Arch Linux

Annoyingduck

Member

Registered: 2016-08-02

Posts: 179

[Solved] Cinnamon Cannot Right Click Panel - Panel Broken

Just did a fresh install of Arch w/Cinnamon, and I added the "places with terminal" applet...well after I used it to try to open the "file system" location, I got an error that stated something like cannot find gksu.xxx.blah.blah.blah.   The end result after that is that I cannot right click on the panel to access any of the panel options.  I can right click individual applets, but not the panel.  Accessing the panel options via the settings menu does not give me the ability to remove panels. only add them.  I also cannot move any applets around as the option from within settings does not work. Basically my panel is broken, and I'm not sure what to do here. I removed all user installed applets, rebooted...nothing...just cannot right click on the panel. I also cannot remove the panel or move any applets around. Restoring applets to default did not work either.

Last edited by Annoyingduck (2017-06-11 02:43:45)

nannerpussy

Member

Registered: 2017-02-15

Posts: 96

Re: [Solved] Cinnamon Cannot Right Click Panel - Panel Broken

Sounds like a permissions error. That "cannot find blah blah" message is pretty important now. Especially now that we just had 5 policy and permission-related updates come down, from gnupg to pk11. Have you tried logging in as root and modifying the panel? What's the status of your gksu package? Check your system logs, also check Looking Glass. Need more information about the precise error and whether it's system-wide or user.

Annoyingduck

Member

Registered: 2016-08-02

Posts: 179

Re: [Solved] Cinnamon Cannot Right Click Panel - Panel Broken

Sounds like a permissions error. That "cannot find blah blah" message is pretty important now. Especially now that we just had 5 policy and permission-related updates come down, from gnupg to pk11. Have you tried logging in as root and modifying the panel? What's the status of your gksu package? Check your system logs, also check Looking Glass. Need more information about the precise error and whether it's system-wide or user.

I don't have gksu installed.  I just added another user and the issue is not present. So It's something in my main user setup. I don't really know what to post for the error, as nothing happens when I right click the panel.  Just followed this guide and it did not work https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=122375.

And I don't even know how to access the looking glass without being able to right click the panel

Last edited by Annoyingduck (2017-06-11 01:25:46)

Annoyingduck

Member

Registered: 2016-08-02

Posts: 179

Re: [Solved] Cinnamon Cannot Right Click Panel - Panel Broken

Logging in as root does not show the problem.  Any ideas on what I can check in my user profile?

nannerpussy

Member

Registered: 2017-02-15

Posts: 96

Re: [Solved] Cinnamon Cannot Right Click Panel - Panel Broken

I don't have gksu installed.  I just added another user and the issue is not present. So It's something in my main user setup.
And I don't even know how to access the looking glass without being able to right click the panel

I don't really know why gksu isn't a dependency of Nemo or Cinnamon, but I just looked and it isn't. How are you being graphically prompted for access right when you try to do something with root privilege? In a fresh Cinnamon install you should have a few things in your System Control panel that will prompt for root password, like applying a color profile system-wide or modifying network settings. Try doing something that requires root and see if you get the same gksu error message. I know for a fact that Cinnamon was at one point suggesting xdg-su universally because certain distros do not come with gksu, or didn't at that point. In Arch, xdg-su is in the AUR and not even Community, so gksudo is your only non-AUR choice here.

WIth your borked user, try and get root password prompt, see if that gives an error. Install gksu/gksudo via pacman in a terminal, so you can get a normal command prompt for sudo if you can't get one graphically. Also make sure you are part of the "wheel" group ("sudo groupmems -g wheel -a <username>") and logout or just reboot. Your XDG Cinnamon settings dealing with the desktop and panel may be harder to repair if they don't work even after you have gksu and are in wheel, and I get the feeling you aren't big on reading sections of the Wiki so it might be easier to just scrap your user and recreate it if this is a fresh install.

Edit: Also, following Mint forum guides is a bad idea. There may be commonalities in solutions to things, but the small differences in how things are done or what is assumed of the user make all the difference. Stick with the Arch Wiki or these very forums. I just Googled "cinnamon gksu error" and an Arch forum post was the top result. Not sure if that post had a fix or what, but just saying.

Last edited by nannerpussy (2017-06-11 01:53:27)

Annoyingduck

Member

Registered: 2016-08-02

Posts: 179

Re: [Solved] Cinnamon Cannot Right Click Panel - Panel Broken

All wheel and sudo permissions appear to be working.  I installed gksu, and it's working. I've been digging around on every site for the past 3 hrs trying to figure this out. I found my looking glass log, and I'm showing this error:

GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnkown: The name org.cinnamon.SettingsDaemon was not provided by any .service files trace t=2017-06-11T01:43:09.639Z

Sound like a possible culprit?

nannerpussy

Member

Registered: 2017-02-15

Posts: 96

Re: [Solved] Cinnamon Cannot Right Click Panel - Panel Broken

All wheel and sudo permissions appear to be working.  I installed gksu, and it's working. I've been digging around on every site for the past 3 hrs trying to figure this out. I found my looking glass log, and I'm showing this error:

GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnkown: The name org.cinnamon.SettingsDaemon was not provided by any .service files trace t=2017-06-11T01:43:09.639Z

Sound like a possible culprit?

Ah, now you're onto something. Always trust the errors. I use Cinnamon too and Looking Glass is particularly useful since they break their own stuff fairly often, even without the help of the dubious out-dated applets and such you can download from within the desktop.

