GNU bug report logs - #77135
Gnome shell crashes, segfaults in dmesg

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Christopher Howard <christopher <at> librehacker.com>
To: bug-guix <at> gnu.org
Subject: Gnome shell crashes, segfaults in dmesg
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2025 07:39:01 -0800

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Hello, after a guix pull yesterday, I did a guix system reconfigure and a home reconfigure. After rebooting, I have this problem where after logging in to Gnome desktop, the gnome shell will crash with a meaningless error message "something went wrong" and then drop me back to GDM. The crash is not immediate but can take 1-2 minutes before it occurs. I am able to use the virtual console still, but Gnome desktop is rendered useless. I can use the guix roll-back functionality to go back to my previous system and home configuration and everything works again.

After the crash occurs, I can look at the output of dmesg and see that there are segfaults occuring in various services. I have attached the dmesg output.

[20250320-dmesg.txt (text/plain, attachment)]

[Message part 3 (text/plain, inline)]

Here is the information on the current commit:

``` guix describe
Generation 156	Mar 18 2025 06:51:05	(current)
  guix fa39695
    repository URL: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/guix.git
    branch: master
    commit: fa39695bbc0c5f79838cbca55d55eebd821a8efa
```

Here is the information on the system I upgraded from:

``` guix system list-generations
Generation 93	Feb 25 2025 09:39:56
  file name: /var/guix/profiles/system-93-link
  canonical file name: /gnu/store/g4afrmhdsw0ff2c7188klqhd9lmfjszj-system
  label: GNU with Linux-Libre 6.13.3
  bootloader: grub
  root device: /dev/mapper/cryptroot
  kernel: /gnu/store/xp54qjqridxih5j8j0krsxrjlymmvg3x-linux-libre-6.13.3/bzImage
  channels:
    guix:
      repository URL: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/guix.git
      branch: master
      commit: 7790e32556f0eebb1bb640e604334f8d1dc20ca5
  configuration file: /gnu/store/q6vx1m9740q04f9rqwdbbvz7v4c28zc7-configuration.scm
```

Here is information on my system from neofetchm, while running under the newer guix system profile:

``` neofetch --stdout
christopher <at> theoden 
------------------- 
OS: Guix System x86_64 
Host: OptiPlex 9020 00 
Kernel: 6.13.7-gnu 
Uptime: 4 mins 
Packages: 159 (guix-system) 
Shell: bash 5.1.16 
Resolution: 1920x1080 
Terminal: /dev/tty1 
CPU: Intel i5-4570 (4) @ 3.600GHz 
GPU: AMD ATI Radeon HD 8490 / R5 235X OEM 
GPU: Intel HD Graphics 
Memory: 1186MiB / 15906MiB 
```

-- 
📛 Christopher Howard
🚀 gemini://gem.librehacker.com
🌐 http://gem.librehacker.com

בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ

Message #8 received at 77135 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Maxim Cournoyer <maxim.cournoyer <at> gmail.com>
To: Christopher Howard <christopher <at> librehacker.com>
Cc: 77135 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#77135: Gnome shell crashes, segfaults in dmesg
Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2025 00:41:57 +0900

Hi,

Christopher Howard <christopher <at> librehacker.com> writes:

> Hello, after a guix pull yesterday, I did a guix system reconfigure
> and a home reconfigure. After rebooting, I have this problem where
> after logging in to Gnome desktop, the gnome shell will crash with a
> meaningless error message "something went wrong" and then drop me back
> to GDM. The crash is not immediate but can take 1-2 minutes before it
> occurs. I am able to use the virtual console still, but Gnome desktop
> is rendered useless. I can use the guix roll-back functionality to go
> back to my previous system and home configuration and everything works
> again.
>
> After the crash occurs, I can look at the output of dmesg and see that
> there are segfaults occuring in various services. I have attached the
> dmesg output.
>
>
>
> Here is the information on the current commit:
>
> ``` guix describe
> Generation 156	Mar 18 2025 06:51:05	(current)
>   guix fa39695
>     repository URL: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/guix.git
>     branch: master
>     commit: fa39695bbc0c5f79838cbca55d55eebd821a8efa
> ```

Thanks for the report.  I cannot reproduce using a VM like:

$(./pre-inst-env guix system vm gnu/system/examples/desktop.tmpl) -m 4g

Did you try rebooting?  This would clear the GDM state files, kept on a
tmpfs.

I don't have a clear idea.  Mutter was recently updated but that doesn't
seem to cause a regression, as shown above.

-- 
Thanks,
Maxim

Message #11 received at 77135 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Noé Lopez <noe <at> xn--no-cja.eu>
To: 77135 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Cc: Christopher Howard <christopher <at> librehacker.com>,
 Maxim Cournoyer <maxim.cournoyer <at> gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Gnome shell crashes, segfaults in dmesg
Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2025 18:19:31 +0100

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Hi Christopher and Maxim,

I can confirm this issue, I login through GDM to the gnome shell and
maybe a minute or less after logging in I get the big “something went
wrong” splash screen.

