the session settings manager can try starting before the login screen one exits

[MvW]

On recent configurations it can happen that the session settings manager try starting before the login screen one exit leading to have no theme set in the session (nor other settings gnome-settings-daemon is applying to the user configuration)

The .xsession-errors log contains that error on configuration hitting the issue:

"** (gnome-settings-daemon:1941): WARNING **: You can only run one xsettings manager at a time; exiting"

[MvW (2nv2u)]

Just reinstalled everything with the RC version, still no go.
As soon as I enable the proprietary nVidia driver the theme gets disabled and reverted to a default gnome theme.

[MvW (2nv2u)]

Enabling/disabling compiz does not have any effect on this issue.

[MvW (2nv2u)]

For some reason I managed to get the theme correct once! After logging out and in again the theme was correct.
After a reboot it was sadly gone again. Trying to do the same as trick did not help.

[MvW (2nv2u)]

The final version still contains this bug. Still can't figure out what's wrong.
Did notice clicking sounds which apparently belong to the default gnome theme.
Anyone?
Have installed 10.10 on several machines which all contain nVidia hardware with no theme issues.
The only noticeable difference between the hardware is the Quadro 3800M vs Geforce 8800GTS (which in this case is the same basic hardware) and the core i7 vs core 2 duo.

[Kenneth Langga (zang3tsu)]

I don't know if it's related but I have a Geforce 250 and this also happens to me.
I also manually installed the proprietary dev driver 260.24.
And I also have those clicking sounds that only goes away if I mute the Sound Effect in the Sound Preferences.

[Kenneth Langga (zang3tsu)]

I got the correct theme when I uninstalled the proprietary driver and let nouveau take over.
I'm trying now if the proprietary driver in the repositories will also grant me the correct theme.

[Kenneth Langga (zang3tsu)]

Still no go. For now it seems that only nouveau works for the default theme.

[George (gapop)]

Same problems here, desktop theme and sound theme broken with proprietary Nvidia driver. Using GeForce GT 220 on Ubuntu 64-bit.

[Kenneth Langga (zang3tsu)]

I found a temporary fix: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9932580&postcount=20

[George (gapop)]

Did you guys do a clean install of 10.10, or an upgrade?

[Kenneth Langga (zang3tsu)]

Upgrade.

[MvW (2nv2u)]

Upgrade and clean install of the Beta and RC version. Did not try the quick fix yet.
I've read the thread though and it seems that you still keep hearing the click sounds after applying the fix.

[Rhubarb (cam-daw)]

Same problem here.

Clean install of Ubuntu 10.10 amd64 (The full release version, with all updates applied as of 12 October 2010.

Installed nvidia drivers, after a reboot the ubuntu theme has gone and is replaced by the default gnome theme (which is quite ugly).

It is possible to get it working if you run this:
-----
killall gnome-settings-daemon
gnome-settings-daemon
-----
Then log out, and log back in again. Then the theme works nicely, until you reboot / log out again.

Note that sometimes I've noticed several gnome-settings-daemon processes running at 100% CPU usage - these can be killed with no effect to your present theme for the current session.

Also note that when I run gnome-settings-daemon (after running killall gnome-settings-daemon) this is returned to the console:
-----
rhubarb@rhubarb-SX58:~$ gnome-settings-daemon

** (gnome-settings-daemon:4716): WARNING **: Failed to acquire org.gnome.SettingsDaemon

** (gnome-settings-daemon:4716): WARNING **: Could not acquire name
-----

Which makes me think it's a problem to do with the gnome-settings-daemon ;)

[George (gapop)]

Nice trick. The desktop itself (icon captions, context menu) and
Nautilus still don't apply the theme.

I am surprised that so few people appear to have the problem. I would
think I have a pretty common Ubuntu setup.

[MvW (2nv2u)]

Yes I thought I did aswell, but this bug only applies to 1 of my machines and the rest of them run 10.10 theme wise perfectly fine. (Sadly enough I do have a lot of other issues which were working fine before)
They all use nVidia hardware ranging from onboard ICP's to the semi high end GTX285.

Desktops:
AMD 3800X2 - nVidia Geforce 6150ICP - Works fine
Intel Core2Duo E8400 - nVidia Geforce 9500GT - Works fine
Intel Core2Duo E8400 - nVidia Geforce 8800GTS - Works fine
Intel Core2Quad Q9650 - nVidia Geforce 265GTX - Works fine
Intel Core2Quad Q6600 - nVidia Geforce 9300ICP - Works fine

Laptops:
Intel Core2Duo T7200 - nVidia Geforce 7800GS - Works fine
Intel Core2Duo T8100 - nVidia Geforce 8400GS - Works fine
Intel Core i7 920XM - nVidia Quadro FX 3800M - No theme

So it's only 1 out of 8, no wonder not many people encounter this problem.
It only happened with me with the new Intel "core i" architecture.

[MvW (2nv2u)]

Typo fix: nVidia Geforce 265GTX needs to be nVidia Geforce 285GTX

[MvW (2nv2u)]

Damn.. It needs to be nVidia Geforce GTX285 ;) (Time to be able to edit you posts)

[George (gapop)]

My system has Core i7 as well.

This bug is pretty serious as far as I'm concerned. With so few people
affected, I don't think it'll be fixed soon. I would downgrade to
Lucid if there was an easy way.

On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 19:40, Reason <email address hidden> wrote:
> Yes I thought I did aswell, but this bug only applies to 1 of my machines and the rest of them run 10.10 theme wise perfectly fine. (Sadly enough I do have a lot of other issues which were working fine before)
> They all use nVidia hardware ranging from onboard ICP's to the semi high end GTX285.
>
> Desktops:
> AMD 3800X2 - nVidia Geforce 6150ICP - Works fine
> Intel Core2Duo E8400 - nVidia Geforce 9500GT - Works fine
> Intel Core2Duo E8400 - nVidia Geforce 8800GTS - Works fine
> Intel Core2Quad Q9650 - nVidia Geforce 265GTX - Works fine
> Intel Core2Quad Q6600 - nVidia Geforce 9300ICP - Works fine
>
> Laptops:
> Intel Core2Duo T7200 - nVidia Geforce 7800GS - Works fine
> Intel Core2Duo T8100 - nVidia Geforce 8400GS - Works fine
> Intel Core i7 920XM - nVidia Quadro FX 3800M - No theme
>
> So it's only 1 out of 8, no wonder not many people encounter this problem.
> It only happened with me with the new Intel "core i" architecture.
>
> --
> Meerkat (10.10) does not apply theme properly
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/649809
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[MvW (2nv2u)]

Yes I agree, unfortunately regressions seem more common than an exception these days.
Every new release of Ubuntu since version 8.10 brakes more then it fixes, most of those regressions still persist today..
They should make one of the releases in the 6 month cycle completely dedicated to resolving issues instead of introducing new features which often have lots of bugs as well.
A shame! I kinda liked the the philosophy behind Ubuntu.. The "it just works" part begins to crumble away..

[Rhubarb (cam-daw)]

We may be on to something here.

My system that's having this problem:

Core i7 975, nVidia GeForce GTX 275, 6GB DDR3 RAM, Intel X58 chipset

I have no theme issues when I revert back to the nouveau video drivers.
But when the nVidia 260.19.06 drivers are installed suddenly I have theme problems.

This system worked fine in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid.

[George (gapop)]

So is it the video driver? Is it Gnome? Is it some basic, common
library that's not properly compiled for Core i7?

I think this is one of the problems with bug reporting for Ubuntu.
Unless you know a great deal about how the system is built, you don't
even know whom to send a bug report.

[iheartubuntu (iheartubuntu)]

It cant be just an i7 core problem. I have two computers with this problem. A 32 bit P4- 3.4ghtz dual core and a newer 64 bit P4 dual core. Both have this prob, both are 10.10. I noticed my dads laptop... a P4 dell inspiron 1525n with 10.04 has this problem too.

Rebooting on all systems fixes the problem. I usually get this bug after an update from update manager.

[George (gapop)]

Rebooting doesn't make any difference in my case. The problem is
permanent. The only workarounds that have any effect are those offered
by Kenneth and Rhubarb: using Nouveau instead of the nVidia driver,
using a .gtkrc or killing and restarting gnome-settings-daemon. But
the problem remains.

[MvW (2nv2u)]

Same here the problem is persistent and does not occur once in a while. I haven't noticed it before in any previous Ubuntu release.
So it really does start to look like a Core i7 problem. The driver itself doesn't seem to be the problem. I've used the 256.xx with 10.04 and the theme was working perfectly fine.
The beta of 10.10 also used this driver and the theme problem occurred there as well.
So it has to be a gnome package which fails with the nVidia driver in some how.

[Rhubarb (cam-daw)]

Yes, the problem is persistent.

What chipsets does everyone here have?
Mine is an Intel X58 chipset
(which can be found amongst other ways by doing a lspci)

I think I'll make up a temporary work-around script to fix this issue.
It'll most likely be a dodgy hack.
I'll post it here if and when I make the script up.

I'm quite sure something is causing gnome-settings-daemon to not start up correctly.

It looks like gnome-settings-daemon has many dependencies:-
libappindicator1 libatk1.0-0
libc6 libcairo2
libcanberra-gtk0 libcanberra0
libdbus-1-3 libdbus-glib-1-2
libdbusmenu-glib1 libfontconfig1
libfreetype6 libgconf2-4
libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 libglib2.0-0
libgnome-desktop-2-17 libgnomekbd4
libgtk2.0-0 libice6
libnotify1 libpango1.0-0
libpng12-0 libpulse-mainloop-glib0
libpulse0 libsm6
libstartup-notification0 libx11-6
libxext6 libxi6
libxklavier16 libxml2
zlib1g gconf2
libgnome2-common

[MvW (2nv2u)]

I don't know exactly which chipset it is, but it gets reported like this:
Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset (Laptop)

I've tried to stop and start the gnome-settings-daemon but it resulted in a process running on max cpu load, trying it again and I got another one (2 in total). Ending the processes did not help but killing did.
I've never managed to get theme working correctly though.

[George (gapop)]

Rhubarb: X58 here, too.

Here's one more hint that could help a more knowledgeable troubleshooter.

The login screen does seem to apply a theme, possibly Ambiance.
Assuming that the same piece of software applies the theme to the
login screen as well as the user's desktop, then the problem likely
occurs as the user's session is started.

Attached is my .xsession-errors file as it looks after login. There
are messages in there from gnome-settings-daemon. This seems
consistent with Rhubarb's discovery about gnome-settings-daemon.

Shouldn't we report this to Gnome?

