After installing the latest git version of xfce4-settings the appearance can no longer be changed. Bisection shows that this is caused by xfce4-settings-791f02416... Fork before gtk/dbus init (bug #11045) by Eric Koegel, 2014-07-28. Installing xfce4-settings-791f02416... sets the appearance to other settings than the ones I want. The appearance doesn't change when trying to get back my settings.
I am unable to reproduce this issue. Can you please try with the latest commit?
I am using the latest (git pull, 2014-8-21) commits of exo, garcon, libxfce4ui, libxfce4util, thunar, xfce4-dev-tools, xfce4panel, xfce4-session, xfce4-settings, xfconf, xfdesktop and xfwm4, uninstalled and again make and make install them all. All the items of the 'Settings' can be customized, except the ones of 'Appearance' ('Style, Icons, Fonts, Settings') which can not be changed. Same issue after installing the new xfce4-settings-4.11.3. No such issue after reverting to xfce4-settings-168b90b or xfce4-settings-4.11.2. My system is Debian Sid with xfce4 v.4.11 from experimental which I upgraded from the git repository. Removing ~/.config/xfce4 and again login didn't solve the issue.
I have found the cause of this issue. Xfsettingsd was not enabled in my Application Autostart settings. When using xfce4-settings 4.11.2 xfsettingsd daemon is always started and running in the background even when not enabled in Application Autostart. Using xfce4-settings 4.11.3 xfsettingsd is not started and not running unless explicitly enabled in Application Autostart. Enabling Xfsettingsd (the Xfce Settings Daemon) in Session and Startup, Application Autostart fixes this issue.
xfsettingsd.desktop should be installed in autostart by default (it's even in the makefile: xfsettingsd/Makefile.am). autostartdir = $(sysconfdir)/xdg/autostart autostart_in_files = xfsettingsd.desktop.in autostart_DATA = $(autostart_in_files:.desktop.in=.desktop) In Debian experimental, its installed under /etc/xdg/autostart/ https://packages.debian.org/experimental/xfce4-settings Marking as invalid based on the most recent comment.
(In reply to Sean Davis from comment #4) > xfsettingsd.desktop should be installed in autostart by default (it's even > in the makefile: xfsettingsd/Makefile.am). > > Marking as invalid based on the most recent comment. IMHO I consider this to be a regression. xfsettingsd should be started before the xfce4-session giving direct access to the wanted appearance as was the case before xfce4-settings-791f02416... To avoid autostart I have put xfsettingsd in /etc/xdg/xfce4/xinitrc before xfce4-session.