nautilus desktop crashes when called with --no-desktop

[Fork]

When calling nautilus with the --no-desktop flag in Ubuntu 16.10 while it is already running, the existing desktop stops responding. All icons disappear, and the desktop doesn't react to mouse input.

nautilus may or may not throw the following error:

(nautilus:3723): GLib-GIO-CRITICAL **: g_dbus_interface_skeleton_unexport: assertion 'interface_->priv->connections != NULL' failed

(nautilus:3723): GLib-GIO-CRITICAL **: g_dbus_interface_skeleton_unexport: assertion 'interface_->priv->connections != NULL' failed

This is relevant since e.g. the Dropbox indicator calls nautilus this way, resulting in the desktop crashing.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[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.

[Fork (nicolas-diener)]

Note that nautilus in its entirety does not crash. nautilus windows will function normally.

However, the desktop becomes nonfunctional (all icons disappear and the desktop does not respond to the mouse).

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the bug description is confusing then, could you update it? also could you quit nautilus, start it again, get the bug and copy the log?

[Fork (nicolas-diener)]

Updated.

Which log? The command line output is in the description, the backtrace is in comment #4. nautilus doesn't appear to write to /var/log.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the output suggests nautilus was already active and it just attached the previous instance, you can use nautilus -q; nautilus to start a new one

[Fork (nicolas-diener)]

Hm, weird. There was no message this time when the desktop disappeared.

I have included the output of the nautilus startup.

[Fork (nicolas-diener)]

This issue actually appears to be a regression: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus-dropbox/+bug/1453655

I'm reluctant to mark the bug as duplicate, though, since the other issue is version-specific and marked as closed.

[mark simko (thndrbck)]

To confirm, this behavior is also happening on my system too. Ubuntu 16.10
When I open Dropbox from the indicator panel, all desktop icons disappear. Cannot be brought back unless I log out and log back in.
Does not happen if I open dropbox folder from Nautilus (file manager) directly.

[Giovanni Premuda (gpremuda)]

Same here on 17.04. I cannot actually use the Dropbox icon from the indicator panel as it doesn't display a menu, but rubbing nautilus --no-desktop open a single nautilus window but kills the desktop.
If I subsequently run nautilus from Alt-F2 I get:

(nautilus:5292): GLib-GIO-CRITICAL **: g_dbus_interface_skeleton_unexport: assertion 'interface_->priv->connections != NULL' failed

(nautilus:5292): GLib-GIO-CRITICAL **: g_dbus_interface_skeleton_unexport: assertion 'interface_->priv->connections != NULL' failed

but a nautilus window gets opened, again without desktop. When I close it and run nautilus again from Alt-F2 the Desktop reappears

[Selim (selim-raboudi)]

I have exactly the same problem as mark simko (16.10, desktop icons disappearing etc)