Unable to configure Administration menu

[Paul Bransford]

In Ubuntu 8.04.1, the Administration menu under System is not configurable. I am attempting this process:

1. Right click Applications on the top-left of the screen, next to the Ubuntu logo
2. Choose Edit Menus
3. Navigate to System -> Administration
4. Check/Uncheck anything

What happens is, a moment (sometimes as long as a second) after I check/uncheck something on this list, it reverts itself. This for instance means I have to manually run "gksu /usr/sbin/gdmsetup" should I want to enable remote logins, or other such tweaks.

Screenshot of the dialog in question is attached. I do not know what package this would be considered, but I don't think this is the fault of the menu editor itself, rather something wrong with the files it is attempting to alter.

[Uwe L. Korn (uwelk)]

Thanks for your bug report, but I can't confirm it for 8.04.1, amd64.

Is there maybe a error about this in ~/.xsession-errors?

[Paul Bransford (draeath)]

No errors appeared in ~/.xsession-errors.

I've since wiped and reinstalled the system - for other reasons. The issue is still present for me.

[Uwe L. Korn (uwelk)]

1. Which platform do you use(x86, amd64, ..)?
2. Could you please post the output of 'apt-cache policy alacarte'...

[Paul Bransford (draeath)]

My platform is amd64

Output of apt-cache policy alacarte:

alacarte:
  Installed: 0.11.5-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 0.11.5-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 0.11.5-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://mirrors.easynews.com hardy/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

[Uwe L. Korn (uwelk)]

The same version as mine, so it possibly could be a problem with an other program, probably a backend.

[Paul Bransford (draeath)]

How do I check to see what alacarte is doing, and then see if anything
else is touching those files?

[aniket n (ace-alchemist)]

I am having the same problem. Also, the unlock button on windows such as time settings etc. does not work. can that be related to this? I am running hardy 64bit on an intel based hp laptop.

[Phil M (unmobile+ubuntu)]

I'm seeing this same problem in part in 8.10, and saw it in 8.04. I'm running on x86, with alacarte version 0.11.6-0ubuntu2. I have full sudo privs here (I'm the only user), but I'm not prompted at any point.

Here's what doesn't work:
- In the Applications menu, I cannot enable items (submenus) that are not already enabled. I've tried to enable both Debian and Programming, and they untick themselves after a few seconds or further interaction. They never go from the small-italic font to the larger upright font of active items.

Everything else seems to operate just fine, though my memory is that it was worse before I upgraded from 8.04. If there's been no action on this front in another week or two, I'll have convenient access to an 8.04 machine on which to test further, to help track down what this comes from.

[fermo111 (fermo111)]

I solved this problem adding my user to the 'admin' group

[Phil M (unmobile+ubuntu)]

That's not a usable workaround - menus should be completely configurable on a per-user basis. It's particularly bad for users who legitimately don't have administrative privileges, and so want to make all that crap they can't use not appear in their menus.

[Uwe L. Korn (uwelk)]

Before someone closes this bug:

I think this is still problem because the user doesn't know that he can't edit these menu parts, so I think the best solution is when the entries that are read-only for the user should mark on such ways that they may have a different background colour or a greyed checkbox.

[Bernard Decock (decockbernard)]

I have this bug again with the latest upgrade to Xubuntu12.10