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Bug 669954 - Virtualbox either completely crashes GNOME Shell or causes it to restart.
Virtualbox either completely crashes GNOME Shell or causes it to restart.
Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 668930
Product: gnome-shell
Classification: Core
Component: general
3.2.x
Other Linux
: Normal major
: ---
Assigned To: gnome-shell-maint
gnome-shell-maint
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2012-02-13 01:49 UTC by Niko Montonen
Modified: 2012-02-13 22:22 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---


Description Niko Montonen 2012-02-13 01:49:36 UTC 
OS: Ubuntu 11.10
GPU Drivers: Catalyst 12.1

Virtualbox will often completely crash GNOME Shell.

Best examples are opening the settings page of a virtual machine, changing some setting (such as virtual processor count from 1 to 2), pressing OK, at which point GNOME Shell will completely crash.

Does not happen with GNOME Classic (or Unity).

I installed GNOME Shell straight from the repository on a fresh install (other than opting to install a newer version of Catalyst due to some sort of corruption happening in GNOME Shell with older drivers), and 3.2 is the only one on there.

I'm not exactly a smart user in any way, so I can't install a newer version manually and test that.

I also haven't got a clue where any relevant log files might be, but if you point me to them, I can post them.
Comment 1 Milan Bouchet-Valat 2012-02-13 09:31:47 UTC 
Does it only happen with VirtualBox? Catalyst drivers are known to trigger crashes regularly, that's bug 668930.

Please get a stack trace using Apport, file a bug in Launchpad, and post the link here. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Apport#How_to_enable_apport
Comment 2 Niko Montonen 2012-02-13 21:42:35 UTC 
I've only need able to reproduce it with Virtualbox, but it's a freshly installed system so I've been using a very limited selection of programs.

I'm thinking I'll try switching over to the open-source drivers (I heard they don't perform as well, which is why I went with Catalyst, but the GUI crashing isn't fun.)

Here's the bug in Launchpad: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-shell/+bug/931723

There are also some other graphical glitches (Windows 7 guest VM, 2D and 3D acceleration enabled, after log-in, the "Welcome" screen stays but if you move your mouse, during the frames where the mouse is moving, it shows the desktop).
So Catalyst looks like a very likely source of trouble.
Comment 3 Milan Bouchet-Valat 2012-02-13 22:22:28 UTC 
OK, the crash happens in g_slice_alloc(), it's probably the same issue.

The Nouveau drivers are becoming better and better, they may well be usable in 12.04.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 668930 ***