Bug#882662: gnome-session: something is resetting $PATH after .gnomerc runs, making it impossible to set a custom $PATH in .gnomerc

[Nathaniel Smith]

Package: gnome-session
Version: 3.26.1-1
Severity: important

In my .gnomerc, I set a custom $PATH:

  PATH=blah:$PATH

I also set some other variables:

  export GNOMERC_WAS_EXECUTED=yeah

Until recently, this worked fine: the given $PATH was set for everything inside
my session. Since my last upgrade, though, after logging in I find that my
$PATH is set to the system default:

  ~$ echo $PATH
  /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/games

However, I can see that .gnomerc is still being executed, because other
variables are set:

  ~$ echo $GNOMERC_WAS_EXECUTED
  yeah

Looking at /var/log/apt/history.log, it looks like I upgraded on 2017-11-15,
and everything was fine after that, and then I upgraded again on 2017-11-24,
and that's when things broke. So whatever the problem is, it must be in some
package that landed in testing between 2017-11-15 and 2017-11-24.



-- System Information:
Debian Release: buster/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (900, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 4.13.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages gnome-session depends on:
ii  gnome-session-bin      3.26.1-1
ii  gnome-session-common   3.26.1-1
ii  gnome-settings-daemon  3.26.2-1
ii  gnome-shell            3.26.2-1

gnome-session recommends no packages.

Versions of packages gnome-session suggests:
ii  desktop-base      9.0.5
ii  gnome-keyring     3.20.1-1
ii  gnome-user-guide  3.26.2-1

-- no debconf information