shell extensions not working after upgrade fom 11.2 gnome2 to 12.2 gnome3

velsd · November 8, 2012, 9:01pm

hi all,

I recently upgraded from opensuse 11.2 (gnome 2) to opensuse 12.2, and ran into the unpleasant surprise that the new gnome shell does not include a launcher by default.

I managed to edit the applications menu, adding my favorites to the ‘Other’ Item.

then I saw that the gnome shell extensions do provide a ‘MyLauncher’ app. I installed it, correctly I think, because I can see it in the Gnome shell Extensions Preferences Window (although with only one option : “Menu Icons”)

however, the MyLauncher will not appear on the top bar of my window, can anyone tell me where to look for the reason?

some symptoms:
[ul]
[li]in “Advanced Settings”[/li][LIST]
[li]the “Shell Extensions” category has no subitems at all [/li][li]there seems to be no impact whatsoever from whatever option I modify in any of the option [/li][/ul]

[li]I upgraded from 11.2 to 12.2 without deleting any of the hidden directories, such as .gnome2, for instance[/li][ul]
[li]but deleting this directory now seems to have no impact, it does reappear, however [/li][/ul]

[/LIST]

any help appreciated, I really fel gnome3 needs these shell extensions to be enjoyable …

malcolmlewis · November 8, 2012, 10:15pm

On Thu 08 Nov 2012 08:06:01 PM CST, velsd wrote:

hi all,

I recently upgraded from opensuse 11.2 (gnome 2) to opensuse 12.2, and
ran into the unpleasant surprise that the new gnome shell does not
include a launcher by default.

I managed to edit the applications menu, adding my favorites to the
‘Other’ Item.

then I saw that the gnome shell extensions do provide a ‘MyLauncher’
app. I installed it, correctly I think, because I can see it in the
Gnome shell Extensions Preferences Window (although with only one option
: “Menu Icons”)

however, the MyLauncher will not appear on the top bar of my window,
can anyone tell me where to look for the reason?

some symptoms:

in “Advanced Settings”

the “Shell Extensions” category has no subitems at all

there seems to be no impact whatsoever from whatever option I
modify in any of the option

I upgraded from 11.2 to 12.2 without deleting any of the hidden
directories, such as .gnome2, for instance

but deleting this directory now seems to have no impact, it does
reappear, however

any help appreciated, I really fel gnome3 needs these shell extensions
to be enjoyable …

Hi
You can edit the menu via alacarte, then you can right click and add to
favorites? Else are you running in fallback mode?

Working here on 3.4.2;
http://paste.opensuse.org/93253803

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 12.2 (x86_64) Kernel 3.4.11-2.16-desktop
up 10 days 21:57, 5 users, load average: 0.02, 0.04, 0.05
CPU Intel i5 CPU M520@2.40GHz | Intel Arrandale GPU

please_try_again · November 8, 2012, 10:48pm

If you’re missing Gnome classic menus, you might take a look at this thread: http://forums.opensuse.org/english/other-forums/development/programming-scripting/478588-using-classic-menus-gnome-shell.html#post2488222. It’s tricky though and not optimal.

There is no native application laucher in gnome-shell. As already said, you can just right click an application and add to favorites - which is basically the same, except that the buttons are on the right side and not in the top panel. You don’t need ‘alacate’ for this. In gnome fallback, you can still have launchers at the top.

velsd · November 8, 2012, 10:54pm

hi

alacarte, the menu editor, does work; I edit the ‘Other’ menu item to add whatever application I choose as favorite. Not able to right click,though, in alacarte: this only allows ‘add’ or ‘delete’
right clicking in the applications menu launches the application, just as if I would have clicked with the left button
a ‘Favorites’ menu does not appear, either on the top bar or on the right of the screen
about fallback mode: I don’t know how to check that now; startup seems ok to me, without any obvious error message
[LIST]
the very first time, though,when I started up gnome 3, I did get a message about not having all the features of gnome 3, can’t remember exactly what it said.
in any case this message does not reappear now when starting gnome…

