Gnome shell crash (Solved - maybe?)

[viking777]

Whilst investigating a problem I have with gedit, I found out something rather strange about gnome-shell that I had not noticed before now, I just wonder if anyone else has this behaviour. Using gnome-shell 3.2.2.1-1 on LMDE testing.

Open overview mode and type the letter g into the search field - gnome-shell crashes every time. You don't have to press enter, just typing the letter is enough. It only happens in overview mode you can search using a run dialog without any bother at all. I found a launchpad bug about it but the last entry was January and it says it is solved.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/908045

Edit. This only happens in LMDE, I have gnome-shell running on Mint 12 and Fedora and they are both OK.

Edit 2. Investigating a bit further it seems this may be a problem with the package librsvg2-common. The present version on testing (or sid) is 2.34.2-2. A newer version 2.35.0 has been released but as yet is not part of the debian scene (not even experimental). I did try installing the source but it has too many dependencies - which is probably why it isn't on Debian yet, but it is on Ubuntu precise. Try installing the 'deb from there and you have to remove the existing package libsrvg2-2 and that threatens to remove half of gnome with it. Short story, it isn't worth the bother, especially since I don't know if it will even work.

[whirly]

i have librsvga
no crashy
the shell is strangely complicated
i updated my tweak tool from sid and everything works better
that seems easier
it could have something to do with a pixbuf library

[viking777]

tbh whirly the number of times I type the letter 'g' into the overview mode is so few that it is probably best to leave it to sort itself out. If I hadn't been investigating a problem with 'gedit' I doubt I would ever have noticed it! I tried it with all the extensions switched off but it still occurred so I know it isn't that.

Thanks anyway.

[whirly]

some of the interwebs say maybe nautilus pastebin.
do you have that?
it looks like it has been an intermittent bug for other distros
ubuntu tells you to rewrite some css junk which i think would make it draw icons smaller

[viking777]

ubuntu tells you to rewrite some css junk which i think would make it draw icons smaller

Thanks, that might be a clue actually. When I first got gnome-shell I did rewrite some 'css junk' as you so aptly put it, with the express intention of getting smaller icons, but when LMDE got its update to gnome-shell 3.2 I didn't redo the edit. I'll have to look into that.

Edit. I tried putting the old css icon size edit back in again, but no joy, it still crashes. My workround is easy enough, the only things I regularly use that start with the letter 'g' are gedit, gthumb and gparted. I just put them all into the 'dash' panel so I don't have to search for them.

One positive benefit though, at least my 'Applications' icons are back to a sensible size now

[whirly]

ok sure
but that's not fixed, i'd still recommend a newer gnomeshelltweaktool

i got a lvl up
what's that about anyway?

[whirly]

is that more of a help / more of a hindrance x number of postings?

[viking777]

is that more of a help / more of a hindrance x number of postings?

You can read about it here:

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=81997

A device with very little value in my opinion.

[Lippy]

I'm pointing to Testing too. Running gnome-shell 3.2.2.1-1 and librsvg2-common 2.34.2-2 as well. Can't reproduce the crash here either. My gnome-tweak-tool is at version 3.2.2-3, which is the fixed version. It landed in Testing a couple of days ago.

Wonder if Cinnamon crashes for you if you try the same thing, if you have it installed.

[viking777]

I'm pointing to Testing too. Running gnome-shell 3.2.2.1-1 and librsvg2-common 2.34.2-2 as well. Can't reproduce the crash here either. My gnome-tweak-tool is at version 3.2.2-3, which is the fixed version. It landed in Testing a couple of days ago.

Wonder if Cinnamon crashes for you if you try the same thing, if you have it installed.

I don't know, I don't have Cinnamon installed.

[viking777]

Now you see it, now you don't.

Slight of hand, illusion, trickery? Don't ask me.

This crash (which up until today I could repeat with 100% certainty) has now gone away completely of its own accord. Yesterday I had it, today I don't.

This is my apt log for today:

Start-Date: 2012-03-06 10:10:51
Commandline: /usr/sbin/synaptic
Upgrade: transmission-gtk:amd64 (2.33-2, 2.50-1), libnspr4-0d:amd64 (4.9~beta5-2, 4.9-1), transmission-common:amd64 (2.33-2, 2.50-1), xserver-xorg-input-all:amd64 (7.6+11, 7.6+12), openssh-client:amd64 (5.9p1-2, 5.9p1-3), xserver-xorg:amd64 (7.6+11, 7.6+12), x11-common:amd64 (7.6+11, 7.6+12), libnss3-1d:amd64 (3.13.1.with.ckbi.1.88-1, 3.13.3-1)
End-Date: 2012-03-06 10:11:21

Is there anything in there that could have performed this miracle?

Search me.

I'm thinking aloud now, if you don't have the faintest idea what caused a problem to be solved, do you still mark the thread as solved? It is not as if the information I have posted here is going to help anyone else that cant type the letter 'g' into gnome-shell overview mode is it.

[dcihon]

It does it for me too.
I am fully updated as of today.

