Re: ‘staging’ and GNOME updates

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Ludovic Courtès <address@hidden> writes:

> Hello,
>
> Ludovic Courtès <address@hidden> skribis:
>
>> Timothy Sample <address@hidden> skribis:
>>
>>> Ricardo Wurmus <address@hidden> writes:
>>>
>>>> Ludovic Courtès <address@hidden> writes:
>>>>> I removed pretty both .cache directories, moved .config sub-directories
>>>>> around, etc., and yet I am still unable to log in into the GNOME account
>>>>> (logging in to a non-GNOME account from GDM is fine.)
>>>>>
>>>>> I even tried upgrading the user’s profile just in case is contained
>>>>> incompatible schemas or who knows what, but that didn’t help.
>>>>>
>>>>> What extra bit of state am I missing?
>>>>
>>>> Do you have ~/.local?  In my earlier tests this contained binary
>>>> notification data that when loaded would lead to a crash.
>>>
>>> I’m testing GNOME on ‘staging’ now, and had the same problem (GDM worked
>>> okay, but I could not login).  I fixed it by deleting
>>> “~/.local/share/gnome-shell/notifications”.  I left everything else in
>>> my home directory as it was.
>>
>> That’s the one!  I moved ~/.local/share/gnome-shell out of the way and
>> after that I could log in.  \o/
>
> So I’d really like to merge that branch, but this GNOME upgrade issue is
> holding us back.
>
> Does anyone have ideas on how to address it?

With this system definition I cannot log into GNOME:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(use-modules (gnu) (gnu system nss))
(use-service-modules desktop xorg)
(use-package-modules certs gnome)

(operating-system
  (host-name "antelope")
  (timezone "Europe/Paris")
  (locale "en_US.utf8")
  (keyboard-layout (keyboard-layout "us" "altgr-intl"))
  (bootloader (bootloader-configuration
                (bootloader grub-efi-bootloader)
                (target "/boot/efi")
                (keyboard-layout keyboard-layout)))
  (file-systems (cons (file-system
                         (device (file-system-label "my-root"))
                         (mount-point "/")
                         (type "ext4"))
                      %base-file-systems))
  (users (cons (user-account
                (name "bob")
                (comment "Alice's brother")
                (group "users")
                (supplementary-groups '("wheel" "netdev"
                                        "audio" "video")))
               %base-user-accounts))
  (packages (append (list nss-certs gvfs)
                    %base-packages))
  (services (append (list (service gnome-desktop-service-type)
                          (set-xorg-configuration
                           (xorg-configuration
                            (keyboard-layout keyboard-layout)))
                          (service (service-type
                                    (name 'break-gnome)
                                    (extensions
                                     (list (service-extension
                                            activation-service-type
                                            (lambda _
                                              #~(mkdir-p 
"/home/bob/.local/share/gnome-shell")))))
                                    (default-value #t))))
                    %desktop-services))
  (name-service-switch %mdns-host-lookup-nss))
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Note the “break-gnome” service.  When the service does not exist,
everything is fine.  It seems to me that the contents of the directory
really do not matter after all.

Now I wonder how this affects the gnome-shell startup, because once the
upgrade is complete things do work fine.  I wonder if there may be a
dconf setting that is flipped after initialization.

-- 
Ricardo