[George (gapop)]

Or is it more likely to be an X / video driver problem? The fact that
themes are applied when using Nouveau would suggest that.

[Joseph Dunn (joseph-dunn)]

Core i7 with X58 chipset here. Same problem. Themes work fine under Nouveau, break after nVidia's binary drivers are activated. Willing to post my lspci info or kernel messages if either are useful for troubleshooting.

[John Baer (j.baer)]

On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 8:38 AM, Rhubarb <email address hidden> wrote:

> Yes, the problem is persistent.
>
> What chipsets does everyone here have?
> Mine is an Intel X58 chipset
> (which can be found amongst other ways by doing a lspci)
>
> I think I'll make up a temporary work-around script to fix this issue.
> It'll most likely be a dodgy hack.
> I'll post it here if and when I make the script up.
>
> I'm quite sure something is causing gnome-settings-daemon to not start
> up correctly.
>
> It looks like gnome-settings-daemon has many dependencies:-
> libappindicator1 libatk1.0-0
> libc6 libcairo2
> libcanberra-gtk0 libcanberra0
> libdbus-1-3 libdbus-glib-1-2
> libdbusmenu-glib1 libfontconfig1
> libfreetype6 libgconf2-4
> libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 libglib2.0-0
> libgnome-desktop-2-17 libgnomekbd4
> libgtk2.0-0 libice6
> libnotify1 libpango1.0-0
> libpng12-0 libpulse-mainloop-glib0
> libpulse0 libsm6
> libstartup-notification0 libx11-6
> libxext6 libxi6
> libxklavier16 libxml2
> zlib1g gconf2
> libgnome2-common
>
> --
> Meerkat (10.10) does not apply theme properly
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/649809
> You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
> Artwork Team, which is the registrant for ubuntu-artwork.
>

I believe I am experiencing this problem in a different way. Some times when
I boot my HP Pavilion dvd (ATI video) I don't see the login or desktop. I
see either a black screen or the plymouth boot screen.

The system is not locked as I hear the audio and I can still login
"blindly". Pressing the power button and <enter> bring up the shut down
process as expected.

John

[Kenneth Langga (zang3tsu)]

It does seem to only affect users with a Core i7 and X58 chipset as I too have one. But mrandrzejak's case says otherwise.

[MvW (2nv2u)]

Don't think the chipset is an issue, i've got a laptop with a Core i7 and it's chipset differs from the desktop. The the theme issue is the same though.

[Paul Wolfe (pwolfe)]

I'm experiencing this too. After Upgrade, after fresh install, with or without the nvidia driver

evga x58 LE
2x gtx 470

[Vish (vish)]

This sounds like a problem in the gnome-settings-daemon.

Marking bug as confirmed from the various members commenting about the issue here.

[Sune Bredahl (sune-bredahl-deactivatedaccount)]

I have almost the same problem in Xubuntu (Bug #652731) but here it is "xfsettingd" not running (which means appearance settings cannot be changed).

However if I boot from the live cd, everything works and xfsettingsd is running as it should. I use the nvidia non-free driver also, but the bug persists if i deactivate it so I'm not sure if it is releated.

[albert fishnets (mateolingerhaus)]

I have this bug too. I have seen multiple related problems with Core i-7 processors on x-58 MoBos with newer Nvidia cards, posted in other bugs and forums. Sune Bredahl already mentioned his, but also these forum post:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=9971971

http://www.uluga.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1592275

Many people are saying things were fine under 10.04 including myself. I had some random freezes and weird system slow downs under 10.04, but the slow install, slow system, theme errors, and stuttering in video are all new with 10.10. Could there be an underlying issue with the hardware that is causing all of these problems? My hardware worked fine under 10.04 (mostly) and works fine in windows 7. I think this issue may be part of a bigger problem. Have any of you seen the other bugs described in these forum post?

[albert fishnets (mateolingerhaus)]

Also, I just tried restarting gnome settings daemon and it gave the same error, but did not change anything on reboot. I tried running it with sudo, and my desktop theme changed instantly, so maybe try sudo instead of rebooting if rebooting doesn't work for you.

[MvW (2nv2u)]

Same here killing and starting gnome-settings-daemon as root returned the theme more or less.
Nautilus still looks bad and the indicator icons still remain as the were.
It does start to hog my CPU though (gnome-settings-daemon) and remains running on a 100% load.
Killing the process does keep the theme ok.
I've got some issues with virtual machines as well which are new in 10.10 on my core i7.
Seems they tend to lockup randomly with no trace in a log file (Virtualbox).

Side note: I don't have a x58 chipset (I'm using a laptop).

[George (gapop)]

I did notice occasionaly that the interface (compiz effects etc.) were
somewhat slower, which I don't think is normal on this class of
hardware. It improved somewhat after upgrading to the latest nVidia
driver, but it's still not as good as 10.04.

There may well be an underlying cause. Meerkat came with new versions
of X and Gnome. Either could be the source of these problems.

[Josh (joscha-schneider)]

Same bug applies for me with a new installed Ubuntu 10.10.
Nvidia Gtx 460 and core i7.
I can reproduce the behaviour mentioned by Reason (killing and restarting gnome-settings-daemon as root).
Changing to the the nouveau driver didn't fix the problem for me.
Haven't tried the crappy workaround so far.
I have reinstalled Ubuntu at least three times with different configurations without success.

Also I have a parallel Ubuntu installation upgraded from 10.04 to 10.10 which does not show the bug. But so far I could not figure out why.

So please increase the importance of this Bug and fix it soon :)
As logs or other information is required please tell me what you need.

[albert fishnets (mateolingerhaus)]

I just installed KDE to see what happens when I boot into it. Everything works fine in KDE except gnome applications. Firefox and Transmission are still showing the same rendering issues, while Konqurer and all native KDE aps show properly rendered fonts and themes. Also I cannot load certain aps without them crashing. When I run Banshee for example it just crashes after loading with the KDE theme and fonts. Only the Gnome apps I had installed on my gnome desktop have issues and they will only start with the theme and fonts rendered wrong. Installing KDE Full or switching to Kubuntu seems like one possible option if they decide not to repair what ever is causing this problem on our systems.

[albert fishnets (mateolingerhaus)]

I forgot to say Bug #652731 shows that this happens with XFCE too. So the problem is related to both Gnome and XFCE, which means it can be narrowed down to something that is common between those two desktop environments and the core i7 x58 with newer Nvidia graphics card combinations.

[dyna (ubuntu-dyna)]

Same problem here. i7 920, 8800GTS640
To reproduce: Directly after fresh install wait for the hardware driver popup, install nvidia-current and reboot: no theme

I also had the problem with the beta/rc which seems to have begun after the xorg 1.9 update.

And i also seem to suffer from the high system/kernel cpu slowdown problem as described by #37 and in some forum posts, does anyone know if there is a bug report for that one yet, couldn't find one.

My notebook, which is upgraded from 10.04 to 10.10 doesn't have these problems. T7100, 8600GM

[George (gapop)]

Albert, I don't think they will *decide* not to repair the bug. It's a pretty obvious one. It still seems to affect a small number of users, though, so it might not get the priority we would like. But these sort of problems often get fixed by the next release.

If you're still doing (re)installs and you would prefer Gnome, I recommend you go with 10.04. It's an LTS release and works great. I don't see what you would be missing from 10.10. It brought me nothing but trouble. I would go back to 10.04 if I had the patience for a clean install.

[Paul Wolfe (pwolfe)]

I just wanted to add that I can now reproduce this problem on an athlon 940, AMD 785G chipset, gts 250.

So basically every machine I have updated or clean installed 10.10 on has had this issue.

[albert fishnets (mateolingerhaus)]

So it's specific to the Nvidia driver and Gnome or XFCE then. KDE is still
working fine without any problems.

On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 7:50 PM, Paul Wolfe <email address hidden>wrote:

> I just wanted to add that I can now reproduce this problem on an athlon
> 940, AMD 785G chipset, gts 250.
>
> So basically every machine I have updated or clean installed 10.10 on
> has had this issue.
>
> --
> Meerkat (10.10) does not apply theme properly
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/649809
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of a duplicate bug (658967).
>

--
"There are plenty of men and women who know how to run this country right,
but they're all too busy driving taxi cabs, cutting hair, and waiting
tables."

-George Burns

[albert fishnets (mateolingerhaus)]

Sorry about not trimming the last post. I was wrong about KDE. I installed Kubuntu 10.10 to see if it was a real solution. QT based apps display fine with themes and fonts but anything gtk still has the same problem even when gnome is not present. It does seem to be specific to gtk based apps if that helps.

[Ernesto Gutierrez (ernesto-g3)]

I can confirm the same bug on a clean 10.10 install:

- Core i7 (950)
- nVidia Geforce GTX470
- Intel X58

[Josh (joscha-schneider)]

Hi again,
I'm new to launchpad and I would like to ask how long it might take until someone is assigned to a bug like this?
I'm asking because I have to decide if I have to go back to 10.04 or keep waiting for a fix.

[Paul Wolfe (pwolfe)]

I'd just go back to 10.04 if I were you. Wait, I am you in this case! I already reverted back to 10.04 by way of clean install.

[Rhubarb (cam-daw)]

Just to let everyone know that since installing Arch Linux with Gnome and the latest nVidia drivers:
* I don't have the Gnome theme issue anymore (as I did when running Ubuntu 10.10)
* I don't get any random freeze-ups that last about 8 seconds (as I did when running Ubuntu 10.04)

Here's some info about what I'm presently running:-
Software:
* Arch Linux fully updated as of 28/10/2010
* Gnome 2.32.0
* nVidia 260.19.12
* Linux kernel 2.6.35 x86_64
* Xorg 1.9.0

Hardware:
* Intel Core i7 975 @ 3.3GHz
* 6GB DDR3 RAM
* 27" monitor (@ 2048x1152 res)
* GeForce GTX 275 896MB
* X58 motherboard chipset
* Lots of Intel ICH10 family stuff on the motherboard

I'll continue to check here to see if there's been any progress in future, as I do prefer to use Ubuntu if things will work for me.

[Ernesto Gutierrez (ernesto-g3)]

Small update: it seems the bug affects me if I select a theme other than the default Ambiance.
If I log on into my session with the ambiance theme I can switch to a different theme and it loads with no problems. Once I reset or log out however, next time I log back in the but reappears :(

[Ernesto Gutierrez (ernesto-g3)]

Gentlemen, I bring great news!
It seems the problem we are facing has to do with the fact that your desktop starts before gnome-settings-daemon does (the timing is off).

By following the tips on this thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1594010&highlight=GTK+theme I managed to fix my problem by simply running this command:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall gnome-settings-daemon

See the thread for details. Hopes this solves the problem for everyone.

