Nautilus is malfunctioning: crashing all the time

[ChrisBuchholz]

Hey guys,

Yesterday, I was gonna try the gnome-shell version from the ppa on my 10.10 amd64 machine, so I installed it and then concluded that it was not new enough, and that I would just keep building gnome-shell my self from the git repository.
I did a
sudo apt-get purge gnome-shell and then also an autoremove, because some packages was no longer used. After that, nautilus kept crashing.

I get a loading-cursor almost anywhere except for apps-content-places, I have no "desktop" - i cant see icons on it, cant right-click and so on, and I cant use nautilus to browse my files and folders. If I try to run nautilus from a terminal, I get this:

The program 'nautilus' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadLength (poly request too large or internal Xlib length erro'.
(Details: serial 129 error_code 16 request_code 128 minor_code 17)
(Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line
option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)

I have tried to install gnome-shell again, since I figured it might removed some needed packages for nautilus. I have done a
sudo apt-get install --reinstall nautilus nautilus-data to trick it to install nautilus again, but nothing fixes the problem.

Any idea to what can be wrong and how I fix it?

[nilarimogard]

Are you by any chance using RGBA transparency? If so, that might cause it.

[ChrisBuchholz]

Are you by any chance using RGBA transparency? If so, that might cause it.

I dunno if I am? How do I know?
The thing is - It worked fine yesterday, until I install and uninstall gnome-shell from the ubuntu repositiories.

[ChrisBuchholz]

I am experiencing nautilus trying to restart all the time, because it crashes all the time - a loop, if you will. This affect almost full CPU usage even though I am only using a terminal and Google Chrome.

I would love to hear about a fix for this!

[3Miro]

Are you still using Gnome-shell? Try disabling the desktop effects, this may help.

[ChrisBuchholz]

Are you still using Gnome-shell? Try disabling the desktop effects, this may help.

I actually could not get gnome-shell to work. Neither from compiz nor metacity. Not from the repository - i have build it my self multiple times where it has worked fine. But this issue i have, is just compiz.

[3Miro]

If there is a problem with Nautilus and apt-get purge doesn't help, then the issue is probably in the local settings of nautilus. The quickest way to check is to make a new user, log out and log in with the new user. If everything is working, then you can check the settings for the original user by "Ctr + F2" then type:

gconf-editor

You can also try to delete all nautilus files in

.gconf/apps/nautilus
then logout and login.

[ChrisBuchholz]

If there is a problem with Nautilus and apt-get purge doesn't help, then the issue is probably in the local settings of nautilus. The quickest way to check is to make a new user, log out and log in with the new user. If everything is working, then you can check the settings for the original user by "Ctr + F2" then type:

gconf-editor

You can also try to delete all nautilus files in

.gconf/apps/nautilus
then logout and login.

That didnt work at all, unfortunately. I tried purge ubuntu-desktop package which includes nautilus and nautilus-data and then removing the folder ~/.gconf/apps/nautilus, but it didnt solve it.

[NightwishFan]

ubuntu-desktop package includes nothing. It is just a metapackage. Do what the user above said with gconf, and then also run this command:

rm -r .nautilus

Log out and back in.