Zypper Dup kills Cinnamon desktop

I was on snapshot 20180425, ran zypper dup to snapshot 20180511. LightDM loads properly; when I log in, however, I get only the IceWM desktop, and a message indicating that Cinnamon has crashed.

I used Yast to lock down files in the new snapshot that seemed to be Cinnamon related, specifically:

cinnamon-gschemas-branding-openSUSE cinnamon-screensaver cinnamon-session cinnamon-settings-daemon cinnamon-theme-adapta libcinnamon-desktop4 libcinnamon-desktop-data libcinnamon-desktop-data-branding-openSUSE libcinnamon-desktop-lang libcinnamon-menu-3-0

… but this had no effect. Neither did a change from the 396.18 to 396.24 nvidia driver, both installed ‘the hard way.’

I readily admit that troubleshooting this problem may be over my head. I don’t understand what files and libraries are required to make the Cinnamon desktop function, don’t know if I should be locking down other files, or patterns, or taking other troubleshooting steps.

Any tips will be appreciated.

I managed to fix this one myself, although I think something isn’t kosher with what zypper dup wanted to put on my computer, and/or with a necessary package upgrade that zypper dup might have left out of the mix.

cinnamon cinnamon-control-center cinnamon-control-center-common cinnamon-control-center-lang cinnamon-gschemas cinnamon-gschemas-branding-openSUSE cinnamon-lang cinnamon-screensaver cinnamon-screensaver-lang cinnamon-session cinnamon-session-lang cinnamon-settings-daemon cinnamon-settings-daemon-lang cjs libcinnamon-control-center1 libcinnamon-desktop-data libcinnamon-desktop-data-branding-openSUSE libcinnamon-desktop-lang libcinnamon-desktop4 libcinnamon-menu-3-0 libcjs0 muffin nemo typelib-1_0-CMenu-3_0 typelib-1_0-CinnamonDesktop-3_0 typelib-1_0-CjsPrivate-1_0

  • With this file list in hand, I killed the VM, returned to the misbehaving computer in question, and locked down all of the packages named in Yast. Zypper dup complained about dependencies, so I locked some additional files, too:
cinnamon-metatheme-numix cinnamon-theme-adapta libmuffin0 muffin-lang typelib-1_0-MetaMuffin-0_0 gtk2-metatheme-adapta gtk3-metatheme-adapta metatheme-adapta-common

Zypper dup followed by a ‘hard way’ installation of the nvidia 396.24 driver now brought up a working Cinnamon desktop. I am computing successfully again, but will still be grateful for any insight on what went wrong. I’ve never before had to lock down packages to make zypper dup work.

Zypper dup puts on the machine what you tell it to. Show us your repository list. You may have conflicting repos

All enabled repositories:

 1 | download.opensuse.org-non-oss        | Main Repository (NON-OSS)                  | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes    
 2 | download.opensuse.org-oss            | Main Repository (OSS)                      | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes    
 3 | download.opensuse.org-tumbleweed     | Main Update Repository                     | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes    
 4 | home_svalx                           | svalx's Home Project (openSUSE_Tumbleweed) | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | No     
 5 | libdvdcss                            | libdvdcss                                  | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes   
 7 | openSUSE_Tumbleweed                  | openSUSE_Tumbleweed                        | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes    
 8 | packman.inode.at-openSUSE_Tumbleweed | Packman Repository                         | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes    

The missing #6 is for the install DVD.

I should have run zypper lr -u. Sorry. The list, with URLs:

#  | Alias                                | Name                                       | Enabled | GPG Check | Refresh | URI                                                                       
---+--------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------+---------+-----------+---------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1 | download.opensuse.org-non-oss        | Main Repository (NON-OSS)                  | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     | http://download.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/repo/non-oss/                     
 2 | download.opensuse.org-oss            | Main Repository (OSS)                      | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     | http://download.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/repo/oss/                         
 3 | download.opensuse.org-tumbleweed     | Main Update Repository                     | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     | http://download.opensuse.org/update/tumbleweed/                           
 4 | home_svalx                           | svalx's Home Project (openSUSE_Tumbleweed) | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | No      | http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/svalx/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/
 5 | libdvdcss                            | libdvdcss                                  | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     | http://opensuse-guide.org/repo/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/                       
 7 | openSUSE_Tumbleweed                  | openSUSE_Tumbleweed                        | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     | http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Extra/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/ 
 8 | packman.inode.at-openSUSE_Tumbleweed | Packman Repository                         | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     | http://packman.inode.at/suse/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/        

The svallx repo was added to get untex.