Not sure if because I installed ubuntu on a solid state drive is the root cause for this timing issue.

[pfrenssen (pieter-frenssen)]

This bug affects my system too. I'm also running an X58 chipset with a Core i7 and an SSD boot drive.

The proposed solution in #54 does not help.

[Josh (joscha-schneider)]

I also face the problem with my SSD. On a parallel 32 bit Ubuntu installation on an ordinary HD I don't have the Problem.
I'll try the suggestion in #54 an report if they succeed.

[Rhubarb (cam-daw)]

Interesting, I'm not able to presently try that fix (#54), but it does sound like there may be some hope.
I should add that I've also got a Core i7, X58 chipset, nVidia GeForce GTX 275, and an SSD boot drive.

[George (gapop)]

Reinstalling gnome-settings-daemon didn't fix it for me. Neither did
the sleep trick.

I also have an SSD as the boot drive.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Could people having the issue add their .xsession-errors there?

[George (gapop)]

I have posted mine at #28.

[Donal (donaljoconnor)]

I'll add my .xsession-errors later from home.

One thing I've noticed which is way more damaging is that the .xsession-errors and .xsession-errors.old quickly fill up my home partition by repeatedly logging the same error. After about 15 mins the 19 gig free space in my home partition is gone causing all sorts of problems with software trying to save and read from their cache. Deleteing the .xsession-errors* solves the problem until I reboot.

[Donal (donaljoconnor)]

Ernesto. I'll try that fix at home this evening. I too am using an SSD drive so sounds like it might be the cause.

[pfrenssen (pieter-frenssen)]

Here's my xsession-errors log.

[Kenneth Langga (zang3tsu)]

Post #54 also doesn't work for me and I also have an SSD drive. Here's my xsession-errors file right after logging in.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

those warnings are weird

"** (gnome-settings-daemon:2469): WARNING **: You can only run one xsettings manager at a time; exiting"

it seems a settings manager is already running, do you get the same issue in the guest session?

[pfrenssen (pieter-frenssen)]

Updating the NVidia proprietary driver to the latest 260.19.12 does not fix the problem.

[pfrenssen (pieter-frenssen)]

I just quickly checked a guest session and the problem did NOT occur in the guest session.

[Kenneth Langga (zang3tsu)]

Building on it being an SSD/race problem, I decided to add a delay before gnome-settings-daemon would start. The relevant file that I changed was /etc/xdg/autostart/gnome-settings-daemon.desktop. I changed the line:

Exec=/usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gnome-settings-daemon

to this:

Exec=bash -c "sleep 2; /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gnome-settings-daemon"

to add a 2 second delay. And after rebooting, the theme is now properly applied. Hope this helps in finding a proper fix.

[pfrenssen (pieter-frenssen)]

Kenneth's workaround in #68 solves the problem for me.

[Ernesto Gutierrez (ernesto-g3)]

Guys, I must admit I jumped the gun a bit with my solution on #54. That is not the real fix.

To tell if your problem is the race condition I mentioned run the following 2 commands:

killall -9 gnome-settings-daemon
gnome-settings-daemon

At this point, your theme should be applied properly. Nautilus however should not be playing nice and still showing the ugly gray theme. Run these command, it will "reset" nautilus:

rm -vr ~/.gconf/apps/nautilus && killall nautilus

After this, your theme should be fully operational :)

If somebody could enlighten us on what exactly is causing the problem it would be great.

[dyna (ubuntu-dyna)]

#68 worked for me as well, also on ssd.

Strangly enough though the problem did went away for me at some point, not sure when though as i used a kill/restart gnome-settings-daemon startup application and harly use nautilus. I just noticed that right click was right again and disabled the start script. Then when i installed the 260.19.12 nvidia drivers last week the problem came back.

[nameiner (nameiner)]

Strangely the problem disappeared for me. The theme was correctly applied after the last 4 boots. I can't tell you what changed though. I didn't attempt any of the above suggestions and just did daily updates.

[albert fishnets (mateolingerhaus)]

I also have an SSD so core i-7, x-58, nvidia driver, and SSD seem like a
common theme. I already did a clean re-install of 10.04 so i can't test or
post any logs, but I wanted to note the hardware commonality.

--
"There are plenty of men and women who know how to run this country right,
but they're all too busy driving taxi cabs, cutting hair, and waiting
tables."

-George Burns

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

there is no reason reinstalled gnome-settings-daemon should make any difference. The disk speed should also not matter there, the error indicates a setting manager is already running, could be due to saved session or autostart entries. Do people having the issue use autologin? Does it happen at every login?

[George (gapop)]

No autologin here. Yes, happens at every login.

I tried creating a new user, in case there was something wrong with my
user-specific settings, but no -- the problem affects the new user as well.

[Donal (donaljoconnor)]

No auto login here either. It happens 95% of the time.

Also the hack in #68 works for me and I haven't seen the problem since applying it.

[pfrenssen (pieter-frenssen)]

No autologin. It happened at every login, except just once, on approximately 30-40 logins.

Since I delayed the loading of gnome-settings-daemon with 2 seconds as proposed in #68 the problem has entirely gone away for me. There is no mention anymore of multiple xsettings managers anymore in .xsession-errors.

Is it possible xsettings manager is loaded in gdm at login and not unloaded fast enough when logging in?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

reading the bug again I've some extra questions:

- is everybody there having the issue using a nvidia card with nvidia binary drivers installed?
- do you get the issue using nouveau?
- how did you install the nvidia drivers?

don't follow comment #70 suggesting to remove the nautilus gconf director it will destroy your nautilus config for no reason, restarting nautilus is enough to pick the new theme

can you change the theme in the gnome-appearance-properties dialog? is starting it enough to get your theme used?

[Donal (donaljoconnor)]

I'm using the nvidia binary drivers. Also using them on 2 other machines without SSD with no problems.

When I try to change the theme in the gnome-appearance-properties only the titlebar theme will change. Starting the gnome-settings-daemon doesn't help until I log out and back in again. And even then only sporadically.

The only solution that works 100% of the time is #68.

[George (gapop)]

>
> - is everybody there having the issue using a nvidia card with nvidia
> binary drivers installed?
>

Speaking only for myself, yes.

> - do you get the issue using nouveau?
>

Nouveau doesn't seem to have this issue, but it's very limited otherwise.

> - how did you install the nvidia drivers?
>

Two ways: by activating the proprietary driver suggested by Ubuntu, and also
by using the installer downloaded from nVidia. The result was the same in
both cases.

> can you change the theme in the gnome-appearance-properties dialog? is
> starting it enough to get your theme used?
>

No, on both accounts.

[albert fishnets (mateolingerhaus)]

Yes on the nvidia driver. When I enabled the nvidia driver, that is when the
problem started. nouveau worked fine except it would not let me do any
resolutions higher than 1280 x 1024 , which looked awful on my HD monitor. I
can also confirm that installing the nvidia proprietary driver via nvidias
website produces the exact same problem.

[Roger Binns (ubuntu-rogerbinns)]

I just did a fresh install and hit this problem. I did the fresh install due to a new SSD disk and did not experience the problem with my spinning disks with the prior install. (Yes I also have an Nvidia card.)

Something similar happened at work where a guy did a fresh install on a machine and gets this same problem. Guess what - Nvidia card and a SSD.

[MvW (2nv2u)]

I also have a SSD. So has my other laptop which has also a nVidia chip but uses a Core2Duo instead of a Core i7 and works perfectly fine.
Looks like a problem with the combination of a SSD with the nVidia driver and the Core i7.

[Roger Binns (ubuntu-rogerbinns)]

My machines affected were also i7. For my main machine the OS is on the SSD while /home is on striped spinning media (similar throughput to SSD, higher latency).

The sleep from comment #68 fixed it for me too. Looks like some sort of race condition when loading things.

[David Cameron (sky-out)]

I am seeing a similar problem with a new install of Ubuntu 10.04 AMD64 with Nvidia 173... drivers and two video cards. It does appear to be a race condition, however the fix from post #68 does not work for me.

The problem can be reliably reproduced (or not) with the following steps:

1. log in normally.
2. activate "switch user" in the gui; a new xsession starts with a password entry box
3. enter the password. when typing in the password, the 'dots' in the password box do not echo immediately.
4. now do one of two things:
  a. immediately hit enter - the new session starts with the wrong theme
  b. wait until the 'dots' echo before hitting enter - the new session starts correctly with the correct theme.

looking at .xsession-errors , the difference between a 'good' login and a 'bad' one appears to be:

** (gnome-settings-daemon:4748): WARNING **: You can only run one xsettings manager at a time; exiting

** (gnome-settings-daemon:4748): WARNING **: Unable to start xsettings manager: Could not initialize xsettings manager.
Failed to play sound: Sound disabled
Unable to find a synaptics device.

Hope that helps locate the problem.

Dave C.

[Joseph Dunn (joseph-dunn)]

As per what Roger mentioned, I'm also experiencing this on an i7 with an SSD.

[Rhubarb (cam-daw)]

Have just re-installed a fresh copy of 10.10 up-to-date as of today. The bug still effects me.
After applying Kenneth's fix (see comment #68) all is working well.

I've done a little digging around, and it seems there is no elegant way to get it working.
I can't find an elegant way to get /etc/xdg/autostart/gnome-settings-daemon.desktop to load after everything else.

The following doesn't enable one to choose which applications upon login to load in serial (or have requisite apps loaded beforehand):
http://standards.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/desktop-entry-spec-latest.html

I did notice a symlink in /etc/xdg/autostart/nvidia-autostart.desktop that links with /etc/alternatives/nvidia-autostart.desktop
which in-turn links with /usr/share/nvidia-current/nvidia-autostart.desktop (see attached)
Which essentially has:
Exec=sh -c '/usr/bin/nvidia-settings --load-config-only'

I deleted the link /etc/xdg/autostart/nvidia-autostart.desktop to see if it made any difference.
It turns out it seems to make no difference at all if gnome-settings-daemon.desktop is configured to:-
* not start at all - get ugly theme
* start immediately (default setting) - get ugly theme
* start after 1 or 2 seconds (which is Kenneth's fix) - theme works nicely

I hope there's an elegant fix for all this, so it can be sent out to patch other existing maverick users.

[captinkid (captinkid)]

#68 fixed it, thanks Kenneth!

- is everybody there having the issue using a nvidia card with nvidia binary drivers installed?

Yes the Nvidia (current version and version 173), Core i7, SLC SSD combination (10.10 64) 99% of boots exhibit this problem. Alt+Print-Screen+K does not help.