Fortunately I can work around this by going to another desktop where the
splash screen won’t be visible and gnome-shell will work just fine.

My dmesg output is the same as Christopher’s.

Have a nice day,
Noé

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Message #14 received at 77135 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Christopher Howard <christopher <at> librehacker.com>
To: Maxim Cournoyer <maxim.cournoyer <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 77135 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#77135: Gnome shell crashes, segfaults in dmesg
Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2025 14:15:05 -0800

Maxim Cournoyer <maxim.cournoyer <at> gmail.com> writes:

> Did you try rebooting?  This would clear the GDM state files, kept on a
> tmpfs.

Hi, thank you for looking into this. I actually did not notice the problem until I rebooted.

-- 
Christopher Howard

Message #17 received at 77135 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Maxim Cournoyer <maxim.cournoyer <at> gmail.com>
To: Noé Lopez <noe <at> xn--no-cja.eu>
Cc: 77135 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Christopher Howard <christopher <at> librehacker.com>
Subject: Re: Gnome shell crashes, segfaults in dmesg
Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2025 11:00:08 +0900

Hi Noé,

Noé Lopez <noe <at> noé.eu> writes:

> Hi Christopher and Maxim,
>
> I can confirm this issue, I login through GDM to the gnome shell and
> maybe a minute or less after logging in I get the big “something went
> wrong” splash screen.
>
> Fortunately I can work around this by going to another desktop where the
> splash screen won’t be visible and gnome-shell will work just fine.
>
> My dmesg output is the same as Christopher’s.

Could you try reverting commit 7a26e14ca2d0757423f174b370c09bf2635dac46
and see if that helps?  It updated mutter from 46.8 to 46.9.

-- 
Thanks,
Maxim

Message #20 received at 77135 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Noé Lopez <noe <at> xn--no-cja.eu>
To: Maxim Cournoyer <maxim.cournoyer <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 77135 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Christopher Howard <christopher <at> librehacker.com>
Subject: Re: Gnome shell crashes, segfaults in dmesg
Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2025 15:40:31 +0100

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Hi,

I found more info, firstly the crash’s backtrace with some debug info:

(gdb) bt
#0  0x0000000000405f41 in usb_protection_proxy_ready (source_object=0x39b3a050, res=0x39b3a120, user_data=0x39b0e500) at ../gnome-settings-daemon-47.2/plugins/usb-protection/gsd-usb-protection-manager.c:1093
#1  0x00007fbd8c745033 in ?? () from /gnu/store/fx3rva8gyg2y43v8v206aazlh6hyxv7d-glib-2.82.1/lib/libgio-2.0.so.0
[…]
#14 0x00007fbd8c53c327 in ?? () from /gnu/store/fx3rva8gyg2y43v8v206aazlh6hyxv7d-glib-2.82.1/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#15 0x00007fbd8c53cc23 in g_main_loop_run () from /gnu/store/fx3rva8gyg2y43v8v206aazlh6hyxv7d-glib-2.82.1/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#16 0x0000000000406f0e in main (argc=1, argv=0x7ffdb34b17a8) at ../gnome-settings-daemon-47.2/plugins/common/daemon-skeleton.h:256

This is the line causing the crash[1]:
     g_warning ("Failed to connect to screensaver service: %s", error->message);

This checks out with what I’ve seen online, a bug report that says crash
when error->message is NULL [2].  Though I wonder why the screensaver is
down? Might be another issue that can fix this one for us.

Maxim, can you look into why the screensaver proxy is unreachable? In
the meanwhile I’ll look into this specific crash upstream.

As an immediate fix we can apply the fix in [3] to the
gnome-settings-daemon package.

What do you think?
Noé

[1] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-settings-daemon/-/blob/47.2/plugins/usb-protection/gsd-usb-protection-manager.c?ref_type=tags#L1093
[2] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-settings-daemon/-/issues/792
[3] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-settings-daemon/-/issues/792#note_2088259

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Message #23 received at 77135 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Graysen Pitts <graysen <at> gpitts.net>
To: 77135 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Gnome shell crashes, segfaults in dmesg
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2025 18:37:48 -0400

Hello all,

I just wanted to chime in and say that I am affected by this as well. I am not familiar with the bug reporting process for GUIX, but I am happy to submit any logs or useful info if provided with a little guidance.

Thanks,

Graysen Pitts

Message #26 received at 77135 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Noé Lopez <noe <at> xn--no-cja.eu>
To: 77135 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Cc: Christopher Howard <christopher <at> librehacker.com>,
 Graysen Pitts <graysen <at> gpitts.net>,
 Maxim Cournoyer <maxim.cournoyer <at> gmail.com>,
 Noé Lopez <noe <at> xn--no-cja.eu>
Subject: Re: Gnome shell crashes, segfaults in dmesg
Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2025 09:32:39 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Hi,

The issue is a faulty error handling in gnome-settings-daemon that
accesses an unset error variable.  Since this a pretty high priority
issue in my opinion and upstream has not answered yet I suggest we apply
the patch on our end to fix the issue for our users.

