chromium-browser deletes modified autostart files

[Reuben Thomas]

Chromium does not have X session support; see http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=23001

However, if you configure it to run in the background, then it installs a ~/.config/autostart/ file. This combined with configuring to restore windows on startup would give effectively session management, but for one small problem: the autostart file is created with --no-startup-window. This makes sense, because the configuration item is to run Chromium in the background.

However, if I then edit the command in gnome-session-properties, then on next startup, Chromium REMOVES the autostart file! This is bad behaviour: apps should not modify or remove configuration files once the user has edited them (for example, consider the management of configuration files under /etc when packages are upgraded).

Hence, if Chromium were simply prevented from changing the autostart file if it is user-edited (i.e. has non-default contents), then it would be possible to get effective session management, even without explicit support for XSM.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: chromium-browser 22.0.1229.94~r161065-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-17.28-generic 3.5.5
Uname: Linux 3.5.0-17-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
Date: Wed Oct 24 13:11:32 2012
Desktop-Session:
 DESKTOP_SESSION = gnome
 XDG_CONFIG_DIRS = /etc/xdg/xdg-gnome:/home/rrt/local/etc/xdg:/etc/xdg
 XDG_DATA_DIRS = /usr/share/gnome:/usr/local/share/:/usr/share/
DiskUsage:
 b'Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on\n/dev/sda1 ext4 451G 149G 280G 35% /\nudev devtmpfs 3.9G 4.0K 3.9G 1% /dev\ntmpfs tmpfs 1.6G 1.2M 1.6G 1% /run\nnone tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock\nnone tmpfs 3.9G 3.0M 3.9G 1% /run/shm\nnone tmpfs 100M 0 100M 0% /run/user\ncgroup tmpfs 3.9G 0 3.9G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup\n'

 Inodes:
 b'Filesystem Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on\n/dev/sda1 29M 1.5M 28M 6% /\nudev 984K 606 984K 1% /dev\ntmpfs 987K 546 987K 1% /run\nnone 987K 2 987K 1% /run/lock\nnone 987K 15 987K 1% /run/shm\nnone 987K 1 987K 1% /run/user\ncgroup 987K 9 987K 1% /sys/fs/cgroup\n'
Env:
 MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH = None
 LD_LIBRARY_PATH = None
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release amd64 (20110427.1)
SourcePackage: chromium-browser
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to quantal on 2012-10-19 (4 days ago)
chromium-default: CHROMIUM_FLAGS=""
gconf-keys: /desktop/gnome/applications/browser/exec = b'/usr/bin/chromium-browser\n'/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/https/command = b'/usr/bin/chromium-browser --new-window %U\n'/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/https/enabled = b'false\n'/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/http/command = b'/usr/bin/chromium-browser --new-window %U\n'/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/http/enabled = b'false\n'/desktop/gnome/session/required_components/windowmanager = b'compiz\n'/apps/metacity/general/compositing_manager = b''/desktop/gnome/interface/icon_theme = b'gnome\n'/desktop/gnome/interface/gtk_theme = b'Clearlooks\n'

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

We are sorry that we do not always have the capacity to review all reported bugs in a timely manner. You reported this bug some time ago and there have been many changes in Ubuntu since that time.

Do you still see a problem related to the one that you reported using currently supported versions of Chromium and Ubuntu? Please let us know if you do and in which version of Ubuntu otherwise this report can be left to expire in approximately 60 days time.

Thank you for helping make Ubuntu better.

Paul White
[Ubuntu Bug Squad]

[Reuben Thomas (rrt)]

As far as I can tell, this is no longer a problem. In particular, I have a ~/.config/autostart/chromium-browser.desktop file with a timestamp from 2017, and it is set to run Chromium normally (without --no-startup-window).

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

Thanks for your reply. There were other reported issues around that time but couldn't find anything to confirm that they had been fixed. Closing this one now.