- do you get the issue using nouveau?

No, Nouveau does not experience any problems

- how did you install the nvidia drivers?

Through system > administration > additional drivers

[bastafidli (ubuntu-bastafidli)]

I believe this is duplicate of 500417 and it is present at least since 9.10. I am running 9.10 and 10.10 and the behavior is exactly the same. It happens 100% of the time after I do clean install of 10.10, install NVidia driver through restricted drivers and reboot few times.

[bastafidli (ubuntu-bastafidli)]

Also #68 doesn't work for me, but #70 does which is the same workaround which applies to the other defect as well.

[pfrenssen (pieter-frenssen)]

This is not a duplicate of 500417. Please unset the duplicate status.

[bastafidli (ubuntu-bastafidli)]

to pfrenssen: do you care to expand why is this not a duplicate of 500417? I am currently running both 9.10 for which 500417 was reported and 10.10 and for which 649809 was reported and the behavior, problems and workarounds are exactly the same.

[pfrenssen (pieter-frenssen)]

If you wish.

#649809 (this issue):
- describes a problem in which the entire gnome desktop reverts to the default theme on boot, except the theme selector window
- occurs only in 10.10, not in 10.04
- affects only systems which have a X58-chipset, proprietary Nvidia-driver, and SSD-drive
- is 100% solvable by applying the workaround in #68

#500417:
- describes a problem where nautilus does not honor the theme settings for its internal window, but the rest of the desktop is unaffected
- occurs in both 10.04 and 10.10
- affects a variety of system setups
- is not solvable by applying the workaround in #68 of this issue

[bastafidli (ubuntu-bastafidli)]

Actually, if you read through the comments of #500417 the scenario when nautilus doesn't honor the theme is just one special scenario of that defect and in the comments it is expanded that randomly either the whole desktop or just the nautilus doesn't honor the theme.

I am on Dell Precision 5500 (dual xeon, 4 core each, no ssd, dual nvidia quatro with proprietary driver) on 10.10 and I am experiencing the same problem as you have described "entire gnome desktop reverts to the default theme on boot, except the theme selector window". The #68 doesn't fixes it and #70 fixes it except the icons on the desktop in nautilus and which remains still from the old theme.

From the user perspective the behavior for these two defects is exactly the same. You have narrowed it down to one hardware configuration where it always occurs and one workaround which for this hardware configuration always fixes it, but in my opinion/experience the problem affects more than just this one hardware configuration and since it is most likely a race condition or timing issue of some sort, the success rate of the workaround is just a pure luck and coincidence rather than a fix.

The underlying issue for both of these defects is exactly same. Something happens between gnome-systems-settings and nautilus which causes the entire desktop to revert to the default theme. Changing timing of the start or restarting gnome-settings-daemon seems to fix some effects of this problem but not necessarily all of them.

Even if these defects are not duplicates they are at least related since the underlying issue for both of them is the same.

[Paul Wolfe (pwolfe)]

Post #68 resolves the theming issue for me, but cpu usage spikes such that the OS is completely unusable. I don't know if this bug is causing that or not, but I thought I would mention it.

[Rhubarb (cam-daw)]

Paul, I also had this problem about large CPU spikes.
It's a known nvidia bug with the nvidia drivers found with the "Additional Drivers" application in Ubuntu.
It can be fixed up by downloading the latest nvidia driver from nvidia's website and installing that. :)

[..edrik (fr-edrik)]

For the situation where gnome-settings-daemon is running fine after startup but theme settings are not applied.
It seams this effect faster setups like Core i7 installed on SSD drives.

This issue is also reported in bug #625670 and bug #574296

[Henning Hoefer (hoeferh)]

I hit those bug as well (Core i7, SSD, P55, 8800GTX) -- but I don't think it's related to the nVidia proprietary drivers: Even without those drivers, on first booting after installation, I get grey GNOME default panels.

Also note that everything works fine when I use a jfs partition on the SSD, but doesn't work when I install on an ext3 or ext4 one.

[Ernesto Gutierrez (ernesto-g3)]

@Henning

I must concur as well. I faced the same problem even with the nouveau drivers. So I don't feel its related to the nvidia drivers as well.

I did install ubuntu on a SSD under ext3 as well.

[Henning Hoefer (hoeferh)]

Thanks for confirming that it's not a driver problem -- I took the liberty to mark the nvidia-bug as invalid.

I also found a workaround: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1615358
With that workaround, the GDM doesn't get themed, but the desktop shows correctly.

[undriedsea (voidlogic7)]

This bug affects me.

* Clean install of 10.10 amd64 Desktop (done Dec 10, 2010)
* ATI driver installed using the System->Administration->Additional Drivers (2D Driver 8.78.30)

Hardware:

Graphics: ATI 5870
Hard drive: Intel X25-E
CPU: i7 950
RAM: 24 GB DDRIII

Notes: As noted above this appears to be SSD race issue. If I log off on, over and over, after 1-5 logins the theme will load properly.

[MvW (2nv2u)]

I've had this problem on another laptop with a core2duo once as well. It also uses a SSD.
So it does appear to be an SSD loading issue.
Something gets loaded to quickly and the core i7 makes it happen all the time.

[Roger Binns (ubuntu-rogerbinns)]

I've just had it happen on a new machine that does not have a SSD. It is a fast Core i7 with two striped hard disks (Seagate Barracuda XT) and an Nvidia 450 video card. The gnome-settings-daemon autostart sleep fix did the trick.

[John Lawton (john-lawton)]

I see that this bug is low priority. I have just upgraded my hardware to an i7 950 with Nvidia 460 card and SSD and done a fresh install of 10.10 64bit and this bug affects me. Since quite a few other people will have upgraded their hardware now in the near future (Christmas?) I hope that the priority is raised soon!

[damaan (jon-ekdahl)]

I'm also affected by this bug. I have a Core i7, an SSD and an Nvidia Quadro FX 880M. Things looked good with the Noveau driver, but when switching to the non-free Nvidia driver I get the ugly non-themed look. The workaround in #68 seems to solve the problem, and the warning about multiple xsettings managers is no longer written to my .xsession-errors file.

[Robin Stocker (nibor)]

Also affected with a Core i7, an SSD and an Nvidia GeForce GTS 450 (proprietary driver). The workaround in comment #68 (sleep) fixes it for me too. Here's two lines from .xsession-errors when it doesn't work (with the workaround, these lines do not appear):

** (gnome-settings-daemon:1641): WARNING **: You can only run one xsettings manager at a time; exiting

** (gnome-settings-daemon:1641): WARNING **: Unable to start xsettings manager: Could not initialize xsettings manager.

[Luciel (overlord-luchao)]

I was being affected by this bug, comment #68 has seemingly fixed the issue for me.

System Details:
ASROCK P55 Pro Motherboard
Intel Core i7 860 @2.8Ghz
8GB DDR3 1600Mhz RAM
nVidia Geforce GTS250 1GB
Crucial C300 64GB linked through Startech SATA-III 6Gbps Card
Wester Digital 320GB SATA-II

Hope this helps.

[robdb (rdb-ibeep)]

This is effecting my machine as well. Brand new (Built Tuesday) with a fresh install of 10.10 64bit. 2 out 5 times the my profile is affected. Another profile which is default in every way has the same problem. I've attached the xsession-error log from my profile.

Also, I have a 32-bit version installed on the 250gb drive which doesn't experience the bug.

i7950
12gb ram
nVidia 1GB GTS450 (OC'd)
WD 1TB HDD @7200rpm
WD 250GB HDD @5000???rpm

-- is everybody there having the issue using a nvidia card with nvidia binary drivers installed?
I have and am having the issue

-- how did you install the nvidia drivers?
Installed the binary via Ubuntu suggesting it.

-- do you get the issue using nouveau?
Not when I've used it, but I haven't used it a great deal

-- can you change the theme in the gnome-appearance-properties dialog?
Yes but only partially. The top panel (my only panel), Nautilis and the desktop context menu remain unchanged. Applications have the theme applied, and context menus are themed within the applicaiton.

-- is starting it enough to get your theme used?
Most times this will apply the theme to the panel, however Nautilis and the desktop context menu are remain unchanged.

Hope this helps?

[Sune Bredahl (sune-bredahl-deactivatedaccount)]

I had the same problem in xubuntu 10.10 and the solution was to "sudo apt-get remove gnome-settings-daemon", not sure why that component is installed in an xfce environment? I guess this is not a solution for you guys here though...

Oh yes, I have the dreaded x58 + corei7 + nvidia 470gtx + SSD combo...

/Sune

[simon (cyberstetic)]

i also have this problem.

#70 applied the theme , but after reboot the problem was back

fresh install Ubuntu 10.10

Nine-X7200

i7-980-X

Nvidia GTX 485M @ 1920x1080

[meikor (meikor)]

same problem for me: 10.10 64-BIT, clean install. #68 fixed it, thanks!

system: asrock p67, core i7-2600, kingston ssd.

meikor

[Marco Biscaro (marcobiscaro2112)]

This bug looks like a duplicate of bug #574296, am I right?

[George (gapop)]

Marco: it might be a duplicate, but I can't be sure. In my case, and in the
case of most users who have initiated this thread, the bug *is* 100%
reproducible and can never be fixed with a re-login or reboot. So the
description for bug #574296 is an inaccurate description of my problem.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Rodrigo do you have any clue about this one?

[TheSpoon (thespoon)]

This bug affects me too. It started affecting me yesterday, when I upgraded my Core2 E6600 machine to Core i7 2600K. Ubuntu is installed on an SSD, but the SSD is not new. There was no issue with Core2 + SSD.

I did a clean install (10.10 64-bit) and the issue persists. But unlike many posters here, the fix suggested in comment #68 does not help me.

[pfrenssen (pieter-frenssen)]

I don't think it is a duplicate. This problem never occurred for me in 10.04, but happens 100% in 10.10.

[Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya)]

This is the same as https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=634988 that is, you have too fast machines :-D It is indeed a GDM bug, which should be killing the g-s-d process it runs before starting the user's g-s-d process

[mercury80 (pviken)]

I have the same issue. Fresh Ubuntu 10.10 install, on a i3 laptop.
* NO nVidia products and no ssd-disk; Asus U31F:
http://www.asus.no/product.aspx?P_ID=OV45sT3DY56akobY

Sometimes it's the whole windows, sometimes it's just the panels. Changing themes and lots of reboots can periodically fix the issue.

[Richard de Boer (richarddeboer)]

Same issue here,

I7, ssd laptop with Maverick AMD64 installed. ATi graphics card and driver however. [url=https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...on/+bug/652929]652929[/url] looks like a duplicate.