That said, the root issue is bigger (missing screensaver service) and I
will look at it next.

I’m sending the patch as a separate e-mail.

Have a nice day,
Noé

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Message #29 received at 77135 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Noé Lopez <noelopez <at> free.fr>
To: 77135 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Cc: Noé Lopez <noelopez <at> free.fr>
Subject: [PATCH] gnu: gnome-settings-daemon: Fix crash when no screen saver
 available.
Date: Thu,  3 Apr 2025 09:34:59 +0200

Change-Id: Ic6da39489eb2e04f98ae112e6cd2cdb7340bd00e
---
 gnu/packages/gnome.scm                             |  4 +++-
 .../gnome-settings-daemon-screensaver-error.patch  | 14 ++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 17 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
 create mode 100644 gnu/packages/patches/gnome-settings-daemon-screensaver-error.patch

diff --git a/gnu/packages/gnome.scm b/gnu/packages/gnome.scm
index 49c0c23c0c..ed75700683 100644
--- a/gnu/packages/gnome.scm
+++ b/gnu/packages/gnome.scm
@@ -6153,7 +6153,9 @@ (define-public gnome-settings-daemon
        (sha256
         (base32
          "0nka7zfl4hzzk4066kk5cc8pmk7v3izhi4wihsh5b3w85s35idqy"))
-       (patches (search-patches "gnome-settings-daemon-gc.patch"))))
+       (patches (search-patches "gnome-settings-daemon-gc.patch"
+                                ;; See https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-settings-daemon/-/issues/792
+                                "gnome-settings-daemon-screensaver-error.patch"))))
     (build-system meson-build-system)
     (arguments
      (list
diff --git a/gnu/packages/patches/gnome-settings-daemon-screensaver-error.patch b/gnu/packages/patches/gnome-settings-daemon-screensaver-error.patch
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..6707502261
--- /dev/null
+++ b/gnu/packages/patches/gnome-settings-daemon-screensaver-error.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+diff --git a/plugins/usb-protection/gsd-usb-protection-manager.c b/plugins/usb-protection/gsd-usb-protection-manager.c
+index 43644408..fef13645 100644
+--- a/plugins/usb-protection/gsd-usb-protection-manager.c
++++ b/plugins/usb-protection/gsd-usb-protection-manager.c
+@@ -1089,8 +1089,7 @@ usb_protection_proxy_ready (GObject      *source_object,
+ 
+         manager->screensaver_proxy = gnome_settings_bus_get_screen_saver_proxy ();
+         if (!manager->screensaver_proxy) {
+-                if (!g_error_matches (error, G_IO_ERROR, G_IO_ERROR_CANCELLED))
+-                        g_warning ("Failed to connect to screensaver service: %s", error->message);
++                g_warning ("Failed to connect to screensaver service");
+                 g_clear_object (&manager->usb_protection);
+                 return;
+         }

base-commit: eb30f5ecbea896e9cf93722bf97681d208f1a7be
-- 
2.49.0

Message #34 received at 77135-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Liliana Marie Prikler <liliana.prikler <at> gmail.com>
To: Noé Lopez <noelopez <at> free.fr>, 
 77135-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Cc: Vivien Kraus <vivien <at> planete-kraus.eu>,
 Maxim Cournoyer <maxim.cournoyer <at> gmail.com>
Subject: Re: bug#77135: [PATCH] gnu: gnome-settings-daemon: Fix crash when
 no screen saver available.
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2025 18:34:32 +0200

Am Donnerstag, dem 03.04.2025 um 09:34 +0200 schrieb Noé Lopez:
> Change-Id: Ic6da39489eb2e04f98ae112e6cd2cdb7340bd00e
> ---
Pushed.

Thanks

Message #37 received at 77135 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Z572 <z572 <at> z572.online>
To: 77135 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Cc: christopher <at> librehacker.com, liliana.prikler <at> gmail.com
Subject: Re: bug#77135: [PATCH] gnu: gnome-settings-daemon: Fix crash when
 no screen saver available.
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2025 00:44:02 +0800

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Liliana Marie Prikler <liliana.prikler <at> gmail.com> writes:

> Am Donnerstag, dem 03.04.2025 um 09:34 +0200 schrieb Noé Lopez:
>> Change-Id: Ic6da39489eb2e04f98ae112e6cd2cdb7340bd00e
>> ---
> Pushed.
>
> Thanks
hi, gnome-settings-daemon-screensaver-error.patch is not registered in
gnu/local.mk, can you fix it?

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