GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 555187
GnuCash-2.2.7_2 preferences cannot be accessed/modified; slows computer immensely.
Last modified: 2018-08-17 13:58:19 UTC
Please describe the problem: Ran port updates: gnucash from 2.2.5_0 to 2.2.7_1; gconf from 2.22.0_0 to 2.24.0_0; orbit2 from 2.14.12_0 to 2.14.16_0; dbus from 1.1.20_1 to 1.2.3_0. Got the following errors, confirmed by two other users; was told it was probably a ORBit/GConf problem, or possibly dbus. Two error windows every time gnucash is launched. One says: "The configuration data used to specify default values for GnuCash cannot be found in the default system locations. Without this data GnuCash will still operate properly but it may require some extra time to setup. Do you wish to setup the configuration data?" The other says: "An error occurred while loading or saving configuration information for gnucash. Some of your configuration settings may not work properly." When I click "Details" on the second window, it says: "Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://www.gnome.org/projects/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: dbus-launch failed to autolaunch D-Bus session: Autolaunch requested, but X11 support not compiled in." Gnucash mostly works fine otherwise, but preferences cannot be accessed or saved. That is, you can change them and click OK, but they don't actually do anything. My previously saved preferences are not accessed. Also, other "on-the-fly" preferences don't stick, such as the confirmation window when changing the reconciliation state of transactions. When I select, "don't warn me again", this is not remembered, and the windows will still pop up. GnuCash is also taking a ridiculous amount of CPU power, and is extremely slow, possibly related to locked files? Deactivating gconf @2.24.0_0 and activating gconf @2.22.0_0 solves this problem. Reactivating previous revision of gconf also reinstates my previous preferences. Steps to reproduce: 1. make sure gconf @2.24.0_0 is active. 2. run GnuCash. 3. attempt to change preferences. Actual results: At stage 2: two error windows produced. At stage 3: preferences cannot be altered/accessed. Expected results: At stage 2: no error windows to be produced. At stage 3: preferences to be accessable and writable. Does this happen every time? Yes Other information: Problem confirmed by 3 other users; workaround confirmed by 2 other users.
Looks like a problem between the newer dbus-enabled gconf and your dbus setup. A bit too many variables and too little information to know for sure though.
GConf has been deprecated since 2011. GConf is not under active development anymore. Its codebase has been archived: https://gitlab.gnome.org/Archive/gconf/commits/master dconf and gsettings are its successors. See https://developer.gnome.org/gio/stable/ch34.html and https://developer.gnome.org/GSettings/ for porting info. Closing this report as WONTFIX as part of Bugzilla Housekeeping to reflect reality. Feel free to open a task in GNOME Gitlab if the issue described in this task still applies to a recent + supported version of dconf/gsettings. Thanks!