[Harry (harry33)]

With NVidia GTX 285, Natty-64 bit, workaround #68 did really fix this theme issue.
Confirming, it is a gdm bug.

[Dimitrios Ntoulas (ntoulasd)]

I have this problem in Toshiba Satellite M60-182 (Old) ATI X700 with open radeon driver + compiz
Ubuntu 10.10
Changing themes and lots of reboots or logouts logins can periodically fix it.

[Muellni (mmuellen)]

I also have this problem with my Lenovo W510 (i7, nvidia graphics, SSD) and Ubuntu 10.10.
Using kdm instead of gdm seems to work for me.

[Juho Teperi (deraen)]

Having this problem. Q9550, Nvidia gfx, SSD. Sleep-workaround works.

[The Compiler (florianbruh-deactivatedaccount)]

I also have the same problem.

Intel i7-620LM, OCZ Vertex 2 SSD, Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (in the i7). So this doesn't seem to be a NVidia issue. The sleeping workaround didn't work for me (starting a gnome-session without a gnome-panel nor metacity, but with compiz and avant-window-navigator). I ended up replacing gdm by kdm, which worked perfectly.

[Pascal Hartig (passy)]

Definitely related to SSDs. Installed 10.04 and 10.10 on HDD and SDD. Occured only on the latter, in vanilla setup.

** (gnome-settings-daemon:1941): WARNING **: You can only run one xsettings manager at a time; exiting
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1941): WARNING **: Unable to start xsettings manager: Could not initialize xsettings manager.

My workaround so far is to kill gsd and nautilus manually:

killall -9 gnome-settings-daemon && gnome-settings-daemon && killall nautilus

[go4linux (ubuntu-desole)]

just had it on my dad's machine. No SSD here. Maybe SSDs make it only more likely.
However, I did install a new graphic card (Nvidia GTX 570). Not sure if I had it before, though.

Solved it with workaround described in #68

[Lukas Z. (lukas-zaruba)]

I suspect this problem to be connected with the overall performance of the computer. There is most probably a race condition between gnome settings and gnome, because as far as all posts go it can be easily fixed by waiting for two seconds before trying to load gnome settings. I have many computers with 10.10 running and only the best one (i7 820, SSD) is having this problem, but not always, it is about 50/50.

[Marco Biscaro (marcobiscaro2112)]

There is no specific hardware (HD type, or processor, or graphic card).

It occurs on race conditions (on fast computers, or on slow ones). In my case, I have a slow speed HDD (and affect by ext4 problems, it comes even more slow) and the problem occurs with frequence.

Maybe it is a GDM bug, that must assert that the gnome-settings-daemon is killed before start the session.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for commenting on this bug, there is no need to new comments to confirm or describe the issue though, what is happening is a race between the login settings manager and the session one on modern configurations, now what needs to be done is fro someone writting a fix to make sure the login settings daemon exists before the session on starts

[ResidualBit (residualbit)]

I was having the same race condition issue. I am running Natty Alpha 3 in virtualbox. #68 did not help, but #70 did. Having to run that on every restart was annoying, so I tried using auto login and am no longer having any issues.

[Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya)]

I've just uploaded a package for natty with a fix, but before submitting to natty proper, I'd like some people to have a try at it. So can people who have been experiencing this problem try the gnome-settings-daemon package at:

https://launchpad.net/~rodrigo-moya/+archive/ppa

and let me know if it fixes it for them? Once we have a few people confirm the fix is good, I'll submit it for natty

[Lucazade (lucazade)]

@Rodrigo Moya
Tested and I can confirm the fix is good. No more issue and race condition.
Thanks

[Zee Alexander (pizzaops)]

Awesome! I'm excited.

--
Sent from my mobile phone.
On Mar 29, 2011 7:47 AM, "Lucazade" <email address hidden> wrote:
> @Rodrigo Moya
> Tested and I can confirm the fix is good. No more issue and race
condition.
> Thanks
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of a duplicate bug (668641).
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/649809
>
> Title:
> the session settings manager can try starting before the login screen
> one exits
>
> To unsubscribe from this bug, go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/gdm/+bug/649809/+subscribe

[Niall Creech (sevenmachines-deactivatedaccount)]

Seems to fix it for me too.
thanks rodrigo

[Harry (harry33)]

I can confirm the race situation is fixed with this new package in PPA.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package gnome-settings-daemon - 2.32.1-0ubuntu12

---------------
gnome-settings-daemon (2.32.1-0ubuntu12) natty; urgency=low

  * debian/patches/93_wait_for_xsettings.patch:
    - Add patch to avoid race condition between gdm's gnome-settings-daemon
      and user's (LP: #649809)
 -- Rodrigo Moya <email address hidden> Thu, 31 Mar 2011 18:03:24 +0200

[mb21 (mauro-bieg)]

Bug still exists when running Ubuntu virtualized on VMware Fusion 3.1.2. I'm on the latest Beta and applied your patch.

from .xsession-errors:
** (gnome-settings-daemon:3357): WARNING **: You can only run one xsettings manager at a time; exiting
** (gnome-settings-daemon:3357): WARNING **: Unable to start xsettings manager: Could not initialize xsettings manager.

[Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya)]

mb21, I assume you are really running the package with the patch applied, right? Can you double-check? If so, can you please run:

# echo sleep 5 > /etc/X11/Xsession.d/50slowdownthere

as root and see if that fixes the problem? If so, maybe we would need a bigger number of retries for very slow machines (like a virtual machine), but this is confusing, since the problem was really on fast machines.

[The Compiler (florianbruh-deactivatedaccount)]

Still not fixed for me either.

Latest beta, i7 640-LM, OCZ Vertex 2 SSD.

My session is a bit special, I don't start a normal gnome. It looks like this:

florian@hermione ~ % cat /usr/share/xsessions/compiler.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Compiler
Comment=AWN and compiz
Exec=gnome-session --session=compiler
TryExec=gnome-session
Icon=
Type=Application
X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=gnome-session-2.0

florian@hermione ~ % cat /usr/share/gnome-session/sessions/compiler.session
[GNOME Session]
Name=Ubuntu
Required=windowmanager;panel;
Required-windowmanager=compiz
Required-panel=avant-window-navigator
DefaultApps=gnome-settings-daemon;

mb21, anything like this applies to you as well?

Also, when I'm in the session, I cannot kill the original gnome-settings-daemon with a SIGTERM, only a SIGKILL seems to do something...
Also, for some reason, it does not happen when I use a self-baked zen kernel.

Florian

[The Compiler (florianbruh-deactivatedaccount)]

Rodrigo, for me, the sleep-workaround didn't help in any way, either (even with sleep 5 or sleep 10). And I'm on the fast end :)

As said, for me, gdm's gnome-settings-daemon seems to actually hang after I'm logging in. Still seems to be some kind of a race condition, as this only happens maybe 1 in 15 times or so.

Florian

[Lucazade (lucazade)]

Issue is still present in virtualbox.
If I disconnect the session and login another one after a few seconds the issue is visible (it switch automatically to a gtk not themed)

** (gnome-settings-daemon:1727): WARNING **: You can only run one xsettings manager at a time; exiting
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1727): WARNING **: Unable to start xsettings manager: Could not initialize xsettings manager.

ii gnome-settings-daemon 2.32.1-0ubuntu12

I've tried "echo sleep 5 > /etc/X11/Xsession.d/50slowdownthere" as root but issue is still present

[Steve Netting (steve-netting)]

Identical issue here but the "echo sleep 5 > /etc/X11/Xsession.d/50slowdownthere" has worked for me.

Ubuntu 10.10 2.6.35-28-generic x86_64
AMD Phenom X6 (6 core 3.2 Ghz), SSD storage & Nvidia GFX (using Nvidia binary driver),

Please let me know if there's anything else I can do to assist here.

[Michael Kuhn (suraia)]

I found another cause for this behavior.

None of the available fixes worked for me, so I did a clean install of beta 1 and everything was working fine.
I then started moving back my old configuration step-by-step. As soon as I reached my custom .Xmodmap the issue started to re-appear. There were also some errors regarding .Xmodmap in .xsession-errors, but I am not sure whether that had anything to do with the weird behavior. Removing the .Xmodmap fixed the error on two different machines, though I have no idea why. :-)

tl;dr: If no other fixes work for you, try removing your .Xmodmap.

[Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya)]

Michael, can you paste the contents of that .Xmodmap file please?

[Michael Kuhn (suraia)]

@Rodrigo: Sure, here you go:

-------snip-------
remove Lock = Caps_Lock
keysym Caps_Lock = Escape

keysym Control_R = Control_R Multi_key
-------snip-------

[Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya)]

Michael (and others that are still seeing this bug), do you have ubuntuone installed?

[Lucazade (lucazade)]

@Rodrigo
No, ubuntuone is not installed here. (I use dropbox so i've removed it)

[Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya)]

Lucazade: you even uninstalled ubuntuone-client-gnome right?

[Lucazade (lucazade)]

Yes Rodrigo, I have uninstalled ubuntuone-client-gnome.

Now I've tried to install it again to see if this fix this issue, but
unfortunately doesn't help :(

[The Compiler (florianbruh-deactivatedaccount)]

Installed UbuntuOne here. Not using it though.

I also have no .Xmodmap. I do this on startup however:

In /etc/rc.local:
setkeycodes 67 244 6c 245 68 246 66 247

After logging in:
xinput set-prop "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint" "Evdev Wheel Emulation" 1 &
xinput set-prop "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint" "Evdev Wheel Emulation Button" 2 &
xinput set-prop "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint" "Evdev Wheel Emulation Timeout" 200 &
xinput set-prop "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint" "Evdev Wheel Emulation Axes" 6 7 4 5 &
xinput set-prop "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint" "Evdev Middle Button Emulation" 1 &
xinput set-prop "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint" "Evdev Middle Button Timeout" 50 &
xset -r 252 &
xset -r 253 &
xset -r 254 &
xset -r 255 &

[Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya)]

No, installing it won't fix the issue. I was asking because of this: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/744758

If people that see the problem have ubuntuone-client-gnome installed, that might be the reason why gdm's g-s-d is "hanging" and making the bug show up. But if you don't have ubuntuone-client-gnome, it's another thing

[Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya)]

The Compiler: can you please uninstall ubuntuone-client-gnome and see if that fixes the issue for you? Even if you don't use it, the https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/744758 bug is happening when exiting gnome-settings-daemon

[Michael Kuhn (suraia)]

@Rodrigo: Yes, I do have ubuntuone-client-gnome installed. However, the problem seems to be gone for now. Keep up the good work!