[/LIST]

I have a strong feeling that something is missing in my gnome 3 , but I don’t have a clue what or where to start looking…

velsd · November 9, 2012, 9:54pm

it seems to me as if something is keeping gnome from registering my user choices. such as wrong file permissions on I don’t know which file

is there perhaps a log file where gnome is registering this kind of failures?

malcolmlewis · November 9, 2012, 10:28pm

On Fri 09 Nov 2012 08:56:02 PM CST, velsd wrote:

it seems to me as if something is keeping gnome from registering my user
choices. such as wrong file permissions on I don’t know which file

is there perhaps a log file where gnome is registering this kind of
failures?

Hi
Check in Looking Glass, press alt+F2 then enter lg <press enter> look
in the errors tab. Press the ESC to exit.

More details here (Under Developer Tools) Projects/GnomeShell/CheatSheet - GNOME Wiki!

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 12.2 (x86_64) Kernel 3.4.11-2.16-desktop
up 3:47, 3 users, load average: 0.12, 0.08, 0.05
CPU Intel i5 CPU M520@2.40GHz | Intel Arrandale GPU

velsd · November 9, 2012, 11:13pm

ok, thanks, but… aaaaaaarrrrr … another one that does not work, how is this possible, if I’ve installed from the opensuse 12.2 dvd?

ALT+PF2 brings up the launcher, but entering ‘something’ always gives: “unknown command /home/danny/something”

lg as a separate command does not exist, “which lg” gives nothing

malcolmlewis · November 9, 2012, 11:17pm

On Fri 09 Nov 2012 10:16:01 PM CST, velsd wrote:

ok, thanks, but… aaaaaaarrrrr … another one that does not work, how
is this possible, if I’ve installed from the opensuse 12.2 dvd?

ALT+PF2 brings up the launcher, but entering ‘something’ always gives:
“unknown command /home/danny/something”

lg as a separate command does not exist, “which lg” gives nothing

Hi
Looking Glass is built into the shell, not something that is installed.

Create a test user via YaST and login as that test user, does the issue
follow?

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 12.2 (x86_64) Kernel 3.4.11-2.16-desktop
up 4:39, 5 users, load average: 0.05, 0.13, 0.11
CPU Intel i5 CPU M520@2.40GHz | Intel Arrandale GPU

velsd · November 9, 2012, 11:46pm

well yes, and I got this message during graphical startup:

“Unfortunately GNOME 3 failed to start properly and started in the fallback mode. This most likely means your system (graphics hardware or driver) is not capable of delivering the full GNOME 3 experience.”

why would that be, when I have a GeForce 9600 GT/PCIe/SSE2 , with the latest NVIDIA driver?

I remember now I got this message when first logging on as myself …

please_try_again · November 9, 2012, 11:52pm

Actually if you enter ‘something’, it should say “Command not found” and not “unknow command … some stuff”. Hence my question: Are we sure that you’re using gnome-shell?

please_try_again · November 9, 2012, 11:54pm

That’s what I suspected.

please_try_again · November 10, 2012, 12:01am

Is compositiong maybe not enable? Try adding this in /etc/X11/xorg.conf (if it’s not there):

Section "Extensions"
  Option "Composite" "on"
EndSection

If it doesn’t help, post the content of /var/log/Xorg.0.log.

velsd · November 10, 2012, 10:43am

ok, sorry, actually ALT+PF2 (Run Application) says: “could not open location 'file:///home/danny/something”

it also shows a list of known applications, from “adobe flash player” to “zenmap”

velsd · November 10, 2012, 10:58am

aha!

the extensions settings was “off”, so changing it to

Section “Extensions” Option “Composite” “on” EndSection

made a big difference for the new user that I created.

