Gnome shell crash (Solved - maybe?)

[zerozero]

viking, i might be stating here the obvious (if so, sorry) but had you read closely the xbel content? it refers basically to your gedit modification (see your other topic )
are you here between the sword and the hard rock? either you solve the gedit annoyance or you have a functional overview?

[viking777]

Thanks for the reply zerozero, but it is not that (at least I don't think so) the 'xbel' file is full of links such as these not just the gedit one. For example:

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<bookmark href="file:///usr/share/icons/hicolor/32x32/devices/totem-tv.png" added="2012-02-08T17:13:46Z" modified="2012-02-08T17:13:46Z" visited="2012-02-08T17:13:46Z">
    <info>
      <metadata owner="http://freedesktop.org">
        <mime:mime-type type="image/png"/>
        <bookmark:applications>
          <bookmark:application name="gnome-desktop-item-edit" exec="&apos;gnome-desktop-item-edit %u&apos;" modified="2012-02-08T17:13:46Z" count="1"/>
        </bookmark:applications>
      </metadata>
    </info>
  </bookmark>

No idea what puts them there, but it isn't me, I don't think I have ever used 'Totem' in my life. Besides, at the moment both problems are solved, the gedit one and the gnome-shell one (and FF hasn't hung for a while either so it might have cured that one too, but a bit too early to say for sure).

[gozer]

Thanks - moving the 'recently-used.xbel' file out of that directory (then restarting the shell with an alt+F2, 'r') fixed mine.

Stupid nvidia... On a side note, nvidia recently joined the linux foundation. Think that means they'll be opening their specs anytime soon?

(I'm not holding my breath...)

[viking777]

Just out of interest gozer what was your problem? Same as mine, searching in overview mode, or different?

I'm not really sure that Nvidia are the culprits here though, of the 5 distros I have access to right now, 1 doesn't use this file at all and 4 do, but the only one that causes me any problem is the LMDE install, the other 3 all work normally. So I think this might be something more to do with where Debian Testing is right now rather than where Nvidia is. I could be wrong of course, because I have no real idea how my graphics driver manages to interact with a file that appears to be nothing more than a collection of file system addresses written in xml, and how that in turn manages to manifest itself as a fault in my desktop environment . The whole thing baffles me tbh, but as long as I have it working again I am not going to worry too much about it.

[gozer]

Yes - same problem: go into overview, start typing, crash. Didn't matter what I typed.

I have 2 boxes running debian testing that used to be LMDE (switched to testing a while ago but there are still some mint remnants). One is my system at work running nvidia and the other is at home and has an AMD/ATI GPU. I can check when I get home later and see if the problem exists there or not.

[cooleric1234]

I had the same problem when I upgraded to incoming from latest last night. I do have an NVIDIA card and after some difficulty was able to install the latest NVIDIA drivers. Deleting the .xbel file seems to have worked for me as well.

[gozer]

Sorry it took me a while to remember to try the overview search on my home PC (AMD/ATI) running the same system software (debian testing) as my work PC (nvidia). Results: no problems; search worked fine. So this is either a problem with the nvidia setup or maybe "bit-rot"...

[pluraldave]

I had this too. Any overview search starting with g or l caused a crash with the same/similar libnvidia error as above.

@Viking: recently-used.xbel is the recent documents file, which gnome-shell uses to display your recent documents when you search.

Why the recent documents list conflicts with the Nvidia driver I don't know (maybe something to do with the size of the list?), but as being able to open files via search is now crucial to me I've dumped the Nvidia driver and gone back to Nouveau. So far everything is working and there doesn't seem to be any graphical "penalty" in using Nouveau for normal usage (in fact if anything it seems more responsive).

[viking777]

@Viking: recently-used.xbel is the recent documents file, which gnome-shell uses to display your recent documents when you search.

Ah thanks for that pluraldave, I wondered what it was. Unlike yourself, the recent documents list is something I never use, so I didn't even notice it was gone. At least it explains a bit about why it crashed the shell, though as you say, not how it ties into Nvidia.

If you can use Nouveau I would say it solves a lot of problems, sadly it doesn't work with my monitor setup.