[The Compiler (florianbruh-deactivatedaccount)]

@Rodrigo: Yup, removed it. Will be able to tell if it got better in a few hours/days :)

Also, I'm still wondering why I can't kill gdm's gnome-settings-daemon with a SIGTERM, only with a SIGKILL. Am I the only one having that issue?

[The Compiler (florianbruh-deactivatedaccount)]

@Rodrigo: Nope, didn't help. Still having the issue. To me, it seems gdm's gnome-settings-daemon is still there after the login, and is there for a minute or so. Because sometimes (or maybe even always, have to check) when this issue happens, I seem to have a orange-like theme, and after some seconds it switches to the boxy ugly theme.

If I can do anything else to help, please let me know!

[mb21 (mauro-bieg)]

It's not fixed in gnome-settings-daemon - 2.32.1-0ubuntu13.

Also, the "echo sleep 5 > /etc/X11/Xsession.d/50slowdownthere" didn't work for me either.

[alpha-X-geek (alpha-x-geek)]

I don't see how it's Ubuntu One, as this bug occurs in Debian too. Also, I disabled Ubuntu One upon a fresh installation of Maverick anyway. The theme issue can disappear for a while and then come back again, hence why people try fixes and think they've worked, but in fact they haven't worked.

[Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya)]

alpha-X-geek: the fix is on natty version, not maverick. So, is everyone still seeing this bug using the latest natty package, or are people in maverick?

[Lucazade (lucazade)]

@Rodrigo

I'm still seeing this bug using the latest package in Natty.

[MAIKO (maikko)]

same problem for me, today i got it after performing updates on natty 11.04

[mb21 (mauro-bieg)]

I'm on natty too, with the latest updates and the problem still exists.

It happens even when I choose 'Ubuntu Classic' or 'Ubuntu (Safe Mode)' on login (see screenshot in attachment). Usually, at first the right dark theme is shown but after a few seconds it falls back to the ugly grey one.

[Lucazade (lucazade)]

The gnome session loaded from startup works well but if I change session (logout and login)
after a few seconds gnome settings are no more available.
Hope this video help, natty fully updated.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1338581/varie/session.ogv
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1338581/varie/xsession-errors

[Harry (harry33)]

The excellent video of Lucazade shows clearly how gnome-settings daemon first works, but is then killed.
It really may be that gnome-settings-daemon somehow is still hanging after first login, but is killed after a new logout/login.

[David Klasinc (bigwhale)]

I noticed that gnome-settings-daemon was still running after theme settings disappeared and I had to kill it with -9 signal to get rid of it.

[Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya)]

I'm just uploading a package of g-s-d with some debugging messages to this PPA:

https://launchpad.net/~rodrigo-moya/+archive/ppa

So please, anyone seeing still this bug, install the g-s-d package there (2.32.1-0ubuntu14) and try replicating the problem. When you see it, copy the full contents of ~/.xsession-errors and paste it here, please

[Lucazade (lucazade)]

Rodrigo I've tried latest release from PPA but the issue is still present.

/etc/gdm/Xsession: Beginning session setup...
GNOME_KEYRING_CONTROL=/tmp/keyring-kkIbRT
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/keyring-kkIbRT/ssh
GNOME_KEYRING_CONTROL=/tmp/keyring-kkIbRT
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/keyring-kkIbRT/ssh
GNOME_KEYRING_CONTROL=/tmp/keyring-kkIbRT
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/keyring-kkIbRT/ssh

** (gnome-settings-daemon:1521): WARNING **: xsettings manager already running; retrying again
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1521): WARNING **: xsettings manager already running; retrying again
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1521): WARNING **: xsettings manager already running; retrying again
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1521): WARNING **: xsettings manager already running; retrying again
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1521): WARNING **: xsettings manager already running; retrying again
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1521): WARNING **: xsettings manager already running; retrying again
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1521): WARNING **: xsettings manager already running; retrying again
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1521): WARNING **: xsettings manager already running; retrying again
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1521): WARNING **: xsettings manager already running; retrying again
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1521): WARNING **: xsettings manager already running; retrying again
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1521): WARNING **: xsettings manager already running; retrying again
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1521): WARNING **: xsettings manager already running; retrying again
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1521): WARNING **: xsettings manager already running; retrying again
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1521): WARNING **: xsettings manager already running; retrying again
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1521): WARNING **: xsettings manager already running; retrying again
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1521): WARNING **: xsettings manager already running; retrying again
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1521): WARNING **: xsettings manager already running; retrying again
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1521): WARNING **: xsettings manager already running; retrying again
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1521): WARNING **: xsettings manager already running; retrying again
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1521): WARNING **: xsettings manager already running; retrying again
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1521): WARNING **: xsettings manager already running; retrying again
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1521): WARNING **: You can only run one xsettings manager at a time; exiting

** (gnome-settings-daemon:1521): WARNING **: Unable to start xsettings manager: Could not initialize xsettings manager.
** (process:1551): DEBUG: zeitgeist-datahub.vala:174: Inserting 6 events
Initializing nautilus-dropbox 0.6.7
Initializing nautilus-gdu extension
** Message: Initializing gksu extension...
Initializing nautilus-open-terminal extension

[Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya)]

Lucazade: ok, so as soon as you log in, can you please run this on a terminal:

$ ps aux | grep settings

?

[Lucazade (lucazade)]

as soon as I login I get this:
$ ps aux | grep settings
gdm 2452 1.8 1.4 91308 11132 ? Ssl 16:42 0:00 /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gnome-settings-daemon --gconf-prefix=/apps/gdm/simple-greeter/settings-manager-plugins
luca 2576 1.8 1.4 99868 10852 ? Ssl 16:42 0:00 /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gnome-settings-daemon
luca 2791 0.0 0.1 4172 852 pts/0 S+ 16:43 0:00 grep --color=auto settings

after more or less a minute (when the issue is visible) I get this:
$ ps aux | grep settings
luca 2576 1.4 1.4 99640 10796 ? Ssl 16:42 0:00 /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gnome-settings-daemon
luca 2794 0.0 0.1 4172 852 pts/0 S+ 16:43 0:00 grep --color=auto settings

[Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya)]

Ok, can I ask you to run this on a virtual terminal, before login in and while gdm is sitting there waiting for you to login

$ ps aux | grep settings

this will give the process ID for the gdm's gnome-settings-daemon, so:

$ sudo strace -p $pid_of_gdm_gsd -o /tmp/strace.txt

then try logging in with your normal user and wait until the gdm's g-s-d process is gone, and then please attach the /tmp/strace.txt to this bug

[Lucazade (lucazade)]

attached strace log

[mb21 (mauro-bieg)]

okay, i updated all packages, installed your g-s-m, rebooted and did the strace on the tty. here the result.

[Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya)]

Ok, can you please run it again but with this command line:

$ sudo strace -p $pid_of_gdm_gsd -r -o /tmp/strace.txt

that is, adding a -r option so that we get timestamps?

[Lucazade (lucazade)]

strace with timestamps

[mb21 (mauro-bieg)]

Here's mine.

[Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya)]

Lucazade and mb21: can you please join IRC (#ubuntu-desktop on Freenode) for some further debugging? I guess it will be much quicker, since I'd like you to test building the g-s-d package without any of the Ubuntu patches (except for the fix for this bug that went upstream) and rebuild again and again after re-enabling each patch to see if any of them is the culprit.

Also, for running gdm's g-s-d under gdb, so if you know how to do it, please do it, if not, please come to IRC and I'll give you detailed instructions, ok?

[Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya)]

oh, I'm rodrigo_ on IRC, so just ping me when you're there, if it's possible for you to join

[Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya)]

Thanks to Lucazade, we now know the culprit is a patch in the Ubuntu package, so will post a link to a package for testing as soon as I've got a fix

[Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya)]

gdb backtrace: http://paste.ubuntu.com/594064/

[Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya)]

Just had another report from a user in virtualbox, so definitely this is only happening now in virtualbox, maybe the vb's video drivers and the xrandr part of the indicator patch raise some bug/special condition. Still investigating...

[mb21 (mauro-bieg)]

Actually I'm not on Virtualbox but on VMware Fusion...

[The Compiler (florianbruh-deactivatedaccount)]

Still rarely seems to happen to me, not using any virtualisation.

Also, it seems to always happen after I do "sudo service gdm restart" in a tty.

[Dominik (dominik-dbruhn)]

I have exactly the same problem, and i'm not on a virtualized machine but instead normal machine:
Intel i5 chipset with default drivers, nothing special. Directly after login to my user 'dominik', the theme is how it should be and the following processes run:

$ ps aux | grep sett
gdm 2722 0.9 0.3 370176 15072 ? Ssl 10:41 0:00 /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gnome-settings-daemon --gconf-prefix=/apps/gdm/simple-greeter/settings-manager-plugins
dominik 2837 3.2 0.3 455344 15108 ? Ssl 10:41 0:00 /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gnome-settings-daemon

after some seconds, the theme goes away and now the following processes run:

$ ps aux | grep settings
dominik 2837 1.3 0.3 407176 15052 ? Ssl 10:41 0:00 /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gnome-settings-daemon

OS is Natty fully upgraded.

[johannesb (johannes-bittner)]

I have the exact same situation as Domenik described. When logging in with a newly created user, however, everything work's fine -- only one gnome-settings-daemon process is started, and the theme applies fine.

[johannesb (johannes-bittner)]

I think I found the reason for the bug, however I don't have a satisfactory solution.

It seems that when removing / renaming the file '.Xmodmap' (which is located in the user's home directory) so that gnome doesn't find it anymore when logging in, gnome-settings-daemon gets started correctly. Found this out my successively removing dot-files in my home directory until it worked (very frustrating).

However, now I don't have .Xmodmap anymore :-(

[Lucazade (lucazade)]

I don't have .Xmodmap here on default installation.. I think it is useful only for mapping keyboard keys.
So I can't reproduce your workaround here.

[Sean Garner (seanlgarner)]

As a workaround if you use .Xmodmap then I've found that renaming it and loading it in startup applications instead works well.

mv .Xmodmap .Xmodmap_workaround
Open Startup Applications then click "Add"
In the command box enter xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap_workaround
Click "Add" then log out and in to see the effect.

When the problem is resolved don't forget to rename your Xmodmap back and remove the entry in startup application.

[Hendrik Schrieber (hennekn)]

I've got Natty running now on my »real« machine and I don't see this issue anymore. It just occured in a VM for me.

[Jody Fanning (jodyfanning)]

I haven't seen this in a real machine, but I'm running Natty inside VirtualBox 4.06 under Windows and I get this problem there.