Have you checked your systemd log for big red FAILED errors? During boot you might miss the failure. Try "sudo systemctl --all" and look down the list for a failure related to dbus or a daemon or something besides the plymouth and systemlog errors you will see there. Also check which cinnamon-settings-daemon you have installed, or if you mistakenly got the gnome settings daemon. cinnamon-settings-daemon should be installed and is in our Community repo. You are onto something here, keep digging.

Edit: here is a good hint on finding out if cinnamon-settings-daemon is running: pgrep -fa cinnamon-settings-daemon - See if it is, and if not, if it's even installed. If it IS installed and not running, start it up and put it in the background with "cinnamon-settings-daemon &" and try the panel again.

Last edited by nannerpussy (2017-06-11 02:04:38)

Annoyingduck

Member

Registered: 2016-08-02

Posts: 179

Re: [Solved] Cinnamon Cannot Right Click Panel - Panel Broken

I just cannot locate anything within systemd.  logging in as root does not show the issue (panel works properly).  I'm truly at a loss, especially because what caused this issue is NOT having gksu installed, then running an applet that called for it.  That applet just ruined my entire day...this thing was just FULLY set up!!

nannerpussy

Member

Registered: 2017-02-15

Posts: 96

Re: [Solved] Cinnamon Cannot Right Click Panel - Panel Broken

I just cannot locate anything within systemd.  logging in as root does not show the issue (panel works properly).  I'm truly at a loss, especially because what caused this issue is NOT having gksu installed, then running an applet that called for it.  That applet just ruined my entire day...this thing was just FULLY set up!!

I won't pretend to understand Cinnamon's use of systemd and their blend/incest with Gnome schemas and dependencies and policy handling, but I know digging around in those config files, even with something like Systemd Genie GUI or dconf editor, is a huge pain in the ass. Also if you had some weird permissions going on with partial rwx or something wonky on just your panel or just your installation priveledges, there could now be a half-set desktop configuration file somewhere that may need rooted out as well. As root, make sure you have that applet completely disabled and removed. Definitely do not trust or use those applets. Half of them WILL break your Cinnamon desktop. We have several updated and Arch-friendly Cinnamon applets in the AUR, if you wanna check into that. T

But, try installing or reinstalling the cinnamon-settings-daemon and ensuring it is enabled. It will look like this in your systemd tree:

           │     ├─ 619 /usr/lib/cinnamon-settings-daemon/cinnamon-settings-daemon
           │     ├─ 690 /usr/lib/cinnamon-settings-daemon/csd-printer

Initated just after gnome-keyring and the desktop.

Annoyingduck

Member

Registered: 2016-08-02

Posts: 179

Re: [Solved] Cinnamon Cannot Right Click Panel - Panel Broken

Ok, I got fed up...so I deleted my entire .config and .cinnamon files...rebooted and I'm back up and working properly.  Waaaaay better than a full reinstall!  I'll just need to set up everything again.

nannerpussy

Member

Registered: 2017-02-15

Posts: 96

Re: [Solved] Cinnamon Cannot Right Click Panel - Panel Broken

Hey you gotta start somewhere. If nothing else you learned a few things about Cinnamon. Make sure to put [SOLVED] in your post title before the mods beat you with a club over it.

Annoyingduck

Member

Registered: 2016-08-02

Posts: 179

Re: [Solved] Cinnamon Cannot Right Click Panel - Panel Broken

*Update - Better Solution*

I ended up playing around with more Places applets and I got the same loss of right click on the panel issue again.  Still unable to track down what exactly caused it (no error warning this time), but it seems to occur when initially opening certain directories via the certain places applets.  Seeing as deleting my .config folder got me back up and running, it's clear that the issue is either a bunk file being generated or as @nannerpussy (love the name btw) pointed out, it may be a permissions issue. So this time I tried a simple permission issue fix by opening my .config file, right clicking it, going to properties/permissions, (which were correct for the folder), and simply applying those same permissions to the enclosed files.  Rebooted, and everything was working properly again.

So to sum it up, if you run into a bad Cinnamon applet, try fixing the permissions in your .config folder before nuking your system!!  And be careful with Places applets, be sure that you have the proper programs installed that they rely on to work properly.  And FWIW "Places-Center" is the best and works great, be cautious with "Places-With-Terminal".

nannerpussy

Member

Registered: 2017-02-15

Posts: 96

Re: [Solved] Cinnamon Cannot Right Click Panel - Panel Broken

*Update - Better Solution*

I ended up playing around with more Places applets and I got the same loss of right click on the panel issue again.  Still unable to track down what exactly caused it (no error warning this time), but it seems to occur when initially opening certain directories via the certain places applets.  Seeing as deleting my .config folder got me back up and running, it's clear that the issue is either a bunk file being generated or as @nannerpussy (love the name btw) pointed out, it may be a permissions issue. So this time I tried a simple permission issue fix by opening my .config file, right clicking it, going to properties/permissions, (which were correct for the folder), and simply applying those same permissions to the enclosed files.  Rebooted, and everything was working properly again.

So to sum it up, if you run into a bad Cinnamon applet, try fixing the permissions in your .config folder before nuking your system!!  And be careful with Places applets, be sure that you have the proper programs installed that they rely on to work properly.  And FWIW "Places-Center" is the best and works great, be cautious with "Places-With-Terminal".

Nice, glad you dug into it. Also, if you are open to checking out the AUR, there are up-to-date Cinnamon applets and themes and extensions packaged just for Arch/pacman with Cinnamon. Not sure if that's what you meant, but definitely stay away from the in-session Spices repository unless you are certain. Always try to go all the way upstream to the Git if the AUR isn't an option.

Edit: For instance: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/cinn … ter-places

Last edited by nannerpussy (2017-06-16 04:42:03)