GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 647359
saved-session file prevents login
Last modified: 2015-12-15 15:02:32 UTC
Overview: After logging in from welcome screen, the session fails to load. Step to reproduce: Log in (regular user or root) from welcome screen. Results: The user's background loaded. No top bar, clock, user icon etc. Unable to launch Activities from top left corner, ALT+F2 fails to launch command window. CTRL+ALT+DEL will launch logout window. Solution: Drop to console. rm ~/.config/gnome-session/saved-session/* As root, kill and re-launch gdm. From welcome screen, login in as regular user. Versions: gnome-session-3.0.0-1 on Arch Linux x86_64
just to add more info, this happens when upgrading from gnome 2.32 to gnome 3.0.0. I don't know how many distribution do that but worth investigating
This also happens running the Fedora 15 GNOME3 Test Day i686 live image at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-04-21_GNOME3_Final#Live_image The same recovery method works - go to a VT, rm ~/.config/gnome-session-saved-session/*, go back to the GUI, restart X with Ctrl-Alt-Backspace, log in again. The image includes gnome-session-3.0.0-1.fc15. Fedora's bugzilla: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=698184
Same thing happens with http://download.gnome.org/misc/live/GNOME30-Live-2011-04-06-17.iso (the image currently labeled as "GNOME30-Live-latest.iso"). Log in as liveuser, Alt-F2 to run gnome-session-properties, check "Automatically remember running applications when logging out" under the Options tab, close g-s-p, logout and login. GUI is useless. The above fix (rm ~/.config/gnome-session/saved-session/* from a VT) works. BTW, this bug's summary isn't actually true - you CAN login, it's just that there's nothing you can do after that (other than escape to a VT or restart X with Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to get back to the login prompt). To emphasize, this has nothing to do with legacy GNOME2, it happens when logging into GNOME Shell on a clean system and attempting to enable session saving in the simplest possible way, with no running applications when logging out. I've reproduced it on 2 different machines so it's unlikely to be hardware-specific. _Anyone_ who attempts to enable session saving in GNOME Shell should see this. P.S. When typing the command using Alt-F2, the letters aren't readable so you have to type blind. The same thing happens in the user menu when hovering over either "System Settings" or "Log Out...". I haven't checked if this has been reported since compared to the GUI being hosed it's a minor issue.
Should also mention that once the GUI is working again, it's necessary to run g-s-p and UNcheck "Automatically remember running applications when logging out" to keep this from happening in future logins.
Please attach the files in ~/.config/gnome-session/saved-session/
Created attachment 186639 [details] only file in ~/.config/gnome-session/saved-session/ This is the only file in the directory, following the procedure in comment 3. (Use GNOME30-Live-2011-04-06-17.iso, Alt-F2 to run gnome-session-properties, check the remember running applications box, close g-s-p, logout, login, GUI doesn't work, go to a VT and retrieve this file.)
Thanks. So mutter would be run instead of gnome-shell because of this. That's broken -- gnome-shell should always be run. I guess some check is not done correctly.
With gnome-shell 3.2.2-1 this issue does not occur anymore. I can successfully login when "Automatically remember running applications when logging out" is active. System: 3.2.1-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Jan 13 06:50:31 CET 2012 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q 720 @ 1.60GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux Remark: Unfortunately not all applications/workspaces are saved.
According to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-session/+bug/771896 there are plans to remove session saving from GNOME altogether. If this is true, perhaps it could be mentioned in an appropriate bug, such as this one? I imagine many users would be upset.
I don't think there are any plans to drop session saving. Still, a better long term plan is to get all the apps to automatically save their state continuously, and not rely on the XSMP. This particular bug isn't a problem anymore I think, so I'm going to close it out.
gnome-session 3.18.1 still could reproduced, but I have not read the source code about restore session, so I do not have idea whether or not dropped session saving. cd saved-session/ ls 10c8bbbfd26e97e7e2145014548751464700000068120027.desktop gnome-shell.desktop
@(In reply to Leslie Zhai from comment #11) > gnome-session 3.18.1 still could reproduced, but I have not read the source > code about restore session, so I do not have idea whether or not dropped > session saving. > > cd saved-session/ > ls > 10c8bbbfd26e97e7e2145014548751464700000068120027.desktop gnome-shell.desktop This may be a different problem. I was unable to log in today, and it turned out the .desktop files in saved-session were all empty. After removing them I could log in again.