** (gnome-settings-daemon:1351): WARNING **: You can only run one xsettings manager at a time; exiting
** (gnome-settings-daemon:1351): WARNING **: Unable to start xsettings manager: Could not initialize xsettings manager.

[Tom van der Heijden (t-v-d-heijden-deactivatedaccount)]

For me the problem also occurred in VirtualBox. On a real PC everything
looks fine.

[metchebe (metchebe)]

When testing Natty in VirtualBox for the past few weeks It happened on every login. I installed Natty on real hardware (Lenovo Thinkpad T61 with Intel Graphics) 4 days ago and this has happened to me twice, so it is definitely not VM specific. A logout and login has fixed it both times.

[Ivan Mikushin (i-mikushin)]

After a recent system update gnome-settings-daemon crashes with segmentation fault upon login to gnome shell (installed from ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3, gnome-settings-daemon 3.0.1-0ubuntu1~build4). The #68 comment hack makes it even worse: the session hangs (nevertheless, it did the trick under with vanilla ubuntu-10.10: I was affected until upgraded to Natty + Gnome3, have SSD, Core i7).
Before the update everything worked just fine (gnome-settings-daemon 3.0.1-0ubuntu1~build3.1).

From syslog:
May 12 11:03:20 sunny kernel: [ 199.165214] gnome-settings-[3093]: segfault at 7570 ip 00007f16e4d0ae54 sp 00007ffff5ee3e18 error 4 in libc-2.13.so[7f16e4be6000+18a000]
May 12 11:03:20 sunny kernel: [ 199.322038] gnome-settings-[3139]: segfault at 7570 ip 00007f92c173ee54 sp 00007fffc4a2cdc8 error 4 in libc-2.13.so[7f92c161a000+18a000]
May 12 11:03:20 sunny gnome-session[3032]: WARNING: Application 'gnome-settings-daemon.desktop' killed by signal
May 12 11:03:20 sunny gnome-session[3032]: WARNING: Application 'gnome-settings-daemon.desktop' killed by signal

Starting gnome-settings-daemon from terminal gives the following output:

** (gnome-settings-daemon:3920): WARNING **: Ignoring unknown module 'org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.gconf'
[1305177542,000,xklavier.c:xkl_engine_start_listen/] The backend does not require manual layout management - but it is provided by the application
`menu_proxy_module_load': gnome-settings-daemon: undefined symbol: menu_proxy_module_load

(gnome-settings-daemon:3920): Gtk-WARNING **: Failed to load type module: (null)

Segmentation fault

Sorry, if this is the wrong place, but the symptoms are the same: ugly theme and lack of some keyboard shortcuts.

[Jason Toffaletti (jason)]

I was having this 100% of the time since 11.04 upgrade in virtualbox. I replaced GDM with LightDM and the issue has gone away.

[Kentaro (kentarofukuchi)]

@Jason

You're genius! Because LightDM does not use gnome-settings-daemon, no g-s-d issues happen.

[Rodrick Yu (rodrickyu)]

I ran into this issue while running Natty on VMware. More specifically:
I log in to Ubuntu Classic mode.
The theme is Ambiance as expected, but all of the icons are the unity theme icons instead of Ubuntu-Mono. Nautilus also has the Ubuntu One icon embedded.
About 20 seconds later, the theme reverts to the ugly theme.
Restarting gnome-settings-daemon and nautilus fixes the to the proper Classic mode theme.

I've tried the workaround in #68 and it still resulted in:
"** (gnome-settings-daemon:1941): WARNING **: You can only run one xsettings manager at a time; exiting"
regardless of the time i set, until i set it too far and gnome-settings-daemon.desktop timed out instead.

I had set the virtual machine as a single CPU single core machine. Once I changed the machine to dual core, I logged into Ubuntu Classic with the expected theme and icons without the theme reverting.

I hope that helps.

[Jan Mynarik (jan-mynarik)]

Package version gnome-settings-daemon 3.0.1-1ubuntu2~natty1 solved this problem for me.

[Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya)]

Jan, were you having the problem on a virtual machine or on a physical one? Also, from which version did you upgrade?

[Jan Mynarik (jan-mynarik)]

Rodrigo, it is a physical machine upgraded from maverick. gnome-settings-daemon was updated just from previous version, I update daily or even several times a day ;-)

[Ivan Mikushin (i-mikushin)]

On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 19:32, Jan Mynarik <email address hidden>wrote:

> Package version gnome-settings-daemon 3.0.1-1ubuntu2~natty1 solved this
> problem for me.
>

Yeah, for me, too. gnome-settings-daemon 3.0.1-0ubuntu1~build4 was broken.
But that stupid gst-keyboard-xkb thing (what is it?) now appears in the
Message tray (it didn't with gnome-settings-daemon 3.0.1-0ubuntu1~build3.1
).

Regards,
Ivan Mikushin

[Jan Mynarik (jan-mynarik)]

On Thu, 2011-05-19 at 09:09 +0000, Ivan Mikushin wrote:
> Yeah, for me, too. gnome-settings-daemon 3.0.1-0ubuntu1~build4 was broken.
> But that stupid gst-keyboard-xkb thing (what is it?) now appears in the
> Message tray (it didn't with gnome-settings-daemon 3.0.1-0ubuntu1~build3.1
> ).

Yes, same here.

Although I wrote it is fixed for me, I had experienced one login when
icon theme was set wrong ... and the login took several times longer
than usually.

[jony121 (jony121)]

Just adding a screenshot for 11.04.

[Jody Fanning (jodyfanning)]

One thing I just noticed is that, at least in the Virtual Box case, it might be related to the amount of memory assigned to the virtual machine. I had 1GB of memory previously where the problem occurred. I just increased it to 1.5GB (for other reasons) and suddenly the theming works and I also get Unity desktop as well.

[Jody Fanning (jodyfanning)]

Nope, it was only temporary. Now I have Unity, but the broken theme back again.

[jifg (jifges)]

This workaround works for me (VirtualBox): try to replace "sleep 2" by "killall gnome-settings-daemon" to avoid waiting. This way:

/etc/xdg/autostart/gnome-settings-daemon.desktop
Exec=bash -c "killall gnome-settings-daemon ; /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gnome-settings-daemon"

The system should stop the previous daemon and ensure it has been stopped before launching the new one (instead of killing it).

[jifg (jifges)]

The workaround is not working always. A better workaround is to leave
/etc/xdg/autostart/gnome-settings-daemon.desktop
untouched but change
/etc/gdm/PreSession/Default
in order to assert that gnome-settings-daemon from user gdm is killed, adding as the last line
killall -9 -w -u gdm gnome-settings-daemon
where -9 and -w are optional.
It seems to work all the time so far.

[jon parker (parker-jon)]

This doesn't work for me.

On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 2:57 PM, jifg <email address hidden> wrote:
> The workaround is not working always. A better workaround is to leave
> /etc/xdg/autostart/gnome-settings-daemon.desktop
> untouched but change
> /etc/gdm/PreSession/Default
> in order to assert that gnome-settings-daemon from user gdm is killed, adding as the last line
> killall -9 -w -u gdm gnome-settings-daemon
> where -9 and -w are optional.
> It seems to work all the time so far.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/649809
>
> Title:
>  the session settings manager can try starting before the login screen
>  one exits
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/gdm/+bug/649809/+subscriptions
>

[AaronMT (aaron-train)]

What is the ETA for this bug fix?

[jifg (jifges)]

Jon, please try to remove the -w. I'm currently using:
killall -9 -u gdm gnome-settings-daemon
and it's working for me all the time.
Cheers.

[jon parker (parker-jon)]

My computer won't be available for a couple of months so I can't try
this right now, unfortunately.

On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 3:09 AM, jifg <email address hidden> wrote:
> Jon, please try to remove the -w. I'm currently using:
> killall -9 -u gdm gnome-settings-daemon
> and it's working for me all the time.
> Cheers.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/649809
>
> Title:
>  the session settings manager can try starting before the login screen
>  one exits
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/gdm/+bug/649809/+subscriptions
>

[Mike Palmer (mike-palmer-i)]

This worked OK for me. Thank you.
Now back to normal
- no ugly desktop icons
- no wrongly ordered panel sections
- no irritating, dynamic self-centring of a varying-size panel

[Mike Palmer (mike-palmer-i)]

See #210
sorry but I have to rescind the comment as I now have ugly desktop icons back again
the other 2 effects not seen yet

[Alex Popovskiy (alex-popovskiy)]

I don't see that error from bug description in logs, but I have theme reset every time I cold boot my PC at work (Natty 32bit, theme comes back if I logout and then login again). On the other hand, I don't have any issues with theme reset on my home PC (Natty 64bit)

[Alejandro Mallea (janoma)]

jifg's workaround (comment #205) works for me, thanks!

[Timothy Arceri (t-fridey)]

There is not enough known about what is truly causing this bug for it to be a papercut.

[eiver (eiver)]

Is there any way, an ordinary user experiencing this bug could provide enough information to resolve the problem? The bug seems random in nature, so it must be some kind of a race condition, but still I have a feeling it should be easy to fix (although I do not know linux/ubuntu well enough to provide a fix).

[Timothy Arceri (t-fridey)]

@eiver

The upstream bug report shows that a workaround has been committed meaning this bug shouldn't happen anymore once you have the updated version.

[dino99 (9d9)]

Affect Oneiric i386 b2 too using lghtdm & g-s-d 3.2.0-0ubuntu2
wonder if the workaround proposed in post #205 can be adapted for lightdm

here is actual output:

** (gnome-settings-daemon:3472): WARNING **: You can only run one xsettings manager at a time; exiting

** (gnome-settings-daemon:3472): WARNING **: Unable to start xsettings manager: Could not initialize xsettings manager.

(gnome-settings-daemon:3472): media-keys-plugin-WARNING **: Grab failed for some keys, another application may already have access the them.

(gnome-settings-daemon:3472): clipboard-plugin-WARNING **: Clipboard manager is already running.

** (gnome-settings-daemon:3472): WARNING **: Name taken or bus went away - shutting down
Erreur de segmentation (core dumped)

[Lucazade (lucazade)]

I thought lightdm doesn't use gnome-settings-daemon like old gdm did.. so I don't get why the race condition can be present (i didn't experienced in oneiric)
@Rodrigo Moya: am i right? is this still the issue of xrandr and indicators during login manager?

[Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya)]

Lucazade: I haven't seen any reports for Oneiric about this (with gdm and lightdm), so I really think it's fixed in 3.x versions. And no, lightdm doesn't use g-s-d AFAIK, so it shouldn't be an issue there

[aidanjt (aidanjt)]

I haven't had any gsd problems with either natty nor oneiric (and I
think maverick is fixed now?).

