Re: ‘staging’ and GNOME updates

["Ludovic Courtès" <ludo@gnu.org>]

Hello,

Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> skribis:

> Turns out that the problem was with a stale /var/lib/gdm – which makes
> me wonder: we do we have this at all?  “/var/lib/gdm” is the “gdm” user
> account’s home directory.  But it’s not like this really needs to be
> persistent, I think.

Yes, I wonder if it’s supposed to be persistent in the first place.  I
guess ~gdm/.cache can help speed things up maybe, and perhaps there are
persistent settings too, like the a18n stuff?

> I moved it out of the way and the gdm login prompt appeared within a few
> seconds.  After restarting xorg-server the directory was recreated.

So I moved ~gdm/.cache and ~/.cache out of the way and restarted
‘xorg-server’.  After that, I was still unable to log in

You removed all of ~gdm, right?

~/.cache/gdm/session.log shows this (the important bit is “killed by
signal 11” :-)):

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
dbus-daemon[2867]: [session uid=30011 pid=2867] Activating service name='org.gtk.vfs.Daemon' requested by ':1.1' (uid=3
0011 pid=2878 comm="gsettings get org.gnome.system.locale region ")
dbus-daemon[2867]: [session uid=30011 pid=2867] Successfully activated service 'org.gtk.vfs.Daemon'

(process:2887): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 13:46:37.032: g_object_new_with_properties: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_OBJECT (obje
ct_type)' failed

(process:2887): GLib-GIO-CRITICAL **: 13:46:37.036: g_volume_monitor_get_mounts: assertion 'G_IS_VOLUME_MONITOR (volume
_monitor)' failed

(process:2887): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 13:46:37.036: invalid (NULL) pointer instance

(process:2887): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 13:46:37.036: g_signal_connect_data: assertion 'G_TYPE_CHECK_INSTANCE (instan
ce)' failed

(process:2887): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 13:46:37.036: invalid (NULL) pointer instance

(process:2887): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 13:46:37.036: g_signal_connect_data: assertion 'G_TYPE_CHECK_INSTANCE (instan
ce)' failed

[...]

dbus-daemon[2867]: [session uid=30011 pid=2867] Successfully activated service 'org.gtk.vfs.AfcVolumeMonitor'
GNOME Shell-Message: 13:46:38.700: No permission to trigger offline updates: Polkit.Error: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.PolicyKit1.Error.Failed: Action org.freedesktop.packagekit.trigger-offline-update is not registered

(.gnome-shell-real:2928): mutter-WARNING **: 13:46:38.911: Failed to load background 'file:///gnu/store/ga4arkrdndyv52cs062n2l9hgnqfjyaq-gsettings-desktop-schemas-3.28.0/share/backgrounds/gnome/adwaita-lock.jpg': Erreur lors de l’ouverture du fichier /gnu/store/ga4arkrdndyv52cs062n2l9hgnqfjyaq-gsettings-desktop-schemas-3.28.0/share/backgrounds/gnome/adwaita-lock.jpg : Aucun fichier ou dossier de ce type
GNOME Shell-Message: 13:46:38.917: Error loading calendars: Erreur lors de l’appel de StartServiceByName pour org.gnome.Shell.CalendarServer : GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ChildExited: Process org.gnome.Shell.CalendarServer exited with status 1

(gsd-rfkill:3033): rfkill-plugin-WARNING **: 13:46:38.951: Error setting up rfkill: Could not open RFKILL control device, please verify your installation

(gsd-rfkill:3033): rfkill-plugin-WARNING **: 13:46:38.974: Could not open RFKILL control device, please verify your installation

(gsd-sharing:3036): sharing-plugin-WARNING **: 13:46:39.063: Failed to StopUnit service: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.freedesktop.systemd1 was not provided by any .service files

(gsd-sharing:3036): sharing-plugin-WARNING **: 13:46:39.063: Failed to StopUnit service: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.freedesktop.systemd1 was not provided by any .service files

(gsd-sharing:3036): sharing-plugin-WARNING **: 13:46:39.063: Failed to StopUnit service: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.freedesktop.systemd1 was not provided by any .service files

(gsd-sharing:3036): sharing-plugin-WARNING **: 13:46:39.070: Failed to StopUnit service: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.freedesktop.systemd1 was not provided by any .service files
gnome-session-binary[2872]: WARNING: Application 'org.gnome.Shell.desktop' killed by signal 11

(gsd-xsettings:3007): xsettings-plugin-WARNING **: 13:46:39.193: Failed to get current display configuration state: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NoReply: Message recipient disconnected from message bus without replying

(gsd-power:3026): power-plugin-WARNING **: 13:46:39.193: Could not create GnomeRRScreen: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.gnome.Mutter.DisplayConfig was not provided by any .service files


(gsd-media-keys:3022): GLib-CRITICAL **: 13:46:39.199: g_variant_get_va: assertion 'value != NULL' failed

(gsd-media-keys:3022): GLib-CRITICAL **: 13:46:39.199: g_variant_unref: assertion 'value != NULL' failed
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

> Yup, after moving /home/rekado/.cache out of the way, everything is fine
> and I can log in.

Weird.  It would be nice to find out what the relevant bits are.  If
it’s not ~gdm/.cache, then the only things I can see are:

  .config/ibus/bus/*-unix-0
  .config/dconf/user (a binary file, not modified in a while)
  .config/pulse (unlikely?)
  .local/share/icc

I’ll try again later to selectively remove these files on that machine
that runs GNOME.

Ludo’.