gconf2 2.12.1 not working (dapper)

could you run those commands and copy that to a comment?
- dpkg -l | grep gconf
- ls -l /etc/gconf/2/path
- ls -l /etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults
- ls -l /var/lib/gconf/defaults/
- gconftool-2 --get /desktop/gnome/interface/gtk_theme
-

dpkg -l | grep gconf
ii gconf 1.0.9-7.1
      GNOME configuration database system. (daemon
ii gconf-editor 2.12.1-1ubuntu1
      An editor for the GConf configuration system
ii gconf2 2.12.1-4ubuntu1
      GNOME configuration database system (support
ii gconf2-common 2.12.1-4ubuntu1
      GNOME configuration database system (common
rc gstreamer-gconf 0.6.4-5.1
      GConf support for GStreamer
ii libextutils-pkgconfig-perl 1.07-1
      simplistic perl interface to pkg-config
ii libgconf-cil 1.0.10-2ubuntu1
      CLI binding for GConf
ii libgconf11 1.0.9-7.1
      GNOME configuration database system librarie
ii libgconf2-4 2.12.1-4ubuntu1
      GNOME configuration database system (shared
ii libgconf2-dev 2.12.1-4ubuntu1
      GNOME configuration database system (develop
ii libgconf2-ruby 0.13.0-2ubuntu1
      GConf 2 bindings for the Ruby language
ii libgconf2.0-cil 2.4.0-1ubuntu1
      CLI binding for GConf 2.6
rc libgconfmm2.0-1c102 2.0.2-1
      C++ wrappers for GConf2 (shared library)
ii libgnome2-gconf-perl 1.020-1
      Perl interface to the GNOME GConf library
ii libgstreamer-gconf0.8-0 0.8.11-2ubuntu1
      GConf support for GStreamer
ii libgstreamer-gconf0.8-dev 0.8.11-2ubuntu1
      Development files for GConf support for GStr

ls -l /etc/gconf/2/path
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1196 2005-12-02 03:20 /etc/gconf/2/path

ls -l /etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults
total 1441
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1470859 2005-12-03 21:51 %gconf-tree.xml

ls -l /var/lib/gconf/defaults/
total 3576
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3655964 2005-12-02 22:28 %gconf-tree.xml

gconftool-2 --get /desktop/gnome/interface/gtk_theme
Clearlooks

gconf is working correctly according to your comment (the get on the theme is
alright).

Could you run this command and copy that to a comment?:
- grep num_workspaces /etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults/%gconf-tree.xml

(In reply to comment #3)
> gconf is working correctly according to your comment (the get on the theme is
> alright).
>
> Could you run this command and copy that to a comment?:
> - grep num_workspaces /etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults/%gconf-tree.xml

The file is 1.5mb, but num_workspaces isn't in it.

grep -q num_workspaces /etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults/%gconf-tree.xml || echo no
no

does a reinstall of the metacity package fixes the issue?

(In reply to comment #5)
> does a reinstall of the metacity package fixes the issue?

Yes. num_workspaces is now found.
Though, 'gnome-session' crashes now... i could attach a backtrace, but it has no
debugging symbols.
If you can tell me which packages to recompile i could try to create a better trace.

I try re-installing more packages first.

feel free to attach a non-debug backtrace, often they are enough to find
duplicates of the bug and to know what to rebuild as debug package

Created an attachment (id=5157)
Crashed gnome-session

Here is the backtrace, but i can't reproduce it atm.
After reinstalling some apps (dpkg -S /usr/share/gconf/schemas/* | sed
's/:.*//' | sort -u)
my login takes very long (10minutes) and most of the applets are not loaded
properly.
Then i get the same message about 'gconfd not running' as before.
/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults is now 23mb.

I can see gnome switching very fast between the default and my theme
sometimes...

You backtrace would require to have libglib2.0-0-dbg libgtk2.0-0-dbg installed.
The theme flicking is probable a gnome-settings-daemon crash. Does you login
takes long with other users? Is your loopback interface (ping 127.0.0.1)
correctly configured?

(In reply to comment #9)
> You backtrace would require to have libglib2.0-0-dbg libgtk2.0-0-dbg installed.
> The theme flicking is probable a gnome-settings-daemon crash. Does you login
> takes long with other users? Is your loopback interface (ping 127.0.0.1)
> correctly configured?

The loopback interface is working properly.
Login time issues were unrelated i guess, works fine after reboot and with a
fresh user account.
I guess it has something to do with some applications which were not killed
after ending my session.

I can't see any gconfd crash in /var/log/user.log .
So i'm back at the beginning (well not entirely), my settings get loaded only
partial and there is this "gconfd failed to start" dialog, with a fresh account
too, on login.
But 'gconftool-2 --get /schemas/apps/metacity/general/num_workspaces' gives
valid output now.

Created an attachment (id=5182)
gnome-session backtrace

Got another gnome-session crash, but i had the debug symbols installed this
time.

I'll attach the xsession-errors file, too.

Created an attachment (id=5184)
xsession errors from crashed gnome-session

Here is the ~/.xsession-errors from the crash.

I also get a lot of these in /var/log/user.log with every login:
Dec 5 01:40:10 lila gconfd (test2-8425): In lookup_with_schema_name returning
schema name '' error 'none'
Dec 5 01:40:10 lila gconfd (test2-8425): In lookup_with_schema_name returning
schema name '/schemas/apps/nautilus/desktop/home_icon_name' error 'none'

(In reply to comment #9)
> You backtrace would require to have libglib2.0-0-dbg libgtk2.0-0-dbg installed.
> The theme flicking is probable a gnome-settings-daemon crash. Does you login

I looked into it again and as you said
/usr/lib/control-center/gnome-settings-daemon is exiting with error code 1.
This may happen a few times, gnome-session gives up on it after 10 tries and
displays this warning.
If i raise the number of attempts in gsm-gsd.c to 100, gnome-session crashes.

Created an attachment (id=5239)
gnome-settings-daemon crash, started from command line

It is related to my logitech mouse.
Which was behaving strange since the last xserver-xorg-input-evdev
(1.0.0.2-0ubuntu2). I had to reorder all my buttons with xmodmap and xmodmap
now believes i got 32 of them instead of 12.

The following patch is a workaround:
--- gnome-settings-mouse.c.org 2005-12-09 21:47:08.000000000 +0100
+++ gnome-settings-mouse.c 2005-12-09 21:47:12.000000000 +0100
@@ -166,7 +166,7 @@ set_left_handed (gboolean left_handed)

   configure_button_layout (buttons, n_buttons, left_handed);

- XSetPointerMapping (GDK_DISPLAY (), buttons, n_buttons);
+ //XSetPointerMapping (GDK_DISPLAY (), buttons, n_buttons);

   g_free (buttons);
 }

See http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=323724 for more details of this bug.

is that issue fixed now?

I have gnome-session (2.14.1-0ubuntu11) and xserver-xorg-input-evdev (1.1.2-0ubuntu3) installed and the bug is fixed.

I'm not sure if it works in every setup though, g-s-d isn't really handling multiple mouse buttons well.

That bug is confusing, if that's "g-s-d didn't work fine with evdev" that's a duplicate of bug #27143, anyway marking as fixed since it works fine now