Mouse over lefthand icon bar causes crash

Sorry, mutter closed unexpectedly. is the error when I run the mouse pointer over the left icon bar.

Thanks.... appreciate your time.

While mutter is replaced with compiz for Unity in Natty, mutter should still work, both in older releases (which are still supported) and in Natty? Have you reported this as a bug (or found an existing bug report that you're confident is the same as the bug you've experienced)? If so, what bug is it? (You can link the bug report to this question.) If not, would you be willing to report this as a bug?

Hi, I tried to associate the bug report with the post here. I thought I caught 'Maverick' in the text of the report. I can reboot the netbook image and pay more attention to how Launchpad handles the bug report. I'm new to this process. But I will help any way I can. I was thinking about pulling the beta and trying to break that in the near future. I'll try not to clutter the bug reporting system. Once I have the bug text I'll try to post it here. Thanks.

Are you saying that you have already reported the bug? Assuming you reported the bug here on Launchpad, can you tell us what the bug number is?

I think I did, but if the mouse runs across the left icon bar, it resets the screen or system. The second time I was successful in reporting the bug and I was in the process of associating my bug with one that was already open, the system reset when the mouse ran over the left icon bar. The bug is opened under my email account <email address hidden> if that helps at all.

It's a little annoying when the system resets if you accidentally move your mouse to a certain part of the screen. I pulled down another image and made another USB boot stick to try it again. But it was not the boot image.

I think it has something to do with the help balloons when you mouse over something, but I'm new to ubuntu (not to computers). I'd really like to get down to the operating system.

Thanks for your time. I'll try to reboot the image and try to associate the bug with whatever's open. It's easy to reproduce. Netbook 10.xx image on a USB stick. Boot->choose try ubuntu netbook (not install) and run the mouse over the left hand icon bank. I tried it on two laptops both failed. If you move the mouse it will crash consistently.

I'm trying to burn a CD to see if it's USB related.

Thanks, Luke.

I should have mentioned that it has been on 2 - XP pro machines. I will try the CD image on my Dell m4400 to make sure it is not the USB image. I have a feeling the desktop image is more appropriate for that machine (m4400). If I run the desktop on it, it will probably smoke. I messed with ubuntu a couple years ago, and I know this is the way to go. If we have to learn Windows 7, might as well run some Linux desktop side by side. Okay… friday night… got to go.

Is bug 664329 the one you're referring to? Your account's email address is not public, so I can't be sure that the account you used to post this question is the same one you use for reporting bugs, but that's the only bug report that is in any way associated with your account.

Also...have you tried updating your system (System > Administration > Update Manager) and seeing if the problem goes away?

If you're saying to update my system - (System > Administration > Update Manager), no because if I tried to click or mouse over the icon bar, the system would crash...

I checked to see if one of my bug reports were entered, and they were not. I submitted a bug report today - #755579. I’m still going to try the netbook build using a CD. I’ll let you know the results.

Okay - I received an email that said my bug report (755579) was related to a bug that was already opened – 688733.

I would like to also add the failure that I caught before the desktop came up after I chose ‘Try Ubuntu Netbook’:

(process:327): Glib-WARNING **: getpwiud_r(): failed due to unknown user id (0)

Not sure if the following message was part of the failure message of the shutdown process.

Broadcast message from root@ubuntu
  (unknown) at 10:19…

That’s all for now.

"If you're saying to update my system - (System > Administration > Update Manager), no because if I tried to click or mouse over the icon bar, the system would crash..."

A while back, Federico Tello Gentile said you could use the Classic Desktop (which you can select at the login screen after specifying your username) as a workaround to this problem, and you marked this question as solved, with that answer as the solution. I presumed that meant that that answer *worked* for you. If that is the case, then you can do that, and then go to System > Administration > Update Manager. Right?

After the update, reboot your computer, log in (not with the Classic Desktop, but with the login session where you get the problem, the regular one, I don't know what it's called in the menu because I don't have an Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition system handy). If this looks like the desktop where you've experienced the problem (with the Unity launcher bar on the left of the screen), but the problem is gone, then that means the bug has been fixed.

