nautilus won't start unless with sudo because of eel:error

[Monika Pawlowska]

Binary package hint: nautilus

nautilus won't start in ubuntu 8.04 after installing updates on May 30th (installed version of nautilus package: 1:2.22.3-0ubuntu2)

monika@monika-laptop:~$ nautilus
seahorse nautilus module initialized
Initializing nautilus-share extension
**
** Eel:ERROR:(eel-preferences.c:106):preferences_gconf_value_get_bool: assertion failed: (value->type == GCONF_VALUE_BOOL)
Aborted

sudo nautilus works even though there is a warning:

monika@monika-laptop:~$ sudo nautilus
seahorse nautilus module initialized
Initializing nautilus-share extension

** (nautilus:12418): WARNING **: Unable to add monitor: Operation not supported
Nautilus-Share-Message: Called "net usershare info" but it failed: "net usershare" zwrócił błąd 255: net usershare: cannot open usershare directory /var/lib/samba/usershares. Error No such file or directory
Please ask your system administrator to enable user sharing.

[hcgoh (hcgoh)]

I encounter the same problem after the updates..

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thanks for your bug report. Please try to obtain a backtrace http://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingProgramCrash and attach the file to the bug report. This will greatly help us in tracking down your problem.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

what locale do you use? do you get the issue using a different user? seems that your users as a wrong configuration value stored somewhere

[Fiandri (fiandri)]

It seems I have a similar problem: http://pastebin.ubuntu.com/15980/.

[Monika Pawlowska (monika-kopernik)]

This is my backtrace

[Monika Pawlowska (monika-kopernik)]

Ok, so I created a completely new user and run nautilus. It works. Apparently it is configuration of my user. Can you give me any help with restoring correct configuration? I didn't make any changes directly before the crash so I have no idea what change is the problem & can't undo it.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

could you run "gconftool-2 --get /apps/nautilus/desktop/trash_icon_visible" and copy the value to a comment?

[Monika Pawlowska (monika-kopernik)]

the value I get is 0

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

does changing it to a boolean value using gconf-editor fix the issue? did you change this value before and how?

[Monika Pawlowska (monika-kopernik)]

yes, it fixes the problem!

I didn't know how to change type - in "Modify" the type was visible, but not possible to change - so I just hit "Clean key" and it changed to boolean. I did the same to the next key volumes_visible, it also had value 0 and it seemed to me it should be boolean. Now nautilus runs.

I certainly didn't change this key by hand, didn't edit any config files. About a week ago I was playing with the look of my desktop and installed some packages (unfortunately I don't remember thier names now). Maybe some package I installed changed the config, but at first it worked OK - I would notice if nautilus won't start - and then after an update stopped working.

Thank you, Sebastien!

[Stew (stew-schneider)]

I've got the same problem. The error is:

stewart@stewart:/var/log$ nautilus
seahorse nautilus module initialized
Initializing nautilus-share extension
**
** Eel:ERROR:(eel-preferences.c:116):preferences_gconf_value_get_string: assertion failed: (value->type == GCONF_VALUE_STRING)
Aborted

Running as root,
stewart@stewart:~$ sudo nautilus
[sudo] password for stewart:
seahorse nautilus module initialized
Initializing nautilus-share extension

** (nautilus:6413): WARNING **: Unable to add monitor: Operation not supported

changed my desktop background to default and correctly ran Nautilus. In gconf-editor, both trash_icon_visible and volumes_visible are boolean and true. Other keys: computer_icon_name has no value, computer_icon_visible is boolean false, home_icon_name has no value, home_icon_visible is boolean false, network_icon_name has no value, network_icon_visible is boolean false, trash_icon_name is 0.

Kind of hope we can get right on this. I have a bunch of machines that are going to start calling me early tomorrow morning!

stew

[Stew (stew-schneider)]

My backtrace attached

[Stew (stew-schneider)]

As Monika reported, an entirely new user with administrative properties can run nautilus correctly. The error is in some configuration of my main account.

stew

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

did you try unsetting the gconf value mentionned before using gconf-editor?

