Metacity fails after updates

[Kevin Oberman]

On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 11:20 AM, theclanks <jrluiscarlos at yahoo.com.br>wrote:

> > On 14-6-2013 20:55, Kevin Oberman wrote:
> >
> >> I am no longer able to start Gnome on my desktop. I updated  lot of the
> >> ports while I was working remotely for a few months. When I got back,
> >> metacity failed to start. My apps start and look OK, but with no window
> >> manager, it's pretty useless.
> >>
> >> When it tries to start, metacity sends out the following:
> >> metacity:ERROR:ui/ui.c:752:**meta-_ui_get_default_icon: assertion
> failed:
> >> (default_icon)
> >> LibGTop-Server: pid 5978 received eof.
> >>
> >> This repeats every few seconds, ad infinitum.
> >>
> >> I have re-built metacity and all of its dependencies with no improvement
> >> and i am baffled.
> >>
> >> I have a full Gnome installation running on FreeBSD 9.1-Stable
> (r249034).
> >> All ports are up-to-date. Any ideas on where to look or what to kick? It
> >> works fine on my other systems.
> >>
> >
> > No clue about this, but the function in your quoted line suggests
> > something involved icons? I currently don't have a gnome2 desktop setup
> to
> > test.
> >
> > -Koop
> >
>
> I'm having the same problem, after upgrading all ports, seems to be the
> same
> metacity error "default_icon", I will try investigate what it is doing
> wrong.
>
> /var/log/gdm/:0-greeter.log:
> This incident has been reported.
>
> (gdm-simple-greeter:3398): Gtk-WARNING **: gtkwidget.c:5709: widget not
> within a GtkWindow
> **
> metacity:ERROR:ui/ui.c:752:meta_ui_get_default_window_icon: assertion
> failed: (default_icon)
> LibGTop-Server: pid 3408 received eof.
> **
> metacity:ERROR:ui/ui.c:752:meta_ui_get_default_window_icon: assertion
> failed: (default_icon)
> LibGTop-Server: pid 3413 received eof.
>

I thought I had posted the issue that triggered this error report. For some
reason that was almost certainly tied to a race, the gnome-settings-daemon
was not being run at the start of my session. Among other things, that
program loads the theme for the session. For reasons that baffle me, Gnome
2.36 no longer includes a default icon to be used when no theme is loaded
or if the theme's icons can't be found. The result is that message.

The problem is not FreeBSD related as it has been reported on Linux, as
well. It showed up for me when my nVidia gaphics card failed and i replaced
it with a very old Radeon that was stunningly slow.

To fix the problem, click on the System menu item and select
"Preferences->Appearance". This, without doing anything else, will cause
the system to fire up the gnome-setings-daemon and you theme will load and
metacity will start up.

As to why the default icons were removed, I have no idea, but it is an
upstream, not a FreeBSD issue and Gnome2 gets little attention from Gnome
developers these days. Feel free to fill a report with the Gnome bugzilla,
but don't expect much. I don't know if someone would be willing to restore
a default icon to the FreeBSD gnome2. I've since gotten a modern
replacement nVidia 9800 card, so I don't have the problem any longer.
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
E-mail: rkoberman at gmail.com