Gnome 3 always hangs after logon

Question

The problem I'm having is that after logging into GNOME Shell 3.4.1 on Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS.

After a short period of time (approx 0-2 minutes) gnome shell becomes unresponsive.

Hovering on the corner / clicking on activities button doesn't do anything,
Windows get stuck (the application is responding but the gnome is not)
Also the Alt + F2 doesn't do anything.

The only way I know how to resolve this issue is to go to linux shell by pressing
Ctrl + Alt + any from F1 to F6, login and restart the lightdm service.

sudo service lightdm restart 

So the question is How to solve the Gnome 3 hang after logon problem?

hertz@hertzbox:~$ uname -a
Linux hertzbox 3.2.0-35-generic #55-Ubuntu SMP Wed Dec 5 17:42:16 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

hertz@hertzbox:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS
Release:    12.04
Codename:   precise

hertz@hertzbox:~$ gnome-shell --version
GNOME Shell 3.4.1

P.S. It's the same with or without extensions loaded

---

EDIT 1

.xsession-errors

(gnome-settings-daemon:1365): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_variant_new_string: assertion `string != NULL' failed

(gnome-settings-daemon:1365): GLib-GIO-CRITICAL **: g_settings_schema_key_type_check: assertion `value != NULL' failed

(gnome-settings-daemon:1365): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_variant_get_type_string: assertion `value != NULL' failed

(gnome-settings-daemon:1365): GLib-GIO-CRITICAL **: g_settings_set_value: key 'picture-uri' in 'org.gnome.desktop.background' expects type 's', but a GVariant of type '(null)' was given
** Message: applet now removed from the notification area

** (nautilus:1585): WARNING **: Can not get _NET_WORKAREA

** (nautilus:1585): WARNING **: Can not determine workarea, guessing at layout
** Message: Stopping registered applet secret agent because GNOME Shell is running
** Message: using fallback from indicator to GtkStatusIcon

(gnome-shell:1546): folks-WARNING **: Failed to find primary PersonaStore with type ID 'eds' and ID 'system'.
Individuals will not be linked properly and creating new links between Personas will not work.
The configured primary PersonaStore's backend may not be installed. If you are unsure, check with your distribution.
** Message: applet now embedded in the notification area
Window manager warning: CurrentTime used to choose focus window; focus window may not be correct.
Window manager warning: Got a request to focus 0x1000004 (Desktop) with a timestamp of 0.  This shouldn't happen!
Nautilus-Share-Message: Called "net usershare info" but it failed: 'net usershare' returned error 255: net usershare: cannot open usershare directory /var/lib/samba/usershares. Error No such file or directory
Please ask your system administrator to enable user sharing.


** (zeitgeist-datahub:1867): WARNING **: recent-manager-provider.vala:133: Desktop file for "file:///home/hertz/projects/chrome-steamgifts-notifier/js/options/options.js" was not found, exec: sublime_text, mime_type: application/javascript

** (zeitgeist-datahub:1867): WARNING **: recent-manager-provider.vala:133: Desktop file for "file:///home/hertz/Sublime%20Text%202/Icon/256x256/sublime_text.png" was not found, exec: gnome-desktop-item-edit, mime_type: image/png

** (zeitgeist-datahub:1867): WARNING **: recent-manager-provider.vala:133: Desktop file for "file:///home/hertz/Sublime%20Text%202/sublime_text" was not found, exec: gnome-desktop-item-edit, mime_type: application/octet-stream

** (zeitgeist-datahub:1867): WARNING **: recent-manager-provider.vala:133: Desktop file for "file:///home/hertz/Desktop/christmasTree/tree.py" was not found, exec: python, mime_type: text/x-python

** (zeitgeist-datahub:1867): WARNING **: recent-manager-provider.vala:133: Desktop file for "file:///home/hertz/projects/chrome-steamgifts-notifier/js/test.js" was not found, exec: sublime_text, mime_type: application/javascript

** (nautilus:1585): WARNING **: Error calling current_status: Method "current_status" with signature "" on interface "com.ubuntuone.SyncDaemon.Status" doesn't exist


** (nautilus:1585): CRITICAL **: syncdaemon_status_info_get_online: assertion `SYNCDAEMON_IS_STATUS_INFO (sinfo)' failed
Window manager warning: CurrentTime used to choose focus window; focus window may not be correct.
Window manager warning: Got a request to focus 0x1a00003 (Unlock Log) with a timestamp of 0.  This shouldn't happen!
** Message: applet now removed from the notification area

(gnome-settings-daemon:1365): Gdk-WARNING **: gnome-settings-daemon: Fatal IO error 11 (Resource temporarily unavailable) on X server :0.

