gnome-control-center wipes out /home/user

[thelinuxguy]

Binary package hint: gnome-control-center

How to reproduce : start gnome-control-center, select (the old) disk-admin icon left behind from dapper, right click with mouse and select "remove starter" from the popup menu. As a result of this, you'll find you're /home/user directory wiped clean ! :-( I've just lost my whole setup and all my documents, just doing these simple steps, I'm lucky to own a recent disc-image of that partition. ;-)

Version info: gnome-control-center, version 1:2.17.4-0ubuntu1
Partion Info: /dev/hda8 - reiserfs, containing /home only
OS: Ubuntu Feisty Fawn

[ville palo (vi64pa)]

So you originally upgraded from dapper? I cannot find any disk-admin icon on my clean feisty installation?

[thelinuxguy (praet-eddy)]

Yes, I upgraded from Dapper to Edgy and then from Edgy to current Feisty
development.
I noteced the old disk-admin icon in gnome-control-center and tried to
remove it by right-clicking the stale icon. Did I know that this would hose
my /home folder ;-) ...

>From: ville palo <email address hidden>
>Reply-To: Bug 78500 <email address hidden>
>To: <email address hidden>
>Subject: [Bug 78500] Re: gnome-control-center wipes out /home/user
>Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 15:00:28 -0000
>
>So you originally upgraded from dapper? I cannot find any disk-admin
>icon on my clean feisty installation?
>
>** Changed in: control-center (Ubuntu)
> Status: Unconfirmed => Needs Info
>
>--
>gnome-control-center wipes out /home/user
>https://launchpad.net/bugs/78500

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[thelinuxguy (praet-eddy)]

Yes, I upgraded for Dapper to Edgy first, and then from Edgy to current Feisty development. One day, I noticed the old disk-admin icon in gnome-control-center and tried to remove this by right-clicking it and selecting "remove starter" in the pop-up menu.
Could I know that this would hose my /home folder ;-) ...

With kind regards,

Eddy Praet
http://www.linux-guy.net

[ville palo (vi64pa)]

Confirmed and marking importance high.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Confirmed? You can trigger that bug too? From where do you get a disk-admin icon to start with? The icon come from the .desktop shipped with the package and there is no disk-admin item with the new versions from that package, if there is a menu item that's an user one. How do you create it?

[thelinuxguy (praet-eddy)]

it must have been an left-over from my earlier Dapper Drake installation and
yes, the file responsible for that icon beeing visible in
gnome-control-center, was indeed located in my /home/user file tree.
(i think it was a .desktop file in /home/user/.local/share/applications)...

With kind regards,

Praet Eddy
http://www.linux-guy.net

>From: Sebastien Bacher <email address hidden>
>Reply-To: Bug 78500 <email address hidden>
>To: <email address hidden>
>Subject: [Bug 78500] Re: gnome-control-center wipes out /home/user
>Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 21:23:46 -0000
>
>Confirmed? You can trigger that bug too? From where do you get a disk-
>admin icon to start with? The icon come from the .desktop shipped with
>the package and there is no disk-admin item with the new versions from
>that package, if there is a menu item that's an user one. How do you
>create it?
>
>** Changed in: control-center (Ubuntu)
> Assignee: (unassigned) => Ubuntu Desktop Bugs
> Status: Confirmed => Needs Info
>
>--
>gnome-control-center wipes out /home/user
>https://launchpad.net/bugs/78500

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[iKs (iks279)]

I can confirm this bug it happened to me.
And the disk admin icon is not the matter, because I tried to remove the Java icon from the list (in fact I didnt read carefully cause, "Remove from Startup Program" was in fact written.

My home just got rested to default (like if I just installed Ubuntu). Thankfully I had just started to configure everything and all my documents were safe but that IS a critical bug..

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

What version of gnome-control-center do you have installed? On my feisty desktop the right click menu has no "Remove from Startup Program" on normal item like the java item, there is an option to add program to the startup list though, after using that one the remove from startup program item is available, using it doesn't remove other files though. Could anybody attach a .desktop triggering that problem?

[thelinuxguy (praet-eddy)]

Version info: gnome-control-center, version 1:2.17.4-0ubuntu1
Partition Info: /dev/sda8 - reiserfs, containing /home only

The exact .desktop file triggering the event is not available to me (as it got wiped by gnome-control-center ;-) but any other .desktop file will do the trick...
See also the discussion going on at http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=340559

With kind regards,

Praet Eddy
www.linux-guy.net

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Could you try with 2.17.5 which is the current version?