Instead of the “Applications” and “Places” menu in the top left corner of the window, I have an “Activities” menu, some shell extensions I think,
and the overall behaviour of the desktop is much more “graphical”.

but switching back to my own user: gives no changes at all?

please_try_again · November 10, 2012, 11:05am

Log out. Log in as this new user. As root delete your own user’s ~/.config/dconf/user.

$ sudo rm /home/you/.config/dconf/user

Log out. Log in as yourself.

velsd · November 10, 2012, 12:10pm

erased /home/danny/.config/dconf/user

oops;

now gnome won t start up any more for my own user.

“oh no something has gone wrong. A problem has occurred and the system can’t recover. All extensions disabled as a precaution”

and the only thing I can do is logout…

velsd · November 10, 2012, 12:21pm

but setting

/etc/X11/xorg.conf

back to

Section “Extensions” Option “Composite” “off” EndSection

gives me back my gnome for my own user …

velsd · November 10, 2012, 8:05pm

ok, so the current conclusion is that with my own user, I have to force gnome to use fallback mode by changing the last lines of /etc/X11/xorg.conf to
Section “Extensions” Option “Composite” “off” EndSection

with a brand new user however, I can change to
Section “Extensions” Option “Composite” “on” EndSection,
and have a full gnome 3 experience

does anyone have an idea what configuration file or setting might cause my existing user to have to stay in fallback mode?

I switched from opensuse 11.2 to 12.2 …

please_try_again · November 10, 2012, 8:25pm

No. Don’t touch this file anymore. Leave composite on!

If deleting ~/.config/dconf/user didn’t help, you’d just need to delete a little bit more files or directories in ~/.config and ~/.local, an maybe also ~/.gconf, ~/.gnome2. It should be easy to fix now.

velsd · November 10, 2012, 9:58pm

well, no, by now I’ve erased almost everything that also appears in the new user’s directory
.local + .gnome* + .dbus + .config + .font* + .gconf + …
but still no gnome 3

by the time I get my initial screen back, I can see message about dbus errors, and particularly about dbus-org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.service not being loaded?

tail /var:log/messages:
Nov 10 22:01:54 stille-pc dbus-daemon[884]: dbus[884]: [system] Activating service name=‘org.freedesktop.PackageKit’ (using servicehelper)
Nov 10 22:01:54 stille-pc dbus[884]: [system] Activating service name=‘org.freedesktop.PackageKit’ (using servicehelper)
Nov 10 22:01:54 stille-pc dbus-daemon[884]: dbus[884]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name=‘org.freedesktop.NetworkManager’ unit=‘dbus-org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.service’
Nov 10 22:01:54 stille-pc dbus[884]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name=‘org.freedesktop.NetworkManager’ unit=‘dbus-org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.service’
Nov 10 22:01:54 stille-pc dbus[884]: [system] Activation via systemd failed for unit ‘dbus-org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.service’: Unit dbus-org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.service failed to load: No such file or directory. See system logs and ‘systemctl status dbus-org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.service’ for details.
Nov 10 22:01:54 stille-pc dbus-daemon[884]: dbus[884]: [system] Activation via systemd failed for unit ‘dbus-org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.service’: Unit dbus-org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.service failed to load: No such file or directory. See system logs and ‘systemctl status dbus-org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.service’ for details.
Nov 10 22:01:54 stille-pc dbus-daemon[884]: (packagekitd:24662): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: invalid (NULL) pointer instance
Nov 10 22:01:54 stille-pc dbus-daemon[884]: (packagekitd:24662): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_signal_connect_data: assertion G_TYPE_CHECK_INSTANCE (instance)' failed Nov 10 22:01:54 stille-pc dbus-daemon[884]: dbus[884]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.PackageKit' Nov 10 22:01:54 stille-pc dbus[884]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.PackageKit' Nov 10 22:02:14 stille-pc dbus-daemon[884]: (packagekitd:24662): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_unref: assertion G_IS_OBJECT (object)’ failed

systemctl status dbus-org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.service

dbus-org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.service
Loaded: error (Reason: No such file or directory)
Active: inactive (dead)