Gkr-Message: secret service disappeared while waiting for prompt

(nm-applet:1582): Gdk-WARNING **: nm-applet: Fatal IO error 11 (Resource temporarily unavailable) on X server :0.

[1586:1617:0105/225607:ERROR:native_backend_gnome_x.cc(664)] Keyring find failed: Error communicating with gnome-keyring-daemon

(nautilus:1585): Gdk-WARNING **: nautilus: Fatal IO error 11 (Resource temporarily unavailable) on X server :0.


(gnome-shell-calendar-server:1675): Gdk-WARNING **: gnome-shell-calendar-server: Fatal IO error 11 (Resource temporarily unavailable) on X server :0.

[1586:1586:0105/225607:ERROR:chrome_browser_main_x11.cc(62)] X IO Error detected

(gdu-notification-daemon:1856): Gdk-WARNING **: gdu-notification-daemon: Fatal IO error 11 (Resource temporarily unavailable) on X server :0.


(evolution-alarm-notify:1895): Gdk-WARNING **: evolution-alarm-notify: Fatal IO error 11 (Resource temporarily unavailable) on X server :0.


(update-notifier:1946): Gdk-WARNING **: update-notifier: Fatal IO error 11 (Resource temporarily unavailable) on X server :0.


(deja-dup-monitor:1960): GVFS-RemoteVolumeMonitor-WARNING **: Owner :1.34 of volume monitor org.gtk.Private.GduVolumeMonitor disconnected from the bus; removing drives/volumes/mounts

(deja-dup-monitor:1960): GVFS-RemoteVolumeMonitor-WARNING **: Owner :1.35 of volume monitor org.gtk.Private.GPhoto2VolumeMonitor disconnected from the bus; removing drives/volumes/mounts

(deja-dup-monitor:1960): GVFS-RemoteVolumeMonitor-WARNING **: Owner :1.36 of volume monitor org.gtk.Private.AfcVolumeMonitor disconnected from the bus; removing drives/volumes/mounts

** (zeitgeist-datahub:1867): WARNING **: zeitgeist-datahub.vala:227: Unable to get name "org.gnome.zeitgeist.datahub" on the bus!

Thanks in advance.

Solution 1

I had similar issues with Ubuntu 12.04 and Gnome 3.4. I managed to minimize the frequency of the freezes by doing the following:

• Disable proprietary video drivers
• Add ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3 to sources and update
• Also you can try to wait for 30 sec. before logging in. It might sound silly, but I think not all components are ready when the login screen is presented to the user. (you can blame Canonical for trying to cheat on the start-up times :) )

The only thing that solved this problem for good, in my case at least, was to upgrade to Ubuntu 12.10 and Gnome 3.6.

Solution 2

Workaround

As this is a flash install, we can create a new user.

1. Login from text terminal

2. Add a new user

   sudo adduser <username>
   

3. Add new user to sudo group, or admin

   sudo adduser <username> sudo
   

4. Switch back to X and try login with new user

Things To Try

• Update

  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
  

Comments

[George]

It didn't help. And there are no updates available and i don't wanna upgrade my distribution.

[John Siu]

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade is not release version upgrade. It only update packages within your current release. If you are using 12.04, it will stay 12.04. The command to do release upgrade is do-release-upgrade.

[John Siu]

Can you check you have dbus installed and running? What you describe fit if dbus is missing.

[George]

(1) 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. (2) dbus start/running, process 768. But the problem persists :(

[John Siu]

you have to restart lightdm after dbus start.

[John Siu]

@George Restart your Linux box, wait till LightDM login screen come up, switch to text terminal (ctrl-alt-f1), login, do following command pstree > pstree.txt. Then post that file into the question.

[John Siu]

1 additional question, do you have same problem with unity?