FS#4567 - new gnome-panel screws up settings daemon

Attached to Project: Arch Linux
Opened by name withheld (Gullible Jones) - Thursday, 04 May 2006, 16:37 GMT
Last edited by Judd Vinet (judd) - Thursday, 22 June 2006, 17:20 GMT
Task Type Bug Report
Category Packages: Extra
Status Closed
Assigned To Jan de Groot (JGC)
Architecture not specified
Severity High
Priority Normal
Reported Version 0.7.1 Noodle
Due in Version Undecided
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 100%
Votes 0
Private No

Details

After the last gnome-panel upgrade, starting any Gnome config app has invariably produced a popup window with this warning:

Unable to start the settings manager 'gnome-settings-daemon'.
Without the GNOME settings manager running, some preferences may not take effect. This could indicate a problem with Bonobo, or a non-GNOME (e.g. KDE) settings manager may already be active and conflicting with the GNOME settings manager.

Occasionally I get a similar message while Gnome is starting up.

In addition, keybindings seem to work only about half the time, and keybindings for the screensaver never work.
This task depends upon

Closed by  Jan de Groot (JGC)
Friday, 30 June 2006, 18:20 GMT
Reason for closing:  Fixed
Comment by Jan de Groot (JGC) - Friday, 05 May 2006, 07:20 GMT
Have you tried logging out of gnome, killing the settings-daemon and starting gnome again? The latest gnome-panel rebuild only had an update to change a crasher in the clock applet, so nothing has been changed between the latest 2 builds.
Comment by name withheld (Gullible Jones) - Friday, 05 May 2006, 11:00 GMT
Yep, and the problems come right back next time I start Gnome, even if I remove .gnome* and .gconfd. On top of that, it seems the screensaver (be it XScreensaver OR Gnome-Screensaver) is refusing to start with the session. I tried reinstalling control-center but that doesn't work either. :(
Comment by Jan de Groot (JGC) - Friday, 05 May 2006, 15:23 GMT
Hmm, I get these too when starting a preference panel. Something fishy is going on here.
Comment by name withheld (Gullible Jones) - Saturday, 27 May 2006, 03:01 GMT
This is getting extremely bad, I'm getting the error message every few sessions. In sessions following the error message, the screensaver daemon doesn't activate, and there are probably other things that don't work properly.

There is a way to work around it. Remove the .gconf file (and thereby get rid of all your Gnome settings) and the following session won't screw up; however, the session after that one will usually pull the gnome-settings-daemon crap all over again, and throwing away all your Gnome settings every time you start a session is simply not feasible at all.
Comment by arjan timmerman (blaasvis) - Monday, 29 May 2006, 09:49 GMT
ok... i presume this is still an issue.

Could you try and see if pacman -Rc gconf ; pacman -S gnome solves your problem.
this sounds like data corruption...
Comment by name withheld (Gullible Jones) - Monday, 29 May 2006, 16:23 GMT
Pretty persistant data corruption in that case, it happens reliably every time I install Gnome.
Comment by Jan de Groot (JGC) - Monday, 29 May 2006, 18:04 GMT
Open a terminal and do "echo $DISPLAY", what does it return then? I guess something is wrong in the gnome-settings-daemon that registers itself for only the current screen. The problem with this is that this is useless, because when one g-s-d is running, it won't start another one for the other screen.

When you're running a dualhead setup with xinerama disabled, this bug will hit you. I think I noticed this at linuxtag also with my dualscreen setup I used there.
Comment by name withheld (Gullible Jones) - Monday, 29 May 2006, 21:23 GMT
Okay will do. Strange, you wouldn't think that would hit someone with one display...
Comment by Jan de Groot (JGC) - Monday, 29 May 2006, 21:38 GMT
My setup on linuxtag was cloned display mode using mergedFB, which shouldn't cause trouble either. It could be that your videocard sends output to the 2nd screen also, resulting in this buggy behaviour.

I will wreck out the per-display registration in gnome-settings-daemon for the next update.
Comment by name withheld (Gullible Jones) - Monday, 29 May 2006, 22:56 GMT
I still don't quite follow, what second display? I have a single-screen setup... Of course I do have in xorg.conf (autogenerated and edited):

Section "Screen"
...
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
...

Could that actually fool Gnome into setting things up for another screen? Or does it not matter?
Comment by name withheld (Gullible Jones) - Tuesday, 30 May 2006, 00:36 GMT
Okay, I got the error again, here's what 'echo $DISPLAY' gives:

:0.0

I'm guessing that's what it should be?
Comment by name withheld (Gullible Jones) - Wednesday, 31 May 2006, 22:26 GMT
This is very very bad, it seems that deleting .gconfd and .gnome* does not prevent it... I'm getting the stupid gsd error and losing Gnome settings (as in actually having to change them back on the next session, not just losing them temporarily) just about every other time I start Gnome. Restarting the machine does seem to keep the error from occuring, but having to restart every time you want Gnome to work properly is ridiculous.
Comment by Jan de Groot (JGC) - Wednesday, 31 May 2006, 22:39 GMT
How do you logout from GNOME BTW? just killing X with CTRL+ALT+backspace, or by logging out from gnome? Somehow gnome-settings-daemon keeps running after you logout. Kill it and start gnome again, it will work then without removing your .gconf and .gnome directories.
Comment by name withheld (Gullible Jones) - Thursday, 01 June 2006, 01:24 GMT
I log out via the gnome menu.
Comment by name withheld (Gullible Jones) - Thursday, 01 June 2006, 01:30 GMT
Wait a minute, something from the changelist for Gnome 2.14.2:

settings daemon:
- Fixed potential overrun (Ray Strode) (338254)

I wonder if that is the cause of the settings-daemon crashes?
Comment by Jan de Groot (JGC) - Wednesday, 07 June 2006, 13:50 GMT
That potential overrun is for left/right mousebutton swaps that crashes the settings daemon with evdev.

The actual bug here is this one: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=344069

I will revert the last two changes mentioned in my bugreport upstream until they come with a better fix.
Comment by Judd Vinet (judd) - Thursday, 22 June 2006, 17:20 GMT
Re-opened by Gullible Jones:

Still getting it: Unable to start the settings manager 'gnome-settings-daemon'. Without the GNOME settings manager running, some preferences may not take effect. This could indicate a problem with Bonobo, or a non-GNOME (e.g. KDE) settings manager may already be active and conflicting with the GNOME settings manager.
Comment by Jan de Groot (JGC) - Friday, 30 June 2006, 12:17 GMT
Does this work with the current version that resides in extra? The offended code has been removed with the latest version, so it should either be impossible to get the message, or something else is wrong on your system.
Comment by name withheld (Gullible Jones) - Friday, 30 June 2006, 15:58 GMT
Well, no problems so far... I think you might have this one licked.

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