Frequented calls for gconftool --register may corrupt gconf database in an upgrade

[Iain Buclaw]

Binary package hint: gconf

Ignore that I'm calling this from Karmic, this happened through the entire development of Lucid too.

OK, here are the facts for clarification:
1: I'm using a Btrfs root system

2. Frequent or Large updates to the system appear to corrupt the gconf database in /var/lib/gconf
  Visible tell tale signs are:
  a. Gnome icons resort to ugly gnome defaults
  b. GTK theming goes too.
  c. Wallpaper
  d. Anything else you can name that refers to the Gnome "look and feel".

This affects both the gnome login session and gdm themes.

  Not-so visible tell tale signs:
  e. Gconf Keys/Schemas go missing
  f. Gconf Keys/Schemas don't take effect when setting values. (ie: changing wallpaper)

See also: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-panel/+bug/542883

The fix always in these cases are to run:
  gconftool-2 --register-all

3. Fault is easily reproducible, simply waiting until there are about 50+ updates available, and then upgrade the entire system in one big batch is enough to invoke the effect of it. No need to reboot, simply logout to see a change to GDM, and login to see a change to your Gnome Session.

4. No other distribution, to my knowledge has this issue. I have never had problems with Fedora/Archlinux.

Having a look at a few rpm packages, Fedora looks to instead use:
  export GCONF_CONFIG_SOURCE=`gconftool-2 --get-default-source`
  gconftool-2 --makefile-install-rule $schema

On every schema in the package, as opposed to Debian/Ubuntu's '--register' command. Am not the one to say whether or not this might be slower, it has never failed once when using Btrfs as the root filesystem.

Perhaps it is in fact the fault of Btrfs, perhaps I'm way off with my logic, but I still a case needs to be raised, as this may start to effect more than just one or two die-hard Btrfs users in the near future as it's popularity grows.

Regards

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Sun May 23 20:32:30 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: gconf2 2.28.0-0ubuntu2
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-16.53-generic
SourcePackage: gconf
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-16-generic i686
XsessionErrors: (polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:18302): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `initialization_value != 0' failed

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

thank you for your bug report, seems rather a filesystem issue than a gconf one, note that the maverick gconf uses a trigger