Arch Linux

Please run it from a terminal, does it display anything there?

Works for me.

Running cheese form the terminal ($ cheese) yields:
(cheese:11116): Gdk-CRITICAL **: gdk_device_get_n_axes: assertion 'gdk_device_get_source (device) != GDK_SOURCE_KEYBOARD' failed

(cheese:11116): Gdk-CRITICAL **: gdk_device_get_n_axes: assertion 'gdk_device_get_source (device) != GDK_SOURCE_KEYBOARD' failed

(cheese:11116): Gdk-CRITICAL **: gdk_device_get_n_axes: assertion 'gdk_device_get_source (device) != GDK_SOURCE_KEYBOARD' failed

Cheese starts up and seems to be working normally.

I see what you mean here. Starting cheese from terminal or by ALT+F2 -> cheese works fine, but when launched from the shell using the application icon, cheese will never start.

I can confirm this bug. If i wan't to start cheese through the activities, i see following with journalctl:

Nov 07 20:53:44 toaster org.gnome.Calculator.SearchProvider[556]: Error: ErrorCode.UNKNOWN_VARIABLE
Nov 07 20:53:44 toaster org.gnome.Contacts.SearchProvider[556]: ** (org.gnome.Contacts.SearchProvider:1004): WARNING **: contacts-shell-search-provider.vala:76: GetInitialResultSet ch
Nov 07 20:53:44 toaster dbus[249]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='org.bluez' unit='dbus-org.bluez.service'
Nov 07 20:53:44 toaster dbus[249]: [system] Activation via systemd failed for unit 'dbus-org.bluez.service': Unit dbus-org.bluez.service failed to load: No such file or directory.
Nov 07 20:53:44 toaster org.gnome.evolution.dataserver.AddressBook6[556]: Bus name 'org.gnome.evolution.dataserver.AddressBook6' acquired.
Nov 07 20:53:44 toaster org.gnome.OnlineMiners.GData[556]: Gom-Message: Setting scheduler policy to SCHED_IDLE
Nov 07 20:53:44 toaster org.gnome.OnlineMiners.Owncloud[556]: Gom-Message: Setting scheduler policy to SCHED_IDLE
Nov 07 20:53:44 toaster org.gnome.OnlineMiners.Zpj[556]: Gom-Message: Setting scheduler policy to SCHED_IDLE
Nov 07 20:53:44 toaster org.gnome.Contacts.SearchProvider[556]: ** (org.gnome.Contacts.SearchProvider:1004): WARNING **: contacts-shell-search-provider.vala:82: GetSubsearchResultSet che
Nov 07 20:53:44 toaster org.gnome.Calculator.SearchProvider[556]: Error: ErrorCode.UNKNOWN_VARIABLE
Nov 07 20:53:44 toaster org.gnome.Documents[556]: Gjs-Message: JS LOG: Can't find a valid getting started PDF document
Nov 07 20:53:44 toaster org.gnome.Caribou.Daemon[556]: ** (caribou:659): WARNING **: AT-SPI: Error in GetItems, sender=org.freedesktop.DBus, error=The name :1.17 was not provided by any .service files

It looks like a problem with the .desktop file under /usr/share/applications, because with an modified version i can start cheese:

- Removed all "Name[<i18n>]" lines
- Removed all "Comment[<i18n>]" lines
- Removed all "X-GNOME-FullName[<i18n>]" lines
- Removed all "Keywords[<i18n>]" lines

I found an solution at the debian bug tracker: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=765513

... then i manually edited /usr/share/dbus-1/services/org.gnome.Cheese.service ...

Change line

Exec=${exec_prefix}/bin/cheese --gapplication-service

... to ...

Exec=/usr/bin/cheese --gapplication-service

... and voila, cheese is starting through the activities

3.14.2 will be released on Monday and fix this. gnome-logs has the same problem and will be fixed as well.

can confirm
newest version of cheese solves the issue