fix a broken gnome desktop ?

[Mike Wright]

Hi all,

Following a recent kernel update I rebooted and can no longer use 
Gnome3.  I receive this error:

"Oh no!  Something has gone wrong.  A problem has occurred and the 
system can't recover.  All extensions have been disabled as a precaution."

Usually there is no mouse after this happens.  A "return" returns me to 
the login screen and I can choose one of the different desktops from 
there, all of which work.

I am loathe to yum remove, yum install.  The remove wants to take 554MB 
of packages with it and I'm not willing to gamble that I'll have a 
usable system afterwards.

Anybody seen this before?  How did you recover from it?

Thanks for your help,
Mike Wright

[Joe Zeff]

On 07/11/2014 12:42 PM, Mike Wright wrote:
> I am loathe to yum remove, yum install.  The remove wants to take 554MB
> of packages with it and I'm not willing to gamble that I'll have a
> usable system afterwards.

It's possible that yum reinstall may work, but I'd suggest that you do a 
backup RIGHT NOW.

[Tim]

Allegedly, on or about 11 July 2014, Mike Wright sent:
> Usually there is no mouse after this happens.  A "return" returns me
> to the login screen and I can choose one of the different desktops
> from there, all of which work.

Do you have a second test login to try out, one without any
configuration customisations stored in it?

[Ahmad Samir]

On 11/07/14 21:42, Mike Wright wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Following a recent kernel update I rebooted and can no longer use
> Gnome3.  I receive this error:
>  "Oh no!  Something has gone wrong.  A problem has occurred and the
>
> system can't recover.  All extensions have been disabled as a precaution."
>
> Usually there is no mouse after this happens.  A "return" returns me to
> the login screen and I can choose one of the different desktops from
> there, all of which work.
>
> I am loathe to yum remove, yum install.  The remove wants to take 554MB
> of packages with it and I'm not willing to gamble that I'll have a
> usable system afterwards.
>
> Anybody seen this before?  How did you recover from it?

Does booting an older kernel let you log in?

fix a broken gnome desktop ? [solved]

[Mike Wright]

07/11/2014 11:22 PM, Tim wrote:
> Allegedly, on or about 11 July 2014, Mike Wright sent:
> > Usually there is no mouse after this happens.  A "return" returns me
> > to the login screen and I can choose one of the different desktops
> > from there, all of which work.
>
> Do you have a second test login to try out, one without any
> configuration customisations stored in it?

Thanks Tim,

Had so many sticks in the fire I forgot that approach; should have been 
one of the first tests.

Tried that this AM and it didn't work but an error message popped up 
long enough to see that it had a problem with gnome-shell-3.10.4-6.fc20.

Yum erase/install gnome-shell gnome-tweak-tool and all is well in happy 
land.

Rhetorical question of the day: "Why are gnome3's hidden directories 
named .gnome2 ?

fix a broken gnome desktop ? [solved]

[Tim]

Allegedly, on or about 12 July 2014, Mike Wright sent:
> Tried that this AM and it didn't work but an error message popped up 
> long enough to see that it had a problem with
> gnome-shell-3.10.4-6.fc20.
>
> Yum erase/install gnome-shell gnome-tweak-tool and all is well in
> happy land.

Hmm, I don't care for the re-install approach to fix something, it
sounds more like a fault side-stepped than resolved.  Though, for what
it's worth, there's a "yum reinstall" option that might make such things
easier to do.
> Rhetorical question of the day: "Why are gnome3's hidden directories 
> named .gnome2 ?

It's so tempting to make an disparaging comment about software
developers, but instead I'll leave people to imagine their own insults.

Though I dare say that it's probably a begrudging thing they did so they
don't break all the applications that expect to find something in there,
instead of forcing everything to be rewritten to suit their latest ideas
about how things should be done.

Really, programmers should be forced to study "The Emperor's New
Clothes," and write a thesis proving that they understand it, before
their allowed to program for the public...    ;-\

Time to re-invent the wheel again.  This time with added barbed wire.

fix a broken gnome desktop ? [solved]

[Kevin Fenzi]

On Sun, 13 Jul 2014 04:21:06 +0930
Tim  wrote:
> Allegedly, on or about 12 July 2014, Mike Wright sent:

...snip...
> > Rhetorical question of the day: "Why are gnome3's hidden
> > directories named .gnome2 ?

I don't think it does.

gnome3 (along with most other applications and DE's have moved to the
xdg standard. So, config files are under .config/ and so on.

if you have .gnome2 directories I suspect they are leftover from a long
time ago and not used. Do you see anything updating files under there
anymore? Which ones?
> It's so tempting to make an disparaging comment about software
> developers, but instead I'll leave people to imagine their own
> insults.

How about we skip the insults, especially when the supposition isn't
likely even true.

kevin

fix a broken gnome desktop ? [solved]

[Mike Wright]

07/12/2014 11:55 AM, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
> On Sun, 13 Jul 2014 04:21:06 +0930
> Tim  wrote:
> > Allegedly, on or about 12 July 2014, Mike Wright sent:
>
> ...snip...
> > > Rhetorical question of the day: "Why are gnome3's hidden
> > > directories named .gnome2 ?
>
> I don't think it does.
>
> gnome3 (along with most other applications and DE's have moved to the
> xdg standard. So, config files are under .config/ and so on.
>
> if you have .gnome2 directories I suspect they are leftover from a long
> time ago and not used. Do you see anything updating files under there
> anymore? Which ones?

Thanks for the tip Kevin.  I deleted the .gnome directories before I 
logged back into Gnome3, but I've also logged into Xfce4.  So I just 
deleted them again and logged into Gnome3.  They are not there. 
Everything is pointing at Xfce4 which confuses me because it has its own 
.xfce4 directory.

I'll keep my eyes open for the next few days and avoid Xfce4.  That 
should give me an unequivocal answer.

fix a broken gnome desktop ? [solved]

[Kevin Fenzi]

On Sat, 12 Jul 2014 21:00:44 -0700
Mike Wright  wrote:
> Thanks for the tip Kevin.  I deleted the .gnome directories before I 
> logged back into Gnome3, but I've also logged into Xfce4.  So I just 
> deleted them again and logged into Gnome3.  They are not there. 
> Everything is pointing at Xfce4 which confuses me because it has its
> own .xfce4 directory.
>
> I'll keep my eyes open for the next few days and avoid Xfce4.  That 
> should give me an unequivocal answer.

FWIW, Xfce also has moved to xdg directories for things. ;)

kevin

fix a broken gnome desktop ? [solved]

[Mike Wright]

07/13/2014 12:22 PM, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
> On Sat, 12 Jul 2014 21:00:44 -0700
> Mike Wright  wrote:
> > Thanks for the tip Kevin.  I deleted the .gnome directories before I
> > logged back into Gnome3, but I've also logged into Xfce4.  So I just
> > deleted them again and logged into Gnome3.  They are not there.
> > Everything is pointing at Xfce4 which confuses me because it has its
> > own .xfce4 directory.
> >
> > I'll keep my eyes open for the next few days and avoid Xfce4.  That
> > should give me an unequivocal answer.
>
> FWIW, Xfce also has moved to xdg directories for things. ;)

Ok.  I haven't logged into Xfce4 since I last posted and have been 
logged into Gnome3 the whole time.

At 2125 pst yesterday .gnome2_hidden showed up.  It is empty.
At 2304 pst yesterday .gnome2 showed up.  It contains the empty 
directory "accels".  It also contains a zero length file named 
"firefox.im6VUW".  Could be from one of the gnome plugins.  I don't 
know.  But given that they are all empty they seem to be irrelevant.