gnome-shell --replace does not work: Can't initialize KMS backend: Could not get session ID: No such file or directory

[LGB [Gábor Lénárt]]

gnome-shell --replace does not work and reports:

(gnome-shell:15848): mutter-WARNING **: Can't initialize KMS backend: Could not get session ID: No such file or directory

(gnome-shell:16495): mutter-WARNING **: Can't initialize KMS backend: Could not get session ID: No such file or directory

(gnome-shell:4910): mutter-WARNING **: Can't initialize KMS backend: Could not get session ID: No such file or directory

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 17.04
Package: gnome-shell 3.24.2-0ubuntu0.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.10.0-25.29-generic 4.10.17
Uname: Linux 4.10.0-25-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.4-0ubuntu4.2
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: GNOME
Date: Mon Jun 26 09:03:06 2017
DisplayManager: gdm3
InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-07-10 (716 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 15.04 "Vivid Vervet" - Release i386 (20150422)
SourcePackage: gnome-shell
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to zesty on 2017-06-20 (5 days ago)

[LGB [Gábor Lénárt] (lgb)]

I don't know anything about gnome internals, but with trying to strace, I see this:

getpeername(2, 0x7ffec62742e0, 0x7ffec62742dc) = -1 ENOTSOCK (Socket operation on non-socket)

which is odd, since stderr is not a socket usually, indeed ...

Other than that, the mentioned error message can be found here, after trying to "apt source" some gnome specific packages:

mutter-3.24.1/src/backends/native/meta-launcher.c

in function get_session_proxy()

Though for sure, I have exactly zero knowledge about these :-/

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[dino99 (9d9)]

@Daniel

this is what i get now with fresh artful & bionic installs: i can only login with Xorg, when sometimes ago, with the same hardware & a zesty -> artful dist-upgrade, wayland was used without problem.

So is mutter faulty here, or ubuntu-drivers-common or libinput, as the system choose the fallback way (which is wrong: skylake gt2 igp (only))

But setting to 'low' priority might be set higher as wayland is the default now.

 sudo dbus-run-session -- gnome-shell --display-server --wayland
[sudo] password for oem:

(gnome-shell:3724): mutter-WARNING **: Can't initialize KMS backend: Could not get session ID: No such file or directory

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Is this bug still present in the final release of 18.04 or later? The 'bionic' tag was added in 2017.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for gnome-shell (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for mutter (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]