[SOLVED] Icons and images disappeared, can't login in gnome shell

akiross · #1 4th June 2012, 09:25 PM

Hello!
I just installed F17, fresh install on my new laptop.
It worked great, but after some customization it started to do something bizarre: all icons of programs, such firefox, nautilus, etc, started to vanish (and a nice red X appeared instead), then the background image (default one) disappeared, leaving a nice blue screen.

In the login screen, wallpaper is vanished too, so I *guess* that is something system-wide and not realted to my user home directory. I didn't try to create another user and check if it worked for it.

Anyway, I guess that gnome-tweak-tool did something undesirable, as it was one of the last things I installed before starting to get this issue.

Now, when I log in, I can't see anything but the top bar. Trying to launch any program, will cause a fail message to appear (unrecoverable error), forcing to close the session.

I watched my .xsession-errors and contains things like

Gtk-WARNING **: Error loading theme icon 'image-missing' for stock: Unrecognized file format

I attached the full file in this thread if it may be useful.

I can't use the desktop in this situation, so any help is appreciated.

Thanks!
~Aki

tashirosgt · #2 5th June 2012, 05:40 AM

I don't use the gnome spin so I can't be much help. But since the messages show that *.svg files are considered an "unrecognized format" and *.svg probably should be a known format, I think you should investigate this problem first.

One possibility is that whatever library is supposed to be use to deal wih svg files is missing or corrupt. I think a greater possibility is that there is a file somewhere that tells the desktop manager (or things it uses like Gtk) what libraries it should use for various file formats and this file has gone bad. Here is an old discussion that is probably not accurate for current configurations but it suggests (post #2) that this type of problem can happen: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...rd/+bug/799505

Da1hammer · #3 5th June 2012, 09:00 AM

Akiross,
I had what seems to be a similar problem today, and it turned out that my mime types became corrupted. Anyway, I found another persons thread on another forum site (http://www.spinics.net/linux/fedora/...msg417967.html) that mentioned what might be the problem, and how to solve!

As root (or sudo as I do

):
>#update-mime-database /usr/share/mime
>#chmod 664 /usr/share/applications/mimeinfo.cache

(note: Please don't copy and paste the fake root prompt! and don't forget to re-boot!)

I hope this helps!

Da1hammer

akiross · #4 5th June 2012, 09:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Da1hammer

Akiross,
I had what seems to be a similar problem today, and it turned out that my mime types became corrupted. Anyway, I found another persons thread on another forum site (http://www.spinics.net/linux/fedora/...msg417967.html) that mentioned what might be the problem, and how to solve!

As root (or sudo as I do

):
>#update-mime-database /usr/share/mime
>#chmod 664 /usr/share/applications/mimeinfo.cache

(note: Please don't copy and paste the fake root prompt! and don't forget to re-boot!)

I hope this helps!

Da1hammer

Great! It solved, thanks

Now, question is: how did this happen? It would be great to understand what caused this to avoid or fix the cause... But I've no idea. :S
Only things I did was to install gnome-tweak-tool, inkscape and synfigstudio. After launching synfig, I noted broken icons so I removed it, but the problem where elsewhere so everything else started to go bad.

As said tashirosgt, it seemed to be a svg-related problem, so... May it be that Inkscape or synfigstudio broke the mime database?

Anyway, thanks for the help. I'll wait a bit before marking the thread as solved, better to find a cause before closing the issue

Thanks again!

Da1hammer · #5 5th June 2012, 10:27 AM

Akiross,
How it happened for me is that I was updating several packages like gthumb and synfigstudio, and b4 it finished with the updates, pics and icons started disappearing!, and so, I tried to get into Gnome 3 after a re-boot only to see the frownie face computer dialog each time, and, although XFCE4 still worked, it was a mess! Finally, I used KDE4, which uses a different set-up in many parts, but backgrounds, and many icons were just gone or had question mark icons in their place.

So, I think that it is faulty script in the synfigstudio rpm that is to blame, as the affected files in /usr/share/mime had a time stamp of when I updated the several pkgs. Here are the exact rpms I updated:

Jun 4 19:17:08 yum[9757]: Updated: openssl-1.0.0j-1.fc16.x86_64
Jun 4 19:22:11 yum[9757]: Updated: synfigstudio-0.63.05-3.1.fc16.x86_64
Jun 4 19:22:17 yum[9757]: Updated: synfigstudio-devel-0.63.05-3.1.fc16.x86_64
Jun 4 19:22:40 yum[9757]: Updated: openssl-devel-1.0.0j-1.fc16.x86_64
Jun 4 19:22:54 yum[9757]: Updated: gthumb-2.14.4-1.fc16.x86_64
Jun 4 19:22:59 yum[9757]: Updated: python-crypto-2.3-6.fc16.x86_64
Jun 4 19:23:18 yum[9757]: Updated: childsplay-1.6-6.fc16.noarch
Jun 4 19:23:24 yum[9757]: Updated: uhd-3.4.2-1.fc16.x86_64
Jun 4 19:23:28 yum[9757]: Updated: openssl-1.0.0j-1.fc16.i686

The mime types therefore have to be updated as said in my above post, which is what solved it for me!

Now it is back to wonderful wood on my XFCE desktop, as Gnome isn't doing textures at the moment.

Da1hammer

akiross · #6 5th June 2012, 09:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Da1hammer

How it happened for me is that I was updating several packages like gthumb and synfigstudio, and b4 it finished with the updates, pics and icons started disappearing!, and so, I tried to get into Gnome 3 after a re-boot only to see the frownie face computer dialog each time, and, although XFCE4 still worked, it was a mess! Finally, I used KDE4, which uses a different set-up in many parts, but backgrounds, and many icons were just gone or had question mark icons in their place.

Uhm, interesting... We both had the issue after installing synfigstudio.
Shall we open a bug?

Meanwhile I'll close this thread as solved

**Finalzone** · #7 6th June 2012, 01:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by akiross

Uhm, interesting... We both had the issue after installing synfigstudio.
Shall we open a bug?

Meanwhile I'll close this thread as solved

No need. synfigstudio-0.63.05-1 was at fault. The reason was the bundled mime that was not removed prior on installation resulting an overwriting of mime data. Sorry about that.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=821740