GNU Octave Ubuntu MATE: invalid string

[Martin Konôpka]

How to reproduce the bug on Ubuntu 16.04 MATE, 64-bit version:

1.) Create a file, e.g. add.m with a single line
a = 2 + 3

2.) Launch GNU Octave in the non-interactive regime, either issuing the command

octave -q -f add.m
or even
octave -q -f --no-gui add.m

3.) In both cases an annoying message
/usr/share/themes/Radiant-MATE/gtk-2.0/apps/mate-panel.rc:30: error: invalid string constant "scrollbar", expected valid string constant

is typed on the terminal, before the result of the calculation appears.

Please realise that if one makes a series of non-interactive calculations with GNU Octave then the terminal workspace becomes covered by useless information, the repeated messages are really annoying and working with the program becomes uncomfortable.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: octave 4.0.0-3ubuntu9.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-75.96-generic 4.4.59
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-75-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.5
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: MATE
Date: Mon May 8 14:23:27 2017
InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-05-04 (368 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-MATE 16.04 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20160420.1)
SourcePackage: octave
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Mike Miller (mtmiller)]

Try using either

    octave -q -f --no-gui-libs add.m

or

    octave-cli -q -f add.m

This will run Octave without any initialization of the Qt toolkit, which is probably where these noisy warning messages are coming from. These messages are not generated by Octave, and there is probably not much Octave can do about silencing them as long as it is loading the Qt toolkit, which indirectly loads GTK and this buggy theme that is active on your system.

[Martin Konôpka (martin.konopka)]

Thanks, it helped! No more error messages when using any of the two alternatives.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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