[Robert Ancell (robert-ancell)]

Unity Greeter does use gnome-settings-daemon, there was a bug where it was not quitting properly, but this should be fixed (bug 861398)

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

is anyone still getting that issue in Oneiric?

[Jan Nekvasil (jan-nekvasil)]

Not at all. (Note: I'm using a SSD for whole system).

[Timothy Arceri (t-fridey)]

Upstream are removing the fix while developing the next major version of gnome to see if it comes back so this bug should probably remain open for the time being.

[jon parker (parker-jon)]

Yes, I am still having the issue in Oneiric. With both Unity and Gnome 3.

On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 6:21 AM, Sebastien Bacher <email address hidden> wrote:
> is anyone still getting that issue in Oneiric?
>
> ** Changed in: gnome-settings-daemon (Ubuntu)
>       Status: In Progress => Incomplete
>
> ** Changed in: gnome-settings-daemon (Ubuntu)
>    Milestone: natty-updates => None
>
> ** Changed in: gnome-settings-daemon (Ubuntu)
>     Assignee: Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya) => (unassigned)
>
> ** Changed in: gnome-settings-daemon (Ubuntu Natty)
>       Status: In Progress => Triaged
>
> ** Changed in: gnome-settings-daemon (Ubuntu Natty)
>    Milestone: natty-updates => None
>
> ** Changed in: gnome-settings-daemon (Ubuntu Natty)
>     Assignee: Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya) => (unassigned)
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/649809
>
> Title:
>  the session settings manager can try starting before the login screen
>  one exits
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/gdm/+bug/649809/+subscriptions
>

[jon parker (parker-jon)]

Correction, this is a problem with my user settings from Ubuntu 11.04.
 I don't have any problems with a new user account.

On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 5:39 PM, jon parker <email address hidden> wrote:
> Yes, I am still having the issue in Oneiric.  With both Unity and Gnome 3.
>
> On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 6:21 AM, Sebastien Bacher <email address hidden> wrote:
>> is anyone still getting that issue in Oneiric?
>>
>> ** Changed in: gnome-settings-daemon (Ubuntu)
>>       Status: In Progress => Incomplete
>>
>> ** Changed in: gnome-settings-daemon (Ubuntu)
>>    Milestone: natty-updates => None
>>
>> ** Changed in: gnome-settings-daemon (Ubuntu)
>>     Assignee: Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya) => (unassigned)
>>
>> ** Changed in: gnome-settings-daemon (Ubuntu Natty)
>>       Status: In Progress => Triaged
>>
>> ** Changed in: gnome-settings-daemon (Ubuntu Natty)
>>    Milestone: natty-updates => None
>>
>> ** Changed in: gnome-settings-daemon (Ubuntu Natty)
>>     Assignee: Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya) => (unassigned)
>>
>> --
>> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
>> report.
>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/649809
>>
>> Title:
>>  the session settings manager can try starting before the login screen
>>  one exits
>>
>> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/gdm/+bug/649809/+subscriptions
>>
>

[tekstr1der (tekstr1der)]

Logged in today to see the good 'ol gnome icon set appear on unity.

This is a fully u-t-d Natty 11.04 with Unity only. This bug is sporadic and infrequent for me, but definitely exists.

Is there any chance of a fix for Natty? Or, are we just moving on ahead now with gnome 3 only?

[nisc (nisc)]

In 11.04, the workaround proposed in #204 makes the problem disappear for me.

[Pete Webster (pwebster1973)]

Having the same issue in Oneric, random occurences, sometimes reboot works, sometimes requires multiple reboots. Although still not sure if this is related to the bug mentioned here, or the one over here...
http://askubuntu.com/questions/21305/desktop-forgets-theme

Am running an old Athlon with regular HDD, although nVidia chipset present on mobo. Haven't tried yet the timings with the daemons but will look at that next.

Just thought I'd add that this IS still occuring on a Oneric environment

[Alex Kon (alkon)]

Seeing the same issue with a recent install of Ubuntu 11.10 x64, NVIDIA & SSD.

Happens on every boot. Logout & Login seems to load everything properly again.

[Alex Kon (alkon)]

And here are my specs with a before/after 2nd login screenshot...

Ubuntu 11.10
Kernel 3.0.0-14-generic
GNOME 3.2.1
Intel Core Duo CPU E7200
3GB DDR2
NVIDIA GT 520, Driver 280.13 (Proprietary with post-release updates)
64 GB SSD

[Alex Kon (alkon)]

The problem seems to have disappeared for me with the latest updates.

[Chris Wilson (notgary-deactivatedaccount)]

Reading the comment above, it seems any fix for this bug will be rather complex, so I'm removing the papercuts task.

[launchpadmember (lpuser1138)]

None of the proposed solutions so far works for my setup at all.

Specs:
Distribution: Ubuntu 11.04 64Bit (Actual machine, NOT a virtual machine)
Codename: Natty Narwhal
Desktop: Gnome 2
CPU: Intel Quad Core 2 Extreme, X9650, 64Bit, (3GHz per core)
GPU: GeForce 8800 GT
GPU MEM: 512 MB
GPU MEM Interface: 256 MB
GPU VBIOS: 62.92.24.00.00
MoBo: Asus
MoBo MEM: 4GB

Right clicking on the desktop and selecting "Change Desktop Background" results in the following error message:
Unable to start the settings manager 'gnome-settings-daemon'.
Without the GNOME settings manager running, some preferences may not take effect. This could indicate a problem with DBus, or a non-GNOME (e.g. KDE) settings manager may already be active and conflicting with the GNOME settings manager.

Any attempt at starting the gnome-settings-daemon such as:
sudo gnome-settings-daemon
results in the following error messages:
** (gnome-settings-daemon:6805): WARNING **: Failed to acquire org.gnome.SettingsDaemon

** (gnome-settings-daemon:6805): WARNING **: Could not acquire name

Here is the output from "apt-cache policy gnome-settings-daemon"
gnome-settings-daemon:
  Installed: 2.32.1-0ubuntu13.1
  Candidate: 2.32.1-0ubuntu13.1
  Version table:
 *** 2.32.1-0ubuntu13.1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ natty/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Any attempt at killing and restarting the gnome-settings-daemon produces no significant change.
I will list one debug output with elevated privileges, and one without.

Here is the debug output after killing and restarting the gnome-settings-manager with elevated privileges:
~$ sudo gnome-settings-daemon --debug --no-daemon
** (gnome-settings-daemon:20326): DEBUG: Successfully connected to D-Bus
** (gnome-settings-daemon:20326): DEBUG: Starting settings manager
** (gnome-settings-daemon:20326): DEBUG: Loading settings plugins from dir: /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon-2.0/
** (gnome-settings-daemon:20326): DEBUG: Loading plugin: /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon-2.0/mouse.gnome-settings-plugin
** (gnome-settings-daemon:20326): DEBUG: GnomeSettingsPluginInfo: name='Mouse' file='/usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon-2.0/mouse.gnome-settings-plugin' location='mouse'
** (gnome-settings-daemon:20326): DEBUG: Loading plugin: /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon-2.0/clipboard.gnome-settings-plugin
** (gnome-settings-daemon:20326): DEBUG: GnomeSettingsPluginInfo: name='Clipboard' file='/usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon-2.0/clipboard.gnome-settings-plugin' location='clipboard'
** (gnome-settings-daemon:20326): DEBUG: Loading plugin: /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon-2.0/a11y-keyboard.gnome-settings-plugin
** (gnome-settings-daemon:20326): DEBUG: GnomeSettingsPluginInfo: name='Accessibility Keyboard' file='/usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon-2.0/a11y-keyboard.gnome-settings-plugin' location='a11y-keyboard'
** (gnome-settings-daemon:20326): DEBUG: Loading plugin: /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon-2.0/xrdb.gnome-settings-plugin
** (gnome-settings-daemon:20326): DEBUG: GnomeSettingsPluginInfo: name='X Resource Database' file='/usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon-2.0/xrdb.gnome-settings-plugin' location='xrdb'
** (gnome-settings-daemon:20326): DEBUG: Loa...

[launchpadmember (lpuser1138)]

Oops, I forgot that long outputs were not allowed. I'll attatch the debug outputs as log files.
Attached to this post is the output of:
sudo gnome-settings-daemon --debug --no-daemon

Lots of debug info, then it just hangs and does nothing else on the last line.

[launchpadmember (lpuser1138)]

Attached to this post is the non-elevated privilege output:
gnome-settings-daemon --debug --no-daemon

This debug output basically said:
The program 'gnome-settings-daemon' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadValue (integer parameter out of range for operation)'.
  (Details: serial 193 error_code 2 request_code 154 minor_code 30)
  (Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
   that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
   To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line
   option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
   backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)

Which I can't really understand. So...

My Questions are:
1.) Can the status of this bug for Natty be changed to confirmed or something that more accurately reflects the problems I've shown with these posts?
2.) Is there anything I can uninstall, purge, or swap out with something else to help confirm which packages are effected?
3.) Has this bug become a permanent unsolvable problem in terms of getting themes to work in Natty again?

I will attempt a reinstall of various Ubuntu releases to see if I can get this problem to go away. I'm out of idea's other than reinstalling.

[launchpadmember (lpuser1138)]

Ok, so apparently attaching files to posts is broken as well. Here are some pastebin links for the debug output files:
Output from "sudo gnome-settings-daemon --debug --no-daemon"
http://pastebin.com/uJiqU178

Output from "gnome-settings-daemon --debug --no-daemon"
http://pastebin.com/yZWVEwmE

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

@lpuser1138: your issue is a different one, could you open a new bug rather than commenting on a random one?

[dino99 (9d9)]

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

[RobinJ (robinj)]

Sorry if I'm wrong, but wouldn't we simply be able to check every second or so whether the settings daemon from the login manager has exited, and only when that one has exited, start the settings daemon for the user?

[dino99 (9d9)]

There is no maintenance on distro having reached EOL
http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2189

[dino99 (9d9)]

no activity since a while; seems that no one been affected nowadays. Closing it.

[Oussama (ou-ghorbel)]

Issue still reproduced.
My ubuntu 16.04 failes sometimes to load themes on my asus UX305 (with ssd). I had to reboot it to get this fixed

[Radek Šmíd (rad-smid)]

Issue reproduced. Loging in and out fixes the problem temporarily but after reboot the issue is still there.

FIXED by installing Ubuntu 16.10

NOTE: Core i5 here. For pictures of issue look at my question on Ask Ubuntu -> http://askubuntu.com/questions/886795/unity-sometimes-blue-and-ugly/887498#887498