Ubuntu theme switches from partially broken to gnome default on VirtualBox guest

[Ethan Bissett]

I've been using VirtualBox to test 11.04 alpha builds. Since alpha 1 I have noticed that on both the Classic Desktop and Unity (if the VBox 3d guest drivers are installed) the GTK theme starts off slightly off. All the panel icons appear dark gray. Then after a few seconds the entire theme reverts to the gnome defaults (only window decorations are unaffected). Every once in a while I'll login and it won't happen but more often I get the same behavior.

I'll post some pictures I have of it shortly. I'm currently using VirtualBox 4.0.4 running on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS to run my Natty VMs. This bug was filed against a clean install of Alpha 3, where I did a single update, and did not install the VirtualBox guest extensions.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: xorg 1:7.6~3ubuntu11
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-5.32-generic 2.6.38-rc6
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-5-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: [core,bailer,detection,composite,opengl,decor,mousepoll,vpswitch,regex,animation,snap,expo,move,compiztoolbox,place,grid,imgpng,gnomecompat,wall,ezoom,workarounds,staticswitcher,resize,fade,unitymtgrabhandles,scale,session,unityshell]
CompositorRunning: None
Date: Thu Mar 3 20:14:17 2011
DistUpgraded: Fresh install
DistroCodename: natty
DistroVariant: ubuntu
GdmLog2:

GraphicsCard: InnoTek Systemberatung GmbH VirtualBox Graphics Adapter [80ee:beef] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Alpha amd64 (20110302)
Lsusb:
 Bus 001 Device 002: ID 80ee:0021
 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
MachineType: innotek GmbH VirtualBox
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.38-5-generic root=UUID=f13b95f2-4d12-4dd1-8c12-23dd5a1121b0 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
Renderer: Unknown
SourcePackage: xorg
Symptom: display
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 12/01/2006
dmi.bios.vendor: innotek GmbH
dmi.bios.version: VirtualBox
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvninnotekGmbH:bvrVirtualBox:bd12/01/2006:svninnotekGmbH:pnVirtualBox:pvr1.2:
dmi.product.name: VirtualBox
dmi.product.version: 1.2
dmi.sys.vendor: innotek GmbH
version.compiz: compiz 1:0.9.4-0ubuntu3
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.23-1ubuntu3
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 7.10.1~git20110215.cc1636b6-0ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg: xserver-xorg 1:7.6~3ubuntu11
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.14.0-0ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.14.0-4ubuntu1
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:0.0.16+git20110107+b795ca6e-0ubuntu5

[Ethan Bissett (draimus-deactivatedaccount)]

Sorry I got my attachments mixed up. The previous one is AFTER the gnome theme reverts. This one is BEFORE the theme reverts.

[Ethan Bissett (draimus-deactivatedaccount)]

I also would like to note that neither my Dell Mini 10v (intel GPU) nor my T61p (nvidia GPU) exhibit this problem when running a Natty alpha.

[Ethan Bissett (draimus-deactivatedaccount)]

The condition resets if I log out and log back in. Also the gnome terminal theme also reverts from the ubuntu theme to the standard gnome theme.

[Zuzkins (zuzkins-gmail)]

I'm also hit by this bug, using it as mine main OS i get theme reverted back to default after every login, after few seconds. I can get the panel decoration back killing gnome-settings-daemon and restarting it, but the icons and overall theme is the default one. Just the window title seems to have the right decoration.

[Ethan Bissett (draimus-deactivatedaccount)]

Is it the gnome-settings-daemon? Thanks. I spent about an hour digging around to figure out what was actually managing the active theme and couldn't come up with anything definitive, so I initially filed it as a display issue (which snagged a bunch of xorg data).

[Ethan Bissett (draimus-deactivatedaccount)]

Maybe this is the culprit.

[wavded (wavded)]

same issue here :( killing gnome-settings-daemon did nothing

[Jesse Palser (jessepalser)]

Hi, have this issue too. I made a small YouTube video displaying this bug: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1HWwHhZeTE Please fix it before Beta 1, thanks!

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

thank you for your bug report, could you add the .xsession-errors of the session after getting the issue?

[Jesse Palser (jessepalser)]

Please fix this bug - its the only reason stopping me from installing Ubuntu 11.04 Alpha 4 64bit natively onto my computer systems (currently running it in a VirtualBox virtual machine).

[Maxim Levitsky (maximlevitsky)]

Yep, have exactly same issue.

As I suspected from point 0, this is the gnome-settings daemon crash (rather hang more correctly).

To 'fix' the problem temporarily I did:

# the SIGKILL is importaint, because the program seems to be hung completely and ignores SIGTERM
killall -9 gnome-settings-daemon
gnome-settings-daemon.

#At that point panel looks ok, but nautilus not, so
#Then restart nautilus as it seems not to pick the change
killall nautilus

I bet that this is a race condition just happened to be exposed by slow virtual CPU.

[Maxim Levitsky (maximlevitsky)]

OK, any update?

[Zuzkins (zuzkins-gmail)]

For me, this issue seems to be fixed. Haven't seen this problem manifesting itself at least for a week.

[Stapel (wstapelberg)]

This is still a problem for me. I'm running Natty in a VirtualBox virtual machine. This happens EVERY time I log in. I have seen it once happen with my Meerkat host as well.

[Maxim Levitsky (maximlevitsky)]

BTW, Accidentally I found a clue about that bug.
It seems that gnome-settings daemon that serves gdm, interferes with user's gnome-settings-daemon.

