Desktop background reverts to default every boot/reboot [solved]

[kmb42vt]

@Cosmo - Now that's a weird one especially when you consider that refreshing Mintupdate does not require root privileges.

I can confirm everything you stated in your last post. Then I went a bit farther and found out that the file "user" (with the wrong permissions) will also disappear if I open any application with elevated privileges.

Try this:

Open Nemo normally, without elevated privileges, navigate to .cache/dconf and make sure the file "user" is not present (delete it if you have to).

Open a second instance of Nemo, .cache/dconf with elevated privileges and make sure the "dconf" folder is again empty (it should be).

Set both Nemo windows side bay side so you can view both and refresh Mintupdate. The file "user" should appear in both Nemo windows (with wrong permissions).

Now open a terminal and type:

Code: Select all

sudo -i

Once you've entered you password type:

Code: Select all

xed

The text editor comes up with elevated privileges and the file "user" disappears from both Nemo windows.

The same thing happened when I started "xplayer", "pix", and "gnome-system-monitor" with elevated privileges via the terminal. Once the file "user" was recreated by refreshing Mintupdate, it would disappear when opening any application with elevated privileges or at least the ones I tried.

By the way, when I got done with all of the above I ran:

Code: Select all

sudo find $HOME ! -user $USER -type f

...and got this:

/home/kmb42vt/.cache/dconf/user
/home/kmb42vt/.config/dconf/user

Both with the wrong permissions obviously. So I ran:

Code: Select all

find /home/$SUDO_USER ! -user $SUDO_USER -exec chown $SUDO_USER:$SUDO_USER '{}' \;

...and this obviously fixed permissions. (Many thanks for the above command and all the help by the way. I couldn't have gotten it by myself).

I can duplicate the above consistently as well. As many times as I want to. So if you could confirm this I'd appreciate it and hopefully it may help to isolate what exactly is wrong.

[Cosmo.]

I confirm, what you found.

Easier way: run in the terminal (after updating UM): ls -la ~/.cache/dconf -> you see the file user.
Now press alt-f2 and enter gksudo xed -> the file vanishes.

I have updated the bug report with all available information. My suspicion is, that there might be something badly wrong, which might be very serious.

[kmb42vt]

I confirm, what you found.

Easier way: run in the terminal (after updating UM): ls -la ~/.cache/dconf -> you see the file user.
Now press alt-f2 and enter gksudo xed -> the file vanishes.

I have updated the bug report with all available information. My suspicion is, that there might be something badly wrong, which might be very serious.

There's one thing I can't do is test any other version of Mint 18 (MATE, KDE, XFce) which should be done in order to determine whether it's just the Cinnamon version that's affected or the Mint 18 (16.04) base. I'd need a test PC in order to do so and I don't have an extra. Is there any way you or someone else can test another version of Mint 18?

And I agree, this looks like something seriously wrong.

[Cosmo.]

If you want to test another edition, you do not need another hardware. Install VirtualBox and install the other edition as a virtual machine.

i don't expect a different result there. The UM, all x-apps and the system for getting elevated permissions (my current suspicion as the cause of the problem and - until this is cleared up - my ultimate no-go for LM 18 on a production system) are at least in Mate and Xfce the same.

[kmb42vt]

If you want to test another edition, you do not need another hardware. Install VirtualBox and install the other edition as a virtual machine.

i don't expect a different result there. The UM, all x-apps and the system for getting elevated permissions (my current suspicion as the cause of the problem and - until this is cleared up - my ultimate no-go for LM 18 on a production system) are at least in Mate and Xfce the same.

On that note I loaded up a live session of Mint 18 KDE and the problem exists there as well with the exception that opening Dolphin with elevated privileges fails with a red banner across the top of the right-hand pane stating:

"The process has died unexpectedly"

Otherwise, the problem is the same. I can't believe that Mint 18 KDE installed is going to be any different.

(I wonder if Ubuntu 16.04 has the same problem.)

As far as not using Mint 18 on a production system I agree however for myself there isn't much choice in the matter. Unfortunately, there's no other distro/DE that fits my needs as well as Mint 18/Cinnamon at the moment. Yes, I could wipe the partition and downgrade to 17.3 and I will if I have to but I'm going to stick with 18 for awhile and hope there's a fix for this problem fairly soon.

[kmb42vt]

@Cosmo - Should this UM/elevated privileges problem be moved to it's own thread and be re-titled? Right now it's about the desktop background reverting to default and marked [solved]. A bit confusing, yes?

[Cosmo.]

I would leave it as it is - out of several reasons:

It is unlikely, that anybody will ever do a search for the issue with the cache. Mint 18 is now 3 months old and to my knowledge nobody came until now across this observation. On the other hand it is very likely, that other user have the same problem, which made you create the thread. As it is at now it is easier to find for them.

This is one of the rather seldom examples, that investigating into a problems reveals a far deeper origin for the problem and the underlying bug. I think that it is also helpful for the developers to see, how the issue has been found.

If this would get moved to another thread, the links in GitHub would have to get corrected, otherwise they get broken. Not impossible to do, but it would not improve anything.

What is really needed (the fix) can only be done by the devs. They do only rarely read here, but they read in GH. There the issue has the matching title - at least for the time, when I opened the issue.
This thread will not be the place, where the issue can get solved. But it is possibly a place, where users who find some more helpful information, can post them and we can discuss them.

[kmb42vt]

@Cosmo - Makes sense. Let's hope the developers can sort this out reasonably quickly.

[LazyJack]

Hi, just ran across this thread so thanks for all the work on this. I'm new to Linux and started out with Mint 18 64-bit Cinnamon a month ago and working through issues, I've had the disappearing background problem I think from the start but have only just got round to looking at it.

So to recap, it looks like I can fix the permission issue but that gets reset every time I run with elevated priveleges and sometimes when I reboot. Hmm.. might hold off going to production for a while.

Thanks again..

[Cosmo.]

LM 17.3 is surely the more stable choice at now - not only because of this issue.