Bug#742461: mate-settings-daemon enters a infinite crash/restart loop

[Tom Maneiro]

Package: mate-settings-daemon
Version: 1.8.0-1
Severity: grave
Justification: renders package unusable

After doing a apt dist-update last night, several core components of MATE were
upgraded to 1.8 on my Jessie system.

Normally I use KDE, but from time to time I also use MATE, but since that
update I've been unable to reach a stable desktop. Everything starts to flicker
badly: panels, menus, tray icons, desktop icons. Fonts and dialogs switch font
sizes, menus are hard to use, and in general, the overall desktop feels
extremely unstable and sluggish.

Taking a look at dmesg, I find dozens of these:
[  621.039193] traps: mate-settings-d[12942] trap int3 ip:7ff691c3a3c9
sp:7fff62967f40 error:0
[  621.583086] traps: mate-settings-d[12963] trap int3 ip:7f6cf8dbc3c9
sp:7fff2c45d9e0 error:0
[  622.144056] traps: mate-settings-d[12982] trap int3 ip:7f8023b6d3c9
sp:7fff476512b0 error:0
[  622.717133] traps: mate-settings-d[13009] trap int3 ip:7f1059c9d3c9
sp:7fff96c0a210 error:0
[  623.261964] traps: mate-settings-d[13034] trap int3 ip:7f10dbc413c9
sp:7fffb5473430 error:0
[  623.819512] traps: mate-settings-d[13061] trap int3 ip:7ff2d2bc13c9
sp:7fff21f21640 error:0
[  624.355532] traps: mate-settings-d[13081] trap int3 ip:7f66db7843c9
sp:7fff11fbecc0 error:0
[  624.899599] traps: mate-settings-d[13108] trap int3 ip:7f14966b33c9
sp:7fff2518efc0 error:0
[  625.463491] traps: mate-settings-d[13135] trap int3 ip:7f1f5019b3c9
sp:7fffb9e93260 error:0
[  626.051037] traps: mate-settings-d[13162] trap int3 ip:7f56a6a813c9
sp:7fff9fea4cb0 error:0
[  626.602089] traps: mate-settings-d[13190] trap int3 ip:7f9c52e473c9
sp:7fff8217cf50 error:0
[  627.186409] traps: mate-settings-d[13217] trap int3 ip:7fc7eaa183c9
sp:7ffff4926d10 error:0
[  627.725624] traps: mate-settings-d[13236] trap int3 ip:7f426cf153c9
sp:7fffbbfd2bb0 error:0
[  628.295965] traps: mate-settings-d[13262] trap int3 ip:7f6a982823c9
sp:7fff9418ab50 error:0
[  628.829837] traps: mate-settings-d[13289] trap int3 ip:7f8d9cf5c3c9
sp:7fff50c74520 error:0
[  629.450491] traps: mate-settings-d[13308] trap int3 ip:7f8b2c2663c9
sp:7fff4c84fb30 error:0
[  630.016590] traps: mate-settings-d[13331] trap int3 ip:7f43da0fb3c9
sp:7fff38086700 error:0
[  630.555314] traps: mate-settings-d[13358] trap int3 ip:7fd7a9b503c9
sp:7fff73a05c80 error:0
[  631.119840] traps: mate-settings-d[13386] trap int3 ip:7ff4c042a3c9
sp:7fff48037df0 error:0
[  631.707592] traps: mate-settings-d[13413] trap int3 ip:7f0056e3f3c9
sp:7fff8b866740 error:0
[  632.264920] traps: mate-settings-d[13440] trap int3 ip:7f25142ff3c9
sp:7fffb113ab30 error:0
[  632.814582] traps: mate-settings-d[13467] trap int3 ip:7fb5387d03c9
sp:7fff1a405f10 error:0
....which matches the frequency of the desktop flickering, which means that
mate-settings-daemon is at fault (it gets killed, desktop loses settings, it
respawns, icons and widgets gets their colors and fonts back, then it gets
killed again... and repated until I manage to logoff. Hence because of this,
MATE is completely broken on my system.

I've tried switching mate-settings-desktop backends (I had GStreamer, tried
switching to Pulse) since the actual mate-settings-daemon binary seems to live
on those, but to no avail - desktop is still unstable.



-- System Information:
Debian Release: jessie/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 3.13-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=es_VE.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=es_VE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages mate-settings-daemon depends on:
ii  mate-settings-daemon-gstreamer  1.8.0-1

mate-settings-daemon recommends no packages.

mate-settings-daemon suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information