desktop theme inside nautilus is corrupted

I can confirm this bug in Karmic (worked fine in Jaunty with same icon set and GTK 2.0 theme)

What happens:

I get this problem in approximately 25% of cases. When I power on my machine and the Desktop loads, it loads the GNOME icon set and GNOME GTK 2.0 theme, instead of my own choice of icon and GTK 2.0 theme.

If I open gnome-appearance-properties, my correct choices are selected. If I then double-click on the correct theme in gnome-appearance-properties, the correct icon set and GTK theme are then loaded - but to everything EXCEPT Nautillus - the Desktop still has the GNOME icons, and Nautilus itself still has the GNOME GTK 2.0 theme.

I've had this same problem on all 3 of my machines that run Karmic (2 desktops and a laptop), so if it is due to corruption then its corruption that is reproducible on every machine I use.

One thing that might be important is that my icon theme is very large (around 29,000 icons, about 300MB in size) - could this be the cause of the problem?

Technical Details:

Distro Version - Ubuntu Karmic 9.10, 32-bit, default fresh install with latest updates
Desktop Environment - GNOME 2.28.1 (Ubuntu 2009-11-03)
Kernel - Linux 2.6.31-19-generic
System - Athlon 64 3400 2.2GHz processor, NVidia 6800LE graphics, 1.5MB RAM
Nautilus Version - 2.28.1

OK, woke up this morning, switched on my PC, and the problem is back. So this time I have some screenshots. :)

This first screenshot shows what I get when the desktop loads. Note that it is displaying the default GNOME icon theme and the default GNOME GTK 2.0 theme on the desktop and toolbars, and also on any applications that I open up.

Also note the AWN taskbar at the bottom - this also displays with the wrong icon set, and some of the icons haven't loaded at all.

If I then open up gnome-appearance-properties, my correct settings for my icon theme and GTK theme are displayed. If I then hit the "Close" button on this window, this second screenshot shows what happens - the correct icon theme and correct GTK 2.0 are applied on any applications I have open, and on the AWN toolbar - but not on the Nautilus "File Browser" window, and the desktop icons also stay as default GNOME icons.?field.comment=If I then open up gnome-appearance-properties, my correct settings for my icon theme and GTK theme are displayed. If I then hit the "Close" button on this window, this second screenshot shows what happens - the correct icon theme and correct GTK 2.0 are applied on any applications I have open, and on the AWN toolbar - but not on the Nautilus "File Browser" window, and the desktop icons also stay as default GNOME icons.

Finally, here is a third screenshot, which shows what happens when I start my PC and the desktop loads correctly, with my correct icon and GTK 2.0 themes (just so you can compare).

May someone tell us a few easy steps in order to reproduce the issue? is gnome-settings-daemon running after performing that change?

Hello Pedro, thanks for taking a look at this bug.

The only way is to reproduce this bug is to keep rebooting the machine until it happens - which is every 3rd or 4th reboot.

I checked, and when I get this problem gnome-settings-daemon is not running.

If I run gnome-settings-daemon in terminal, I get:

ian@COOLERMASTER:~$ gnome-settings-daemon

(gnome-settings-daemon:14305): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed

(gnome-settings-daemon:14305): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
ian@COOLERMASTER:~$ Unable to find a synaptics device.
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "pk-gtk-module": libpk-gtk-module.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
ian@COOLERMASTER:~$

This then starts gnome-settings-daemon, but takes me to the stage I outlined in post #4. The Nautilus File Manager window and the icons on the desktop still have the old GNOME theme, although everything else has my own personal icon theme ("NuoveXT 1.7") and GTK 2.0 theme ("Brushed")

Is this related to bug #500417?

Hello Sense,

Yes, the problem I am getting looks very similar to the one "Bastafidli" is describing in bug #500417.

Also, for info, I am not using "translucency caused by enabling RGBA support in GTK+". I am simply using standard GTK 2.0 themes (I get this problem with any GTK 2.0 theme I try, although in the screenshots I included I am using the "Brushed" GTK 2.0 theme from www.gnome-look.org)

Everything installed on my machine is normal "stable" software, so I should not be getting any problems :-)

The second warning you get when starting gnome-settings-daemon from the terminal indicates that you're suffering from bug #389766. I'm not sure if the problems you see in Nautilus are related to this, could you verify this with a work-around for the mentioned bug?

There are two work-arounds: the first is setting the GConf key "/apps/gnome_settings_daemon/gtk-modules/pk-gtk-module" to false in 'gconf-editor', the second is to remove 'packagekit-gnome'.

Ubuntu isn't using PackageKit by default, so by removing 'packagekit-gnome' you shouldn't lose desktop functionality. However, that doesn't mean bug #389766 shouldn't get fixed.

@Sense - OK, I've run your fix and no longer suffer from bug 389766.

However, I am still getting this bug. Running gnome-settings-daemon in terminal gives me:

^[[Aian@COOLERMASTER2:~$ gnome-settings-daemon
(gnome-settings-daemon:3174): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
(gnome-settings-daemon:3174): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
ian@COOLERMASTER2:~$

I am getting this on all 3 of my machines - 2 NVidia-based desktop PCs and also my Intel-based laptop (HP Compaq 6720s)

OK, more bad news I'm afraid.

I have been running a Lucid 10.04 test install, and updating it daily (currently at Alpha 2). Everything has been working fine since 10.04 Alpha 1 was first released.

Todays updates on Lucid 10.04 Alpha 2 (21st February 2010) triggered this same bug.

I hope this can help pin down what the problem is.

Still getting same problem on Karmic, also latest Beta of Lucid 10.04

I just upgraded to Lucid and am now experiencing this bug. I had never seen it happen on any previous version of Ubuntu.

I think this bug is a duplicate of Bug 500417, so I hope I'm not breaking any rules if I mark this as a "Duplicate" (I apologise in advance if I am), but I think it would be useful to merge the discussions. If someone much more knowledgable than me can advise otherwise, then please do :-)

Still getting this problem on Maverick 10.10 Beta.

For the first time ever, I've managed to capture this gnome-settings-daemon crash with Apport, and been able to submit a bug report with a full trace:

gnome-settings-daemon crashed with signal 5 in xkl_process_error()

See:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-settings-daemon/+bug/635616

please see, for instance:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-settings-daemon/+bug/574296

~.~.~

I noticed that this (probably) only happens when I start my IBM Thinkpad X41 (with SSD) on _BATTERY_ power.

If I start with AC adapter plugged in, however, everything seems to be fine...

Reproducible: likely so (will keep observing, but won't restart system several times now).

Thanks.

tp

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