[Stew (stew-schneider)]

I'm not clear on how to do that. I did find that if I remove the checkmark before trash_icon_visible, Nautilus runs, but, of course, I have no trash icon. If I return the checkmark, nautilus stops. Could you tell me please how I should go about implementing your suggestion? In small words, please (grin)

stew

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

how do you change the preference? toggling the boolean value in gconf-editor has no reason to change the type and create an issue

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

ah, your screenshot show that the trash_icon_name is set to 0 which is likely creating the issue, how did you change this one? does unsetting this key fixes the issue?

[Stew (stew-schneider)]

Sebastien Bacher wrote:
> how do you change the preference? toggling the boolean value in gconf-
> editor has no reason to change the type and create an issue
>
>
I'm sorry --- I don't understand. From a terminal, I ran gconf-editor. I
found apps|nautilus|desktop and clicked the trash_icon_visible key,
removing the checkmark from it. I assume it is type boolean, as it can
take only two values - checked or not checked.

How should I have proceeded?

stew

--
J. Stewart Schneider, J.D.
Interim Pastor
Community Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte
http://CommunityPresbyterian.org
It's much easier to know the truth than to seek it. Matthew 7:13-14

[Paul Glover (paul-paulglover)]

Was having this same problem on one machine, but not another.

In my case, the one having the trouble had the trash icon displayed and apps/nautilus/desktop/trash_icon_name set to be an integer value of 0. Unsetting the trash_icon_name key fixed the problem. I didn't try with any other icons (I only show the trash one on my desktop) but I'd be surprised if the same thing did not happen.

This may have been a configuration hangover from pre-Hardy. I used to have the trashcan label disabled, back when it was possible to do that. If I recall correctly, that was done by setting the trash_icon_name as above.

Disabling the display of the trashcan icon would have also fixed the problem, I assume Nautilus would not then need to access the key which was really causing the crash.

Perhaps that incorrect integer key value needs to be checked for and if found, reset to a sane default during the upgrade?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

those seem incorrect user changes, not sure that's worth complicating the code and maybe introducing not bug to try to handle cases where users set incorrect configuration

[Stew (stew-schneider)]

Setting trash_icon_name key to type string and a value of "Trash", and checking the boolean trash_icon_visible has got it fixed for me.

As to Sebastien's comment that the bug came about through incorrect user changes, I'd only add that, like Monika, I hadn't altered any of the values. I upgraded from Feisty online, and the problem arose after the 5/31 updates. Since a new user I created once the problem occurred did *not* have the problem, I'm convinced that something in the 5/31 upgrade failed to handle properly accounts on systems which had been upgraded from pre-Hardy versions.

We call this sort of thing "a sophisticated wild-ass guess" on my part..ymmv.

stew

[Rob Haag (rhaag71)]

I have been fighting this one for days too, what I eventually did was revert libeel2-2 2.22.2 back to libeel2-2 2.22.1, and of course nautilus would run, I thought I would mention the libeel2-2 because that update may have caused the problem. I am going to go back up to the 2.22.2 and see if changing the gconf value helps too.

[Rob Haag (rhaag71)]

Re-upgraded libeel2-2 to 2.22.2 and disable trash icon as described in thread, and nautilus works now too. I can't help but to wonder if the libeel2-2 caused a problem or if reverting was a lucky (on my part) unrelated work around, but after all it was an eel error reported in the terminal, which was what led me to revert (as I new this was after an update).

[Monika Pawlowska (monika-kopernik)]

Isn't it possible that previous version of libeel tolerated such things as value 0 instead of false in gconf, and the newest one does not? Then the upgrade would only reveal an incorrect change in configuration.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

correct the new version doesn't ignore the configuration errors

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

closing, that's not a nautilus bug but t he code being stricter about incorrect configurations