Gnome visual effects not retained after reboot

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please answer these questions:

 * Is this reproducible?
 * If so, what specific steps should we take to recreate this bug?

 This will help us to find and resolve the problem.

Gentlemen:

The reported problem is absolutely repeatable on my machine. When Gnome
first starts, all application screens lack the usual minimize, maximize
and close icons in the upper right corner of the window. To correct
this, I open the Gnome Appearance Panel and the properties indicate that
there are NO visual effects. I change this option to "Normal Provides
improved usability and a good balance between attractiveness and
moderate performance requirements." A box stating "searching for
available drivers" appears followed by a dialog asking if I wish to keep
the new settings. I select the option to keep the new settings and
immediately my cursor options take effect and all windows immediately
start displaying the minimize, maximize and close icons, which were
previously missing. Everything works as expected from this point on.
However after a restart, the visual effects revert to "None" and again
all windows lack the minimize, maximize and close icons in the upper
right corner.

This was a fresh install of Ubuntu Studio 9.04 and there were no error
messages displayed during the installation process. For me, the error is
(unfortunately) infinitely repeatable.

*Leo C. Petroski*

*e-mail (Home): *<email address hidden>
<mailto:<email address hidden>>_

*postal mail: 411 Alden Avenue Morrisville, Pa 19067-4805 *

Sebastien Bacher wrote:
> Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please answer these questions:
>
> * Is this reproducible?
> * If so, what specific steps should we take to recreate this bug?
>
> This will help us to find and resolve the problem.
>
> ** Changed in: gnome-control-center (Ubuntu)
> Importance: Undecided => Low
>
> ** Changed in: gnome-control-center (Ubuntu)
> Status: New => Incomplete
>
> ** Changed in: gnome-control-center (Ubuntu)
> Assignee: (unassigned) => Ubuntu Desktop Bugs (desktop-bugs)
>
>

Confirmed on 64-bit Ubuntu Jaunty.
Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT

could you try if that's still an issue on karmic?

Sebastien,

I'll be happy to. I planned to try installing 9.10 on that machine
anyway, so I will report back as soon as I do. Take care.

*Leo C. Petroski*

*e-mail (Home): *<email address hidden>
<mailto:<email address hidden>>_

*postal mail: 411 Alden Avenue Morrisville, Pa 19067-4805 *

Sebastien Bacher wrote:
> could you try if that's still an issue on karmic?
>
>

This bug is also present on my machine. It is similar to those reported in: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/413385 and https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-meta/+bug/269292

I found a hint in the

gnome-control-center-2.28.1/debian/patches/95_desktop-effects-integration.patch
Line: 424
+ session_file = g_build_filename (g_get_home_dir (),
+ ".gnome2",
+ "session",
+ NULL);

According to someone in the #ubuntu channel this file (~/.gnome2/session) is obsolete. It is also definitely not present on my system as are several other files mentioned in "man gnome-session"
Instead I find the session files in ~/.config/gnome-session/saved-session

Im not sure if that is related to the problem but it might be worth to have a look. In fact I am wondering anyway why the file it deleted anyway since there seems to be no further use in the program anyway nor it is rewritten later.

Sebastien,

I have tried Karmic Koala and the problem does not appear. It appears to
have been corrected and I am very happy. Take care.

*Leo C. Petroski*

*e-mail (Home): *<email address hidden>
<mailto:<email address hidden>>_

*postal mail: 411 Alden Avenue Morrisville, Pa 19067-4805 *

Sebastien Bacher wrote:
> could you try if that's still an issue on karmic?
>
>

I just reported Bug 482539 but it has been marked as a duplicate of this bug.

I am not sure that it is but . . .

I had Jaunty installed and decided to switch from "No visual effects" (Metacity) to "Normal visual effects" (Compiz) after this change Metacity never worked again despite being installed and my chopice of "Normal visual effects" was not remembered. Thus whenever I log out and login my session starts with no windows manager. So it appears similar to this bug reports except that it is a per session not a per boot issue as the title suggests. Moreover this bug is reported as fixed by switching to Karmic. I have just upgraded from Jaunty to Karmic and I still have the "I don't get a window manager on login" problem.

I have no idea what communication failure there is between Gnome, Metacity, Compiz, etc. but it has clearly broken down in a big way.

I should also point out Bug 482538: The Compiz settings that I set up are forgotten across logins as well. All this seems to lead towards a break down of user specified state logging during a session.

I've never had this problem, but since upgrading to Lucid beta, it has started happening to me. Not sure why or what is causing it, but I'm happy to provide any information needed to fix this.

Based on LanoxxthShaddow's comment, I don't have .gnome2/session in my system either. I did delete the entire .gnome2 directory to fix some issues I was having with an unsuccessful upgrade, so maybe it is related?

Isn't the problem actually in GConf?

Ever since switching from Metacity to Compiz in Jaunty, the state of the Compiz systems has failed to be stored on logout. In particular, Gnome thinks it is supposed to be using Metacity but Metacity fails to start so no window manager. This means manually setting Compiz and waiting for it to scan the device drivers. The Compiz state is also reset so I have to manually switch of the Snapping Windows which I really dislike. Fianlly the state of the workspace switcher has to be reset to what I want as that fails to be remembered across logins.

The upgrade from Karmic to Lucid hasn't helped so I guess this is not a distribution thing, just a configuration thing that doesn't get altered across upgrades.

10.04.. No window controls after setting up the visual effects to extra, the controls show. When the OS starts there are no controls on the window, and have to be setup again.

10.04 When I reboot, visual effects are no retained and must be restarted. I have nvidia 9600M GS. The driver installed is 195.36.15.

Hi,
I found this
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1264495
especially #6 helped me. When I reboot now gnome will start with 3D effects from compiz. Can someone tell me which program is started at startup which isn't in the original configuration.

Thanks

I've got the same problem with Lucid. I have tried all the NVIDIA drivers found in the search, and they all work fine in the present session. On reboot, however, the visual effects defaults to "None" and has to be reset. The pointer is only an "X" and all applications can only be closed by using the menu File/Quit.

Confirmed in Lucid.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-control-center/+bug/593252

Still present in Maverick.

I found that by booting using Debian Squeeze with the user home directory in a partition shared by Debian and Ubuntu, doing the set up in Debian and rebooting in Debian, the configuration was saved. Booting to Ubuntu then used the save state. So the problem appears to be lack of state saving in Ubuntu rather than jsut using defaults.

I use Unison to mirror my home directory between laptop and workstation so that technique cured the problem ont he workstation without having to load Debian at all.

The problem is therefore home directory state information with Debian getting it right and Ubuntu not.

thank you for your bug report, the visual effect dialog has been deprecated in favor of using login screen session now though so we are closing this bug but don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future.