[iKs (iks279)]

root@ubuntu:~# aptitude show gnome-control-center
Package: gnome-control-center
State: installed
Automatically installed: no
Version: 1:2.17.5-0ubuntu4

And I still have those "Remove from Startup Programs", for each program. (http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/5597/screenshotcontrolcenterzb3.png)

[thelinuxguy (praet-eddy)]

I'm upgraded to latest packages for gnome-control-center (along with 124 other packages ;-) and I'm sorry to say, this bug rapport still stands !

See also comment from iKs, I confirm his findings...

With kind regards,

Praet Eddy
www.linux-guy.net

[iKs (iks279)]

Do you want me to try to reproduce the bug ?

If so what do you want me to do to make sure we can see where the
problem is ?
And does creating a new user makes it safe enough to try that on my only
machine ? (anyway I'm backing everything up regularly now -_-)

Anyway we have to solve this out..

[David Planella (dpm)]

The same thing happened to me yesterday. After doing the following steps, my home folder was wiped clean. On my system this is reproduceable every time:

1) Start gnome-control-center (System>Control Centre)

2) Right-click on an icon -it doesn't matter which one, you can choose "SCIM Input Method Setup", for example. On the context menu, select "Remove from Startup Programs".

3) After you've done that, you'll see that you cannot start any new graphical applications -i.e. for example, if you start a new terminal, it won't come up.

4) Logout as usual by pressing the button on the top right corner of the gnome panel. You'll notice the "Restart" and "Shut Down" buttons are missing. Choose "Logout".

5) Log back in and realize in despair that your /home/folder has been wiped clean and you're back to the ubuntu defaults. Bash history, evolution mail, tomboy notes, etc.... all gone.

Regarding my system, it is an x86 (P2), which I've been continuously upgrading (Breezy->Dapper->Edgy->Feisty) since I first started with ubuntu. The way I did the upgrade from Edgy to Feisty was by using the 'update-manager'. Afterwards, I've always kept my system up to date with either upgrading from synaptic or by 'sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude dist-upgrade'. The currently installed version of gnome-control-center is 1:2.17.90-0ubuntu1.

Let me know if you require more information, but as I said, at least on my system, this is reproduceable every time.

[Arnold J Noronha (arnold)]

I too confirm this. It affects only the current user.

Mine has been Breezy->Dapper->Edgy->Feisty upgrade, using apt-get update + apt-get dist-upgrade.

I think until this is fixed, it better be Control Center better be removed from the menu :)

--Arnold

[rickmans (rickmans)]

I can confirm this bug too (sadly enough). upgrade was done via gksudo "update-manager -d"

[Luca Falavigna (dktrkranz)]

I attach a backtrace taken just before files are deleted. Hope this helps.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Could you run "gconftool --get /desktop/gnome/applications/main-menu/file-area/user_specified_apps" and copy that to a comment?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Luca, how did you get your backtrace? Could you try to get one with libglib2.0-0-dbg libgnomevfs2-0-dbg gnome-control-center-dbgsym installed?

Does anybody of the people getting that problem know how to debug code? That would be interesting to figure why you get the remove option for program which are not to the startup list

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

The gconf key to get the value from is rather that one: /desktop/gnome/applications/main-menu/file-area/user_startup_dir

[Luca Falavigna (dktrkranz)]

Sebastien, since gnome-control-center deletes files in your home directory, i attached it to gdb and set up a breakpoint in unlink syscall. I will try to get one with the packages you mentioned and I will report it ASAP. Just one question: are you sure about gnome-control-center-dbgsym package? I'm not able to find it.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

The dbgsym are the standard debug packages built for all the packages, you can read about them on https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingProgramCrash

[Luca Falavigna (dktrkranz)]

Here it is.

Launching gconftool produces this output: No value set for /desktop/gnome/applications/main-menu/file-area/user_startup_dir

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you, I know where the bug is now, I'm going to upload a fixed package soon

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

That upload fixes the problem:

 control-center (1:2.17.90-0ubuntu2) feisty; urgency=low
 .
   * debian/patches/80_fix_user_directory_cleanup_when_no_autostart.patch:
     - use xdg autostart dir instead of a gconf key non set by the package,
       fix autostart removal cleaning the user directory when the corresponding
       gconf key has no value (Ubuntu: #78500)