NAUTILUS_IS_MENU_PROVIDER (provider)' failed]
Mar 12 22:15:16 Eliot gnome-session[2264]: ** (nautilus:2558): CRITICAL **: nautilus_menu_provider_get_background_items: assertion 'NAUTILUS_IS_MENU_PROVIDER (provider)' failed

[Michael Fong (mcfong)]

I too can confirm this issue exists with fresh-installed Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS. These error message would pop up when I try to shutdown / reboot from GUI (nautilus?)

[WinEunuchs2Unix (ricklee518)]

Just received a similar message Ubuntu 16.04 using YAD (Yet Another Dialog):

(yad:8401): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

^^^ Appears about 20 times. I was in the process of adding new columns of icons to existing dialog box matching mime file types. Not sure exactly which code revisions caused the error though.

[sameer bahadur (sbahadur0)]

Adding more info - System Ubuntu Xenial 16.04.2 4.4.0-72-generic. using gdm3 and Unity session. It appears the cause of the failure reported in syslog is not clear and not related to 'df' command failure; except that the history in syslog showed GLib-GObject-CRITICAL errors, with no other erroneous application level observation prior to df failure.

[Nic Knox (baknox)]

A bit hesitant to add this as I am NOT a techie. However the "GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_ref: assertion 'object->ref_count > 0' failed" [etc] output has recently appeared multiple times whilst logging on to Firefox Profile Manager.
Running Firefox 54.0 (32-bit) [= 54.0+build3-0ubuntu0.14.04.1] on ubuntu 14.04. The only plugin is Adobe Flash Player Shockwave Flash 26.0 r0 v. 26.0.0.131 [reported by Synaptic as up-to-date]

This post just in case it helps someone working on this.
BACKGROUND: trying to resolve Firefox crashing in certain websites and when attempting to boot in 'Safe Mode' and/or 'Refresh Firefox'.
I have given much fuller detail at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1166052#answer-982419 [unresolved] but if asked can repeat here.

[Jindřich Vodrážka (fairf4x)]

Using:

Package: gnome-session
Version: 3.18.1.2-1ubuntu1.16.04.2

on Ubuntu:
# lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS
Release: 16.04
Codename: xenial

This error is recorded in log when trying to power off or reboot the machine using buttons in main menu (nothing happens). Relevant log record from "journalctl -xe":

zář 05 11:37:16 mrblack gnome-session-binary[2242]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
zář 05 11:37:16 mrblack gnome-session[2242]: gnome-session-binary[2242]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (
zář 05 11:37:16 mrblack gnome-session-binary[2242]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
zář 05 11:37:16 mrblack gnome-session[2242]: gnome-session-binary[2242]: WARNING: Shutdown failed: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Erro
zář 05 11:37:16 mrblack gnome-session-binary[2242]: WARNING: Shutdown failed: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.InteractiveAuthorizationRequired: Interactive authentication required.

The GDBus.Error is logged every time I try to do shutdown.
Hope this helps.

[Munesh Singh (muneshchauhan)]

I get the similar error while implementing rotation of an image in OpenCV.

[Munesh Singh (muneshchauhan)]

Hi Mike,

Thanks Mike for your message.
My error basically stemmed from the error in my OpenCV code. The reason was that I used a different naming string in the following related OpenCV functions:

namedWindow(..)
imshow(..)

Once I did the amends, all is ok in my Ubuntu 16.04, T530, Thinkpad Laptop.

[Larry Tate (cathect)]

I have this error when I try to access an email in Evolution, but at no other time:

(evolution:5165): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 09:04:04.308: g_object_ref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

I am running Ubuntu 18.04

[Compiler (pranav.bhattarai)]

Sender: gdm-session-wor
Message: GLib-GObject: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed.
Priority: 3

I get this error every single time in each boot. And I don't know why.