Is there a special reason for using another build of “tar”, and what is repository #7 ?

>  zypper  lr -Ed

I locked some additional files
All this locking is unexplained.

> zypper ll  

If you restrict yourself to repositories 1, 2 and 8, selecting the package “cinnamon” in YaST – Software Management should add everything else required.

We have cross-posted. I think that you have to be careful that KDE:Extra is not introducing a dependency on an older version of something that is blocking upgrading a cinnamon component.

Thanks for the feedback, Ray. Repository #7, KDE:/Extra , allowed me to install Recoll text search. I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean by “another build of tar.”

If you restrict yourself to repositories 1, 2 and 8, selecting the package “cinnamon” in YaST – Software Management should add everything else required.

I could use Yast to disable all repositories other than 1, 2 and 8, kill the locks and run zypper dup again. Is that what you’re suggesting here? It sounds promising, but I thought I should check first before trying it.

FWIW: The list of enabled repositories above hasn’t changed for about six months. I have run zypper dups after nearly every new snapshot in that period without past problems related to Cinnamon. However, I did run into a similar problem when I tried to switch from nvidia ‘the hard way’ to the openSUSE nvidia repositories. IceWM came up, and nothing more. I didn’t try to troubleshoot, simply returned to the ‘hard way’ install.

I was curious enough to give it a shot, so:

  • Zypper to remove all locks
  • Yast to disable all repositories except 1, 2 and 8
  • Yast → Software Management → search for “Cinnamon,” and unconditional update of all Cinnamon-related packages
  • Reboot, with fingers crossed.

Didn’t work. IceWM again, same issue.

I just zypper dup’d Tumbleweed on a Dell Precision 7710 with an NVidia Quadro M3000M graphics card, also running the Cinnamon desktop, same repositories and with a ‘hard way’ install of the Nvidia 396.24 driver. Same symptoms: Cinnamon crash on log-in, fall-back to IceWM.

What video drivers??

https://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/396.24/

I just tried zypper dup on one last Tumbleweed laptop that doesn’t have an nvidia card or use a special driver of any kind.

Same results. Normal LightDM screen, log-in, then: “Cinnamon just crashed. You are currently running in Fallback Mode,” and IceWM.

Try to create a new user and use it to log in Cinnamon

Worth a try!

  • Added new user in Yast
  • Logged in as new user in Cinnamon desktop to test. Worked fine.
  • Cleared all locks. Ran zypper dup. With locks cleared, zypper dup upgraded 23 packages:
cinnamon-gschemas-branding-openSUSE cinnamon-screensaver cinnamon-session cinnamon-settings-daemon cinnamon-theme-adapta cjs gtk2-metatheme-adapta gtk3-metatheme-adapta libcinnamon-desktop4 libcinnamon-desktop-data libcinnamon-desktop-data-branding-openSUSE libcinnamon-desktop-lang libcinnamon-menu-3-0 libcjs0 libmuffin0 metatheme-adapta-common muffin muffin-lang nemo typelib-1_0-CinnamonDesktop-3_0 typelib-1_0-CjsPrivate-1_0 typelib-1_0-CMenu-3_0 typelib-1_0MetaMuffin-0_0


  • Reboot, log-in. Same looping Cinnamon crash with the new user account.

The reason that Cinnamon crashes is that some parts of it got updated to version 3.8 and some parts remained at version 3.6. The issue is known and has been bugged: https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1091701.

The fix for this bug is blocked by two other bug-reports that are waiting for clearance from the openSUSE security team. It might take a while to get resolved as the security team reported that they have a big backlog of security review.

At this point, the only three known workarounds are:

  1. Install all Cinnamon 3.8 packages using the X11:Cinnamon:Current OBS repository. You can find instructions in the above mentioned bug report.
  2. Don’t update Tumbleweed until the above mentioned bug is resolved.
  3. Switch to a different desktop environment until the above mentioned bug is resolved.

It is an unfortunate situation as it affects all Tumbleweed Cinnamon users. Hopefully it will be resolved shortly.

Thank you, kruizer23! At long last, after hours of troubleshooting, the solution! You have made my day, or at least the part of the day involved with computer configuration.

I suggest that those suffering Cinnamon ills read the above-linked bug report, but for those who want an abbreviated Readers’ Digest version, here’s what I did after reading kruizer23’s post:

Problem solved.

First the Cinnamon + Javascript crash, now this. Two breaks in two weeks! I’m over here just using vnc+icewm until it all blows over.