[viking777]

Well, OK, I am now - officially - a lunatic, please ignore me for your own peace of mind

That wonderful state of affairs where I could type the letter 'g' into gnome-shell overview lasted for all of 5 minutes. It has now been replaced with a situation where I cannot type anything into gnome-shell overview at all without it crashing. I tried the whole top row of the keyboard and EVERY letter crashed gnome-shell.

Please bear in mind that nothing whatsoever has changed on my computer since I made my last post.

I think I should come with a warning "Reading viking777's posts may seriously damage your mental health". It is certainly damaging mine.

[viking777]

I decided to take a look at the end of /var/log/messages and this is what I got:

gnome-shell[7062]: segfault at 10 ip 00007f54e065fc0f sp 00007f54c14f5658 error 6 in libnvidia-tls.so.295.20[7f54e065f000+3000]

No idea what all the numbers mean, but 'libnvidia-tls' looks like a suspect. All I have to do now is find out where it comes from, what it does, and how to replace it. It looks to me like it might be a job for sgfxi, maybe I need a beta Nvidia driver again as the default installed by dkms is obviously not working for me (I think )

[zerozero]

viking,
you are not alone (not me, but look at this)
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=223240
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=+site:forums.nvidia.com+libnvidia-tls.so.295.20&sa=X&ei=2k5WT-yQLcql0QWUm-nwCQ&ved=0CDQQrQIwAA
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=135826

[GeneC]

........................... It looks to me like it might be a job for sgfxi, maybe I need a beta Nvidia driver again as the default installed by dkms is obviously not working for me (I think )

Viking
I am running the latest Nvidia (smxi) 295.20 Beta. No problems
BUT, looking at the link from "zz" I see people also having problems with 295.20?
I've had this installed for weeks with no probs. Full Updated SID.

[viking777]

Thanks zz and GeneC I found some of those links as well. I can pretty well say that for me at least this is a problem with the Nvidia driver (I do wonder also if this is the cause of my FF problems: viewtopic.php?f=190&t=96133).

The accepted solution seems to be to downgrade to the 295.10 Nvidia driver, but this seems to be impossible (sgfxi says it is not compatible with my 'debian' install). However there appears to be a workround which has - for the moment at least - solved the problem for me (who knows what tomorrow may bring ).

It is simply this.

Navigate to ~/.local/share/ select the file 'recently-used.xbel' and move it to trash. The solutions that I found suggested that you empty the file by deleting all its contents and then make it unwriteable with chattr. Well good luck if you can do that, I couldn't, neither could I delete it (sudo rm -f xxxx gave permission denied ) but amazingly I could move it to trash (as normal user not even root).

So far after a logout and a reboot it has not returned and it solves my problem.

Then again the last time I thought it had solved itself it lasted for less than 5 minutes, so only time will tell, but for now it works.

[zerozero]

the topic i was reading more carefully was the one on the arch forum i linked above (they usually know a couple things ) and the most accepted solution was the downgrade, the .xbel delete looks like is a temporary workaround.

but i hope i'm wrong

[viking777]

the topic i was reading more carefully was the one on the arch forum i linked above (they usually know a couple things ) and the most accepted solution was the downgrade, the .xbel delete looks like is a temporary workaround.

but i hope i'm wrong

I read it as well zz, but the downgrade does not seem to be an easy option. I would be happy to do it, but if sgfxi can't do it then it isn't likely I will be able to on my own - that script seems to know an awful lot more than I do ( which is kind of eerie really but there you go).

[viking777]

Well, after a night to think about it my computer still allows me to search normally in overview mode, so this appears to be a success for now. If the 'xbel' file ever reappears I will just delete it again and hope that the next time Nvidia offer a new driver it will solve the problem permanently. Does anyone know what an 'xbel' file is supposed to be for, or where it comes from, or what it has to do with Nvidia? It is an xml file full of what it calls 'bookmarks' like this:

Code: Select all

<bookmark href="file:///boot/grub/grub.cfg" added="2012-02-07T11:04:39Z" modified="2012-02-07T11:12:54Z" visited="2012-02-07T11:04:39Z">
    <info>
      <metadata owner="http://freedesktop.org">
        <mime:mime-type type="text/plain"/>
        <bookmark:groups>
          <bookmark:group>gedit</bookmark:group>
        </bookmark:groups>
        <bookmark:applications>
          <bookmark:application name="gedit" exec="&apos;gedit %u&apos;" modified="2012-02-07T11:11:02Z" count="2"/>
          <bookmark:application name="nautilus" exec="&apos;gedit %U&apos;" modified="2012-02-07T11:12:54Z" count="1"/>
        </bookmark:applications>
      </metadata>
    </info>
  </bookmark>

I suppose it is some kind of cache file.

I also wonder if this Nvidia problem would account for the awful experience I had with Ubuntu recently? I declared in another post recently that Ubuntu 12.04 was just about the most unstable thing I had ever put on my computer - and it really was. Could this be the reason?