Cannot change wallpaper after showing/hiding desktop

[Matthew Dwyer]

In Gnome, I lose the ability to change my wallpaper if I show or hide desktop icons.

I am using Ubuntu hardy (development branch) 8.04

To replicate the bug do the following;
1. Confirm that you can change desktop wallpaper (system/preferences/appearance/background)
2. Now run gconf-editor and edit apps/nautilus/preferences and tick or clear show_desktop
3. Try to change your wallpaper as before. It doesn't change.
4. Repeat step 2 toggling show_desktop.
5. Try to change your wallpaper as before. It should change this time.

[Matthew Dwyer (smegzor)]

My problem is slightly different from what I described above in that I can only change wallpaper with my desktop showing. No amount of toggling show_desktop helps me, but that works for others.
I recently deleted .gconf which got wallpaper changing working until I hid the desktop. I am just going to delete icons manually for now.

[xtknight (xt-knight)]

Confirmed Hardy amd64. My wallpaper updates immediately after I toggle show_desktop in step 4. That's like the signal to repaint.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report. Did you restart the session after changing the key value? When you do that you tell nautilus to stop handling the wallpaper but if nothing else is doing this job the behaviour you describe is normal, the setting change will not dynamically start an another software

[Matthew Dwyer (smegzor)]

I unticked show_desktop and logged out. After logging in again I cannot change my wallpaper via gnome or any other means. The only time it now changes is when I start the session.
If I clear show_desktop and log out, I can change my wallpaper. At least in my case, the only time I can change wallpaper is when nautilus is set to show desktop. It is consistently broken for me with the desktop hidden no matter if I log out or not.

[Matthew Dwyer (smegzor)]

I am using Ubuntu amd64 8.04

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

do you run an another software that should update the wallpaper since you stopped the GNOME one? it seems it's doing what you are asking for, stopping drawing on your background

[Matthew Dwyer (smegzor)]

I've been running Webilder since before this bug appeared. I never had a problem on Ubuntu amd64 7.10
With the bug in force, Webilder cannot change the wallpaper, neither can Gnome. Gnome registry gets updated but the change only occurs if I restart X.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'its doing what I'm asking for' I want to be able to change the wallpaper whether or not Gnome is displaying the desktop. My understanding is that the setting show_desktop shows or hides desktop icons, but the desktop wallpaper which is visible either way, should be changeable at all times. My experience is that wallpaper is only changeable with show_desktop enabled.

When I upgraded, I first did a distribution upgrade but that failed, so then i used the Hardy cd keeping my home partition intact. Since encountering the wallpaper bug, I have hidden .gconf to force Gnome to rebuild it. I hope this info helps.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

unconfirmed for now, I'm not sure to understand how you want to background to be updated if nautilus is not drawing it and that's a low priority issue for hardy, to confirm and send upstream by somebody else getting the bug

[manatlan (manatlan)]

got exactly the same trouble (and we are many)
I'd posted here : https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+bug/224076
but it seems it's exactly the same thing ...

wallpaper changes only if "show_desktop" is checked ;-(

any workaround ?

[manatlan (manatlan)]

more infos :
http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-gnome-maintainers/2008-March/043602.html

[Matthew Dwyer (smegzor)]

Hi manatlan,

I have had working wallpaper ever since filing this bug. My solution was to have gnome set to show desktop. That means I have icons visible, but I simply move or delete them to get wallpaper I can change at will and no icons.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the issue has been fixed upstream now

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

upstream bug http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=531487

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Accepted into -proposed, please test and give feedback here

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Verification done:

- with gnome-settings-daemon 2.22.1-0ubuntu1 after followed the test case, and clear the show_desktop key the wallpaper can't be changed.
- with gnome-settings-daemon 2.22.1-0ubuntu2 (proposed), followed the test case, the wallpaper can be changed after clear the show_desktop key, bug is fixed.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Copied to hardy-updates.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the bug is fixed in intrepid too now

[manatlan (manatlan)]

in fact, the bug persist in hardy when you have checked composity in metacity on gconf-editor.
It seems it miss a redraw event ...

[Jeff Fortin Tam (kiddo)]

I am still experiencing this bug in an up to date hardy, with either compiz or metacity (without compositing) on an intel i915 with nautilus not showing the desktop. What more info can I provide?

[Jeff Fortin Tam (kiddo)]

actually I think it's due to the gnome-appearance-properties thing eating 100% cpu.

[Jeff Fortin Tam (kiddo)]

nevermind, it was fixed in an update today.

[Demosthenes (demosthenes)]

works for me.. I un-ticked 'Show Desktop' and I can now change the background - and XPlanet is also updating the background as well.