Bug#1096033: libgtk-4-1: first startup of programs depending on libgtk-4-1 4.17.4+ds-4 very slow, often lagging minutes

[Simon McVittie]

On Sat, 15 Feb 2025 at 14:59:52 +0100, msp wrote:
> When libgtk-4-1:amd64 is installed in version 4.17.4+ds-4, starting any
> programs depending on this package takes unusually long (up to minutes),
> sometimes causing the program to be unusable.

On Sun, 16 Feb 2025 at 19:41:37 +0100, Markus Steinko wrote:
> I am facing the same bug on a Debian testing system, running Gnome.
> 
> Many applications are just reacting very slow. Like gnome-terminal,
> gnome-settings, gnome-tweaks and the extension-manager.

Are you perhaps both using the "GNOME on Xorg" session mode, instead of
the default "GNOME" session which is GNOME in Wayland mode?

Please try with xdg-desktop-gnome 47.2-2, which I recently uploaded to
unstable. That fixes an initialization problem with GTK 4.17.x which can
cause this symptom (#1096094).

If that doesn't resolve the problem, please check the system log (systemd
Journal) for any error messages or crashes that appear there when you
log in, start one of the slow applications, and wait for it to start.

Relevant documentation:
https://manpages.debian.org/testing/systemd/journalctl.1.en.html

> Also some are loosing their dark-mode and turn back to light mode

This is a less severe symptom than extremely slow startup, and might
not be closely related. If updating packages does not resolve that,
please report it as a separate bug, with details of some affected apps
and any error messages that appear in the systemd Journal.

    smcv