gnome-settings-daemon crashes when started in NX session

[Eugene San]

gnome-settings-daemon crashes when started in NX session.

(gnome-settings-daemon:20586): Gdk-WARNING **: The program 'gnome-settings-daemon' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'XSyncBadCounter'.
  (Details: serial 195 error_code 146 request_code 137 minor_code 5)
  (Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
   that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
   To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line
   option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
   backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)

Could you open another bug for it?

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: gnome-settings-daemon 3.2.0-0ubuntu4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.19-generic-pae 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic-pae i686
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu2
Architecture: i386
Date: Tue Oct 4 18:08:04 2011
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Beta i386 (20110901)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnome-settings-daemon
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please try to obtain a backtrace following the instructions at http://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingProgramCrash and upload the backtrace (as an attachment) to the bug report. This will greatly help us in tracking down your problem.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

The way to get a stacktrace is basically to install libglib2.0-0-dbgsym libgtk-3-0dbgsym and gnome-settings-daemon-dbgsym and run:
- gdb gnome-settings-daemon
(gdb) break gdk_x_error
(gdb) run --sync
... it should stop on the error
(gdb) bt

[Eugene San (eugenesan)]

I've tried to follow your instructions, but without success.
Any suggestions?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
xxx@host:~$ gdb gnome-settings-daemon
GNU gdb (Ubuntu/Linaro 7.3-0ubuntu2) 7.3-2011.08
Copyright (C) 2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. Type "show copying"
and "show warranty" for details.
This GDB was configured as "i686-linux-gnu".
For bug reporting instructions, please see:
<http://bugs.launchpad.net/gdb-linaro/>...
Reading symbols from /usr/bin/gnome-settings-daemon...(no debugging symbols found)...done.
(gdb) break gdk_x_error
Function "gdk_x_error" not defined.
Make breakpoint pending on future shared library load? (y or [n])
(gdb) run --sync
Starting program: /usr/bin/gnome-settings-daemon --sync
[Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]

** (gnome-settings-daemon:15990): WARNING **: Unknown option --sync
[Inferior 1 (process 15990) exited with code 01]
(gdb) bt
No stack.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

sorry it seems that changed in gtk3: http://git.gnome.org/browse/gtk+/commit/?id=902fd60a86e8e40b87b4ea0c4a8a9dd04f2f8d08

so rather do "export GDK_SYNCHRONIZE=1" before running gdb, then don't use the --sync option

[Shelby Cain (alyandon)]

I'm being impacted by this as well with the x2go server + client. For whatever reason when I attempt to install the *-dbgsym packages listed in your suggestion they don't appear to exist. Is there a particular repository I need to have enabled to install them?

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

This crashes because NX doesn't have an IDLETIME counter, and g-s-d just assumes the availability of it, despite this warning:

(gnome-settings-daemon:19148): power-plugin-WARNING **: No idle counter

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

Note, minor code 5 is XSyncQueryCounter, so this is a crash in gpm_idletime_get_time

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thank you for your bug report. This bug has been reported to the developers of the software. You can track it and make comments at:
 https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=661000

[Shelby Cain (alyandon)]

I made a quick and dirty hack to work around this issue as described in the upstream bug report. Not really a workable solution for anyone that doesn't use NX though.

[Shelby Cain (alyandon)]

I tested the upstream patch and it appears to resolve this issue.

[Eugene San (eugenesan)]

Upstream patch solves the problem.

Patched package for testing can be found here:
https://launchpad.net/~eugenesan/+archive/boiler/+sourcepub/1978873/+listing-archive-extra

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

It should be fixed with this version:
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-settings-daemon/3.2.1-0ubuntu1

Could you test and give feedback here. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Thank you in advance!

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

could you try the new version?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

setting to fix released, it should be fixed in the newer versions

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

oneiric has seen the end of its life and is no longer receiving any updates. Marking the oneiric task for this ticket as "Won't Fix".