The desktop background can no longer be set and the menu no longer appears on clicking the desktop. In beta 1, the desktop became black, but now in beta 2 it is grey. The problem arose after launching nautilus from the command line (in a gnome terminal). This replaced my background with my gnome desktop shortcuts and background. I know I left two gnome terminal windows open when logging out with the save desktop option, although I don't know whether the one I launched nautilus with was one of them.
Sorry, it seems as though I've listed the same bug as someone else. Following the your request to that person, I checked to see if XFDesktop running, and it wasn't. On starting it from the command line, the background and menus work. The following output is repeated many times on the terminal: *** attempt to put segment in horiz list twice with this message occurring somewhere in the middle: (xfdesktop:7062): libxfce4util-CRITICAL **: file xfce-desktopentry.c: line 437 (xfce_desktop_entry_new): assertion `g_file_test (priv->file, G_FILE_TEST_EXISTS)' failed
regarding comment 1 - this is normal. nautilus takes over the desktop and draws its own background. i believe there's a command line option to nautilus to tell it not to do this, but i don't remember what it is. either way, not xfce's problem. regarding comment 2 - the message that repeats over and over is generated by librsvg, not from xfdesktop. the warning is harmless. if xfdesktop aborts with a message having to do with libart_lgpl (and something about art_render_gradient or something like that), that's a libart_lgpl bug, and you need to update that to a newer version.
Thank you for you reply. I'm sorry I should have been clearer in my initial description. The problem is that the background and menu no longer work on starting xfce now. The problem has persisted since starting nautilus from command line that one time.
right... but is nautilus actually running? if so, then of course you won't be able to see xfdesktop's background or use its menus. if not, please check that xfdesktop is running with 'ps -e|grep xfdesktop' from a terminal. if not, please run it from a terminal and paste any output here.
The desktop and menu are working again, but while I was still having the problem, nautilus was not running and neither was xfdesktop. The desktop and menu were not present on starting xfce (without nautilus running). On starting xfdesktop the output is the output I pasted before, i.e: "*** attempt to put segment in horiz list twice". Once xfdesktop is started, any subsequent logins to xfce have the desktop and menus present whilst if I start nautilus from the command line and shut down xfce with the save option, then any subsequent logins don't run xfdesktop. Perhaps the ability to run xfce without xfdesktop is somehow a feature, but on starting xfce, should the user not be presented with a dialogue box asking whether to start xfdesktop in case it has been accidently shut down?
ok, i think i hae a pretty good picture as to what's going on here. can you do this for me: 1) start up xfce, and open two terminals. 2) make sure neither xfdesktop nor nautilus are running. kill them if needed. 3) start xfdesktop from terminal #1 using gdb* (see below). verify that it's running (backdrop is drawn, menu works, etc.) 4) start nautilus from terminal #2. verify that it's running (takes over backdrop and draws icons, etc.) after #4, what happens to xfdesktop running in terminal #1? if it doesn't crash, do you get any output? please, give me whatever info you can get. my hypothesis here is that nautilus and xfdesktop are fighting for control, and xfdesktop crashes, which it shouldn't. * gdb: do this from a terminal (assume "$" is the prompt): $ gdb xfdesktop [some info scrolls by] (gdb) run <-- type this, hit enter [xfdesktop starts, output scrolls by] [at this point, do #4 in the procedure above. if gdb indicates that xfdesktop crashed, and you get returned to the prompt, do this:] (gdb) bt <-- type this, hit enter [a bunch more stuff scrolls by - *paste this in the bug report*]
reporter: i'm going to need some more information here; otherwise i'll have to mark this WORKSFORME.
This is the output I got: The application 'xfdesktop' lost its connection to the display :0.0; most likely the X server was shut down or you killed/destroyed the application. Program exited with code 01. (gdb) bt No stack.
sorry, i should have asked in the first place; could i have the entire output after you type "run" into gdb? that output you posted isn't very useful.
Sorry, this is the full output, I'm not sure this is of any more use though. (gdb) run Starting program: /usr/local/bin/xfdesktop [Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled] [New Thread 16384 (LWP 2564)] *** attempt to put segment in horiz list twice (This is repeated lots of times) The application 'xfdesktop' lost its connection to the display :0.0; most likely the X server was shut down or you killed/destroyed the application. Program exited with code 01. (gdb) bt No stack. (gdb)
hmmph. well that's no fun. i really have no idea why that would happen. maybe nautilus is killing xfdesktop somehow? though i know that didn't used to happen. i don't know if this is going to get fixed. marking future and low prio. i suggest you run nautilus with the --no-desktop option (or whatever it is) so it doesn't try to draw the desktop. presumably that should work around the problem.
I get the same bug too, only I have it in RC3, but not in RC2. I can't right-click on the desktop to get a menu, and the backdrop can't be changed, it's always xfce-stripes.png.
I had a similar problem: xfdesktop and xfce4-panel crashed and the session was saved so they didn't appear on a new login. I managed to fix this by doing rm -rf ~/.cache/sessions/* xfce then restarts with the default session. HTH
Running nautilus in draw-desktop mode causes xfdesktop to quit if it's running. I'm not sure why, and I can't seem to figure it out. I don't think this is going to get fixed, as there's a workaround to tell nautilus not to draw the destkop.