Please let us know what happens when you do this.

Hi, Yes, Federico Tello Gentile did satisfy my issue by suggesting I use the desktop version, so I apologize for any confusion. I thought you wanted more information on the issue I was having, so I was only trying to help.

I am at the pre-installation point. I am booting from a USB stick to try the different versions of Ubuntu. The bug I reported was during the trial version of netbook. In order to save settings, I believe it has to be installed. Especially if the trial versions are burnt to CD.

If folks are trying the trial version of netbook you can see why they might get discouraged about installing something that doesn't work during the trial.

Once I have a drive partitioned so I can install Ubuntu, I will try your suggestions and let you know. Appreciate your time and help. Thanks, Luke.

"If folks are trying the trial version of netbook you can see why they might get discouraged about installing something that doesn't work during the trial."

Yes, that's a very good point. Please do not feel pressured into installing any operating system--including Ubuntu--that does not fulfill your needs. If you wish to install Ubuntu in order to help test it, that's wonderful...but please understand that you do not have to bend over backwards and engage in difficult, time-consuming bug hunting to use Ubuntu or be a member of the Ubuntu community or the FOSS community at large. You can do those things, they are appreciated, but nobody wants you to think they are in any way required.

I had not realized that you were running from a live system (rather than an installed one), though now I can see that you were trying to communicate that in your original post, when you said that you were "test driving" the system. If I had realized that, I would not have asked you do anything that required installation, without also making clear that I was not trying to pressure you into putting in effort that you did not wish to expend.

It is actually possible to update a live system (the updates just wouldn't be applied anymore after you reboot), and you might even be able to find out if an update fixes this issue by updating, then logging out and back in. (You'd have to log out and back in anyway, in order to update it and test it, since due to the problem you can only update in a Classic Desktop session, whereas you can only test for the issue in Netbook Edition.) If that fixes the problem (but logging out and back in without updating, as a control, does not fix the problem), that would indicate with virtual certainty that the bug has been fixed. On the other hand, if that does not fix the problem, that would suggest that the bug has not been fixed, but since the bug might affect multiple system components some of which might require rebooting to reinitialize, it would not prove that the bug had not been fixed. At that point, if you wanted to make sure that there is no remaining bug for you to report, you would have to install the system.

If you're willing to install an operating system that doesn't work in order to help test it, you might consider alternatively (or also) using the beta of Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal. It is not fully stable and you should expect bugs, including some serious ones, but it will be release near the end of the month and by installing it now you can gain the benefit of Federico's suggestion early. As Federico said, it uses compiz instead of mutter, so installing Ubuntu 11.04 wouldn't help you to test this issue further. But you'd have the opportunity to discover and report other bugs, and to use the system before its final release date. If you want to do this, then you could install from the Beta 1 install images (http://releases.ubuntu.com/natty/ for CD images; http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/natty/beta-1/ for DVD images; both can be written to USB flash media, and either one you get, I recommend bittorrent, because it's faster and more reliable than web download and by uploading as well as downloading you help others to get it quickly). Or, you could install from the daily live image (http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/). Please note that, in Ubuntu 11.04, the Netbook and Desktop editions are no longer separate, which is why you don't see a download option for Ubuntu Netbook Edition (see http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/natty/beta#Naming%20Changes).

Finally, please note that if you wish to install both Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition and Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop Edition, you can install them on the same computer; even the same hard drive. The least technically demanding way to do this is to install one and then install the other, telling installer in the second installation to manually shrink down the first system to make room. A more technically demanding way that some people prefer, as it is more customizable and slightly faster because no (or less) dynamic partition resizing is required, is to manually partition in the first installation so that there is room left over for the second installation. If you're interested in doing that, see https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowtoPartition/. Please note that multiple Linux-based systems can share that same swap partition (and probably should, as there is typically no disadvantage to this), but they most definitely cannot share a / (root) partition.

Hi Eliah, Computers are my life. Thanks for all the great info and your patience. I'll let you know how my testing goes. Also, I'm pulling natty down now. Thanks, Luke.