LMDE Cinnamon crashes right after login

[Ergosys]

I was initially successful installing cinnamon and running it. I then changed some settings and now it crashes (Sorry an error has occurred) right after login. Sorry to be vague about the settings, but I truly don't remember what they were, and they were basic control panel preferences, nothing with gconf. I have tried complete removal & reinstall, but it still crashes.

This is update pack 4, LMDE, 64 bit, using "latest". Nvidia driver (Geforce GT 240) using dual monitor setup, Core i7, 4G.
I have since tried the Gnome 3.2.1 login, and it works fine on this machine and have been using it daily, but would like to give cinnamon a try.

I don't know what else to report, just ask.

[level323 (level323)]

Same problem here.

I recently started using Cinnamon as a result of the LMDE update pack 4 arriving. Was reasonably happy with it - until I hit this problem, at least.

Cinnamon was working fine until a few moments ago. I opened a PDF file and spun the mouse wheel to scroll down the PDF document and Cinnamon crashed. Ever since then I have been unable to login to that user account.

My first thought is that Cinnamon must have either corrupted some cinnamon user config files or there is some user session config file that is corrupted. Being new to Cinnamon I'm really not sure where to start looking.

[Ergosys (ergosys)]

On a lark I reinstalled cinnamon and tried logging into a user account (same machine, same OS) which I have not touched since update pack 4: It worked. So something in my main account is borked as far as cinnamon sees it. The full error is:

"Oh no! Something has gone wrong. A problem has occurred and the system can't recover. Please log out and try again."

Which isn't the least bit helpful. Anyone got a clue where I could look for the problem?

[Faisal M. Yousuf (faisalw)]

Same problem here.

I'm using LMDE, 64 bit with update pack 4, and Nvidia driver from repositories (Geforce 9500 GT). My system is 6 years old with AMD Athlon 64 bit X2 and 4GB of RAM. I've been using Ubuntu 10.04 for the past 2 years on the same machine with no problems at all.

I login to Cinnamon desktop every time. Everything works fine until I get a random crash and I get kicked out to the Login screen. I can always log back to my account.

There is no specific time that passes before the crash happens.

I'm thinking of doing a re-install to see if it solves the issue.

[Ergosys (ergosys)]

Faisal, that sounds like a different problem, but it could be related. In my case, cinnamon goes directly to the crash screen immediately after I log in, and it does this every time.

[Ergosys (ergosys)]

Trying this again, I was able to capture the ~/.xsession-errors log due to a terminal being usable in another monitor while the crash window showed in the main monitor (which only gives the option to logout).

[Michele (mastermitsch)]

Same error how it level323 descripted with my cinnamon. Sometimes a mouse wheel on a pdf lost cinnamon direct the window borders. After re-login are no icons or panel on desktop. No mouseclick and keyshortcut.

bye

[Ergosys (ergosys)]

I found a solution in the forums that worked for me. From the working gnome session run the following command:

gsettings reset-recursively org.cinnamon

Log out, and back in using cinnamon and it now works! Somehow messing about with "Cinnamon Settings" caused the settings to be screwed.

[level323 (level323)]

I can confirm that ergosys' fix worked for me too.

I'm actually thankful for this bug occurring in the first place because it caused me to try KDE. I switched to GNOME years ago when the KDE v3 to v4 transition was breaking everything and hadn't checked it out recently. I have to say that KDE is great again and I'm sticking with it as my main desktop environment for now (it's especially great to have the 'fish' KIO back in my toolbelt too).

That said, I love LMDE and hope it becomes the main Mint distro in future and if the Mint dev's past performance is anything to go by, Cinnamon will just get better and better.

[Ergosys (ergosys)]

I found the particular "Cinnamon Settings" setting that causes this crash. Setting "Desktop layout" to "Flipped (panel at the top)" makes it occur at next login. To restore functionality, I used the following (can be done from gnome-shell login, but I happened to have a still working terminal in the second monitor):

gsettings reset org.cinnamon desktop-layout

Can anyone confirm that this setting causes the problem?

[Ergosys (ergosys)]

Probably this bug: https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/302

[djs (lilypadsandwich)]

I had this problem recently. I believe it had to do with changing the Panel display setting to Classic or Flilpped or something different from the default.

I was getting the same error as above: "Oh no! Something has gone wrong. A problem has occurred and the system can't recover. Please log out and try again."

I was able to log into the Gnome session once, and I tried "gsettings reset-recursively org.cinnamon" to no avail. But then I wasn't able to login to the Gnome session either.

I was able to login again to both sessions after removing the dbus folder from ~/.config/

[Thiago Perrotta (thiago.perrotta-deactivatedaccount)]

Ergosys, I can confirm this bug. I have been playing with the cinnamon panel, I've put it in the top (with the flipped layout) and it has been a priori working fine. But in my next reboot I couldn't log into the normal session of cinnamon; that is, I was always logging into fallback mode. I entered "gsettings reset org.cinnamon desktop-layout" and my problems were gone.

[ubucrates (ubucrates)]

In case anyone is still encountering this problem, the fix can be found by adding the PPA mentioned in the link to your repository.

http://linuxg.net/how-to-install-cinnamon-2-0-on-ubuntu-13-10-13-04-12-10-12-04-linux-mint-15-14-13/

[Wilhelm Eberhard (wep74)]

I have a screenshot of the terminal error message when I tried to restart Cinnamon. Notice I am not using any dual monitor. The error occurs (regularly) while using a desktop with only one monitor.

[Colin James McDermott (colinjamesmcdermott)]

I am having the same or similiar problem.
IBM w510, intel I7 processor model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q 720 @ 1.60GHz
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GT216GLM [Quadro FX 880M] (rev a2)

I have just run the suggested fix above:
gsettings reset-recursively org.cinnamon

Note, in my case this is an intermittant crash. I initially rolled back from Cinnamon to mate. Yet laptop seems to crash. I think it is related to hybernation/idle time. Full symptoms: screen goes blank. Mouse pointer is visible. Wifi light goes a little skits but nothing else happens.

Attaching xorg logs at the time of the crash. (may have to do two posts.

[Colin James McDermott (colinjamesmcdermott)]

ok second post. If this is a different bug please post back and I will create a new insect ticket.

[Colin James McDermott (colinjamesmcdermott)]

Note, this is an initial Cinnamon installation. When we have had stability problem we reverted to mate.

I switched back to Cinnamon, crashed within minutes.

After trying the fix above "gsettings reset org.cinnamon desktop-layout" was not available as even the tty1-6 was not available.

Only occurs on login.

I have switched back to Mate. any other troubleshooting you need let me know.