[viking777]

@pluraldave - Had another look at this problem because I noted that my recently-used.xbel has returned of its own accord. I wonder if this was due to a gnome-shell update that occurred on the 10th, it might have been. The thing is that in the new version of 'shell' the search function is working perfectly well (including the recently used documents) with my nvidia driver. This could mean one of two things, either it has been fixed with the last update or it is size related as you noted above. The old xbel file that I still have in my Trash was 19Kb+ whereas the new one is only 5Kb+ so we will see what happens as it fills up. At least I will know what to do if the crashes start happening again.

Well spotted btw!

[pluraldave]

@pluraldave - Had another look at this problem because I noted that my recently-used.xbel has returned of its own accord. I wonder if this was due to a gnome-shell update that occurred on the 10th, it might have been.

It's due to you using your computer. Every time you open a file it writes to recently-used.xbel. If the file doesn't exist then it is created. The easiest way to stop it is to delete the file and then immediately replace it with a folder of the same name. Of course this means every time you open a file an error gets recorded in the appropriate log file.

The thing is that in the new version of 'shell' the search function is working perfectly well (including the recently used documents) with my nvidia driver. This could mean one of two things, either it has been fixed with the last update or it is size related as you noted above. The old xbel file that I still have in my Trash was 19Kb+ whereas the new one is only 5Kb+ so we will see what happens as it fills up. At least I will know what to do if the crashes start happening again.

Well spotted btw!

I doubt it's fixed. I switched to incoming to try out using the update pack system but then reverted to testing (and hence the updated GS) to see if it resolved the issue. It didn't, hence switching to Nouveau. If it is a size issue I can only imagine that as you search all the results are passed to the graphics driver to be drawn rather than just the number of results that can fit on the screen. Searches include file types so "g" returns every jpg and png you've opened.

[viking777]

I doubt it's fixed

OK, thanks, I will just wait and see.

[viking777]

Well, pluraldave was right, it wasn't fixed, it occurred again today with an 'xbel' size of 11.4Kb. I deleted the contents of the 'xbel' file this time instead of the file itself and search started working again straight away, so it does seem to be related to the size of the file.

A bit of a nuisance, but an easy enough work round.

[zerozero]

viking,
you are not alone (not me, but look at this)

and the awkward moment when you "eat" your own words
i'm officially in the same boat and it crashes no matter what letter i type in the overview.
what changed in this time? apart from the regular updates (a few of them, hence hard to track back a possible cause-effect) i started using VB (can't see how it's related) and empathy & evolution.

worst, deleting recently-used.xbel is only effective for seconds, as soon as it is recreated (and with a size of 66.7kb always) the crashes return.

[viking777]

as soon as it is recreated (and with a size of 66.7kb always)

That is weird, have you tried just emptying the file as I did?

[zerozero]

yes i tried (to no avail ) half of the times i get a message saying that the file was changed on disk, do i want to reload or cancel? either option brings the xbel file in all its beauty as soon as i close gedit.

if i move it to reciclebin or delete it, it's just a seconds fix: close nautilus, open it again and there it is

[viking777]

yes i tried (to no avail ) half of the times i get a message saying that the file was changed on disk, do i want to reload or cancel? either option brings the xbel file in all its beauty as soon as i close gedit.

if i move it to reciclebin or delete it, it's just a seconds fix: close nautilus, open it again and there it is

If I remember rightly that happened to me the first time I tried to empty it with gedit. This time I emptied it with kwrite and it worked, so if you have one, try another text editor to delete the contents. No guarantees, but it might be because gedit is one of the items that gnome monitors for 'recent documents', so if you alter 'xbel' with gedit it registers a 'change on disc' and won't let you continue. Gnome doesn't know or care anything about kwrite so it lets you do what you want.

Just a theory

[zerozero]

Gnome doesn't know or care anything about kwrite so it lets you do what you want.

Just a theory

hah what would we do without kde? apparently the sneaky fix is working

[pluraldave]

Gnome doesn't know or care anything about kwrite so it lets you do what you want.

Just a theory

hah what would we do without kde? apparently the sneaky fix is working

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rm ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel

Probably.

or sneakier:

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rm ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel
mkdir ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel

or easiest.

[viking777]

or easiest

Good find. I am trying it out.