Gnome-shell segfault

thibthib · 2017-10-23 13:20:41

Since the previous gnome-shell version (3.26.1), I was experiencing some crash from Gnome when having windows on multiple desktops, or messing around with the view you got from pressing the Super key. I was hoping that the next version I updated to today would fix it, but it didn't.
I'd like get advantage of this issue to learn how to deal with bugs, can someone explain to me:
- What can I do to track the bug and report it the proper way?
- How can I fix it? or at least properly restore to a working previous version of gnome-shell?
I tried to install a previous version with pacman, but got only a black screen at the next boot.

Excerpt from dmesg:

[   31.316294] gnome-shell[870]: segfault at 80 ip 00007fe32a8ecce0 sp 00007ffe0dec0ca8 error 4 in libst-1.0.so[7fe32a8bf000+4c000]

hrkristian · 2017-10-23 15:42:42

thibthib wrote:

- How can I fix it? or at least properly restore to a working previous version of gnome-shell?
I tried to install a previous version with pacman, but got only a black screen at the next boot.

Major gnome-shell updates have a lot of dependencies. When you upgraded to 3.26.x you also upgraded these dependencies and you will have to downgrade these as well to downgrade gnome-shell itself.
When you did that upgrade you also probably upgraded somewhere in the vicinity of 100 other programs/libs, and some of these may/will break as a result of downgrading, so the proper way to go about it would be to simply revert to the state before you upgraded to 3.26.x.

How would you go about doing that?
Extract the name of every package you upgraded from /var/log/pacman.log, find their 3.24.x analogs in /var/cache/pacman/pkg/ and then downgrade to them.
I don't have the needed bash-fu to do that without spending a whole day, or maybe I do but I don't have the time unfortunately. I'm sure someone here has made one you can find with google search.

For future reference, I would suggest either creating a snapshot of your system, and/or pull all packages from /var/cache/pacman/pkg from where you have a working system pre-update.
The easiest way to do this is is probably doing a doing a reboot, then certain your current system state is good running

pacman -Sc

which will remove all packages from the above mentioned folder currently not installed on your system. Then, making a backup copy of said folder before running the system upgrade.
This way you can basically run

pacman -U /var/cache/pacman/pkg_backup/*

to revert your system to a pre-upgrade state.

One drawback to this is files may have been installed during the upgrade which will be incompatible with the downgraded versions, causing system breakage.

thibthib wrote:

- What can I do to track the bug and report it the proper way?

The bug you're having has already been discussed plenty on the forum and has been reported. I'm not sure of the status but there's no need for reporting.
You've already identified a chain in the problem by looking through dmesg logs.
Beyond that there's specifying relevant system configs, having done your own debugging like turning off extensions. Then specifying concrete ways to reproduce the bug.

BenderRodriguez · 2017-10-25 08:18:06

It's probably one of the extensions. Disabling them did the trick for me. I didn't try finding the problematic extension yet.

RubenKelevra · 2017-10-27 18:17:50

I ran into exactly the same issue, maybe you are able to provide a list of your installed (and previously activated) extensions, if I match them to mine, we should easily reduce the list to very few ones.

metameta · 2017-10-30 10:17:50

Same pb here. I have disabled all extension and reenable only important for me, then try to reproduce issue (more often when i try to reduce chromium, or use keepassxc). Since yesteray, no crash.

Not finished, but here the last extension I haven't reenabled yet. issue could be from one of them.

- Argos
- Auto move window
- Auto hide battery
- Dynamic to bar
- Native window placement
- Pomodoro
- Screenshot window sizer
- Steal my focus

If no issue today, i will reenable some of this list tomorrow.

ganlu · 2017-10-30 15:27:23

May be related to this bug 788931.

Slithery · 2017-10-30 15:48:29

hrkristian wrote:

Major gnome-shell updates have a lot of dependencies. When you upgraded to 3.26.x you also upgraded these dependencies and you will have to downgrade these as well to downgrade gnome-shell itself.
When you did that upgrade you also probably upgraded somewhere in the vicinity of 100 other programs/libs, and some of these may/will break as a result of downgrading, so the proper way to go about it would be to simply revert to the state before you upgraded to 3.26.x.
How would you go about doing that?
Extract the name of every package you upgraded from /var/log/pacman.log, find their 3.24.x analogs in /var/cache/pacman/pkg/ and then downgrade to them.
I don't have the needed bash-fu to do that without spending a whole day, or maybe I do but I don't have the time unfortunately. I'm sure someone here has made one you can find with google search.

It's nowhere near that difficult.
Just use the archive to roll back your entire system to a point before the 3.26 upgrade.

Arch Linux

#1 2017-10-23 13:20:41

Gnome-shell segfault

#2 2017-10-23 15:42:42

Re: Gnome-shell segfault

#3 2017-10-25 08:18:06

Re: Gnome-shell segfault

#4 2017-10-27 18:17:50

Re: Gnome-shell segfault

#5 2017-10-30 10:17:50

Re: Gnome-shell segfault

#6 2017-10-30 15:27:23

Re: Gnome-shell segfault

#7 2017-10-30 15:48:29

Re: Gnome-shell segfault

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