If I ssh in, and do 'sudo killall -9 gnome-settings-daemon', while log-in screen is presented, the system comes up normally.
As a workaround I even added this to /etc/X11/Xsession.d.
(However due to the fact that shell script from the above folder runs as the users and gnome-settings-daemon from gdm runs as 'gdm' user, I had to use sudo in that screen, but since sudo asks for a password, I did a gross-horror securety hack, by making sudo not ask for a password - for VM for now, it shouldn't matter.

[Ethan Bissett (draimus-deactivatedaccount)]

I've tried manually killing gnome-settings-daemon before login. I can confirm this allows the user's desktop to be properly themed. There must be a subtle race condition that is exploited more easily in a VirtualBox VM. I've run Natty on 2 different computers and VirtualBox is the only place the problem occurs for me.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

is that still an issue with

gnome-settings-daemon (2.32.1-0ubuntu12) natty; urgency=low

  * debian/patches/93_wait_for_xsettings.patch:
    - Add patch to avoid race condition between gdm's gnome-settings-daemon
      and user's (LP: #649809)

[Ethan Bissett (draimus-deactivatedaccount)]

Yes it is. I confirmed that version is installed and when I rebooted I still had a broken theme on login.

[Stapel (wstapelberg)]

I can also confirm that it is still a problem with gnome-settings-daemon (2.32.1-0ubuntu12).

[Yuvi Masory (ymasory)]

I believe System76 has a fix to this. See src/misc.py in their driver in version 2.6.1 here: http://planet76.com/repositories/

Here is the comment to their python function gnomeThemeRace:
    """On fast machines with nVidia graphics, a race condition causes the theme to not apply.
    A 2 second pause on gnome-settings start works around the bug"""

[exactt (giesbert)]

I can see this problem too but on regular systems running Maverick as well as Natty. gnome-settings-daemon still running on both systems.

I would suggest to change the title and remove the VirtualBox stuff.

Anything else I can provide? apport-collect?

[tomazzi (tomazzi-wp)]

Hi
What I've observed is that "by default" (after logging and when theme is dropped) theme settings are not changing "one the fly", but when I kill gnome-settings-daemon and start it again with:
: gnome-settings-daemon --debug --no-daemon
then everything works as expected, theme is restored immediately and it changes on-the-fly while selecting different ones.

from log, after theme was dropped:
gdm-binary[922]: WARNING: Unable to find users: no seat-id found
gdm-simple-greeter[1042]: Gtk-WARNING: /build/buildd/gtk+2.0-2.24.4/gtk/gtkwidget.c:5687: widget not within a GtkWindow
gdm-simple-greeter[1042]: WARNING: Unable to load CK history: no seat-id found
gdm-session-worker[1043]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_value_get_boolean: assertion `G_VALUE_HOLDS_BOOLEAN (value)' failed

It's 11.04 beta2 32bit, downloaded today, updates applied, inside VM, vesafb.

[Javed A Rahman (s.kaniff)]

This bug is on Ubuntu 11.04 final release as well. Downloaded the final CD.. Installed in Virtualbox and hit this issue straight away.

[Phurter (johnmckinzie)]

I did a distro upgrade to 11.04 64-bit final on native hardware and I saw this issue immediately.

[Zuzkins (zuzkins-gmail)]

I've followed the path of the proposed patch by comment #23, so
i edited
/etc/xdg/autostart/gnome-settings-daemon.desktop
and changed the line starting with Exec to look like this
Exec=/usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gnome-settings-daemon-sleep
then i've created the file /usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gnome-settings-daemon-sleep with this contents:
#! /bin/bash
sleep 2;
/usr/lib/gnome-settings-daemon/gnome-settings-daemon
which makes my themes not getting crashed after each login (using it for like 14days and haven't seen one crash since then). (remember to make the file executable)

Maybe you guys can use it as workaround for now.

Cheers

[Kamil Rowiński (spajderix)]

Updated to 11.04 64bit and affects me also.

Kudos for Zuzkins. Followed the steps with the exception of sleep 3; and works like a charm.

[AaronMT (aaron-train)]

Affected by this bug after fresh install of 11.04 via VMWare Fusion

[Tom van der Heijden (t-v-d-heijden-deactivatedaccount)]

I'm also effected by this bug. Running a fresh and fully updated install
of Natty in VirtualBox.
However, the workaround as described by Zuzkins does not work for me.
Still get the broken theme after a few seconds. I also tried to increase
to sleep 5, but without effect.

Will try to do a fresh install on native hardware on short-term to see
if I get the same result.

[Dante Díaz (dante)]

Is not a solution, but:

$ sudo gnome-settings-daemon --debug --no-daemon
and
$ killall nautilus

Work for me.
A temporary solution.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the issue there seems similar to bug #649809

[Rodrigo Moya (rodrigo-moya)]

Yes, this is really the same issue as bug #649809, so marking as duplicate. For people seeing this bug in real machines (that is, no VirtualBox, VMWare, etc), what video drivers do you have? Please add any comment to bug #649809

[Ethan Bissett (draimus-deactivatedaccount)]

Since installing 11.04 on my Thinkpad T61p last week I've seen this twice. Not nearly as often as my VirtualBox VMs. Currently my laptop uses nvidia-current 270.41.06-0ubuntu1.

[Zac Canoy (zacpac2020)]

(not a vm) On my old laptop, the same thing was happening, so I went through and uninstalled gnome and unity, and re-installed gnome 2 in xfce the hard way through the terminal. I had to resolve all of the dependencies myself, and it took some time, but now everything is fine. I did have to reset the gnome-panel settings, though.