Gnome panel and desktop icons mysteriously changed: SOLVED but now is a vnc problem

Alfredo Ferrari list at pceet030.cern.ch
Sun Sep 19 15:05:16 UTC 2004


On Sun, 19 Sep 2004, Jim Cornette wrote:

> CB wrote:
>> CB wrote:
>> 
>>> All the icons on the desktop and panel of my main login user have 
>>> changed (other users desktops are still OK). For example, the panel menu 
>>> icon is now the gnome footprint rather than the redhat logo, and 
>>> directories on the desktop now use a generic text file icon rather than 
>>> the original folder.
>>> 
>>> Any ideas on how this might have happened, and how to restore things?
>>> 
>>> Cheers,
>>> 
>>> CB.
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> It turns out that when I stop the vncserver service, this problem goes 
>> away. I assume that the vnc server is locking something essention in (in 
>> one of the .gnome* directories?). Have I misconfigured vnc in some way, or 
>> is this always going to happen?
>> 
>> 
>
> It's interesting that the vncserver would cause this sort of problem. The 
> only guess I would have is that the file that is open from the vncserver is 
> not available for use with your local machine.since it is currently being 
> used by the vncserver.
>
> Have you tried the opposite way, start the local GUI, then launch a vnc 
> session?
>
> No help, just intrigued by the effects of the problem.
>
> Jim
>
>

I have the same exact problem. If I start vncserver *BEFORE* "normal" X,
the vnc session gets the "right" icons, but the machine screen is showing 
the "wrong" ones. If X is started before vncserver it is the opposite.

This problem is new and related to something in Fedora (1 or 2). The same
machine running RH9 did not show the problem, which appeared only
after upgrading to FC2 (-> hence I do not know whether it is FC2 specific
or was already an issue with FC1).

After a bit of investigation I found that the latter of the X server 
instances to start, is using the icons inside /usr/share/icons/hicolor 
instead of the default Bluecurve ones (making hicolor a soft link to the 
default Bluecurve icon directory fixes the issue, of course this is NOT
a proper solution). Why this happens I don't know. It seems like
the first X server ("normal" X or vncserver) is locking some files in the 
theme which are then no longer available (maybe the explaination is 
completely different).

                      Alfredo

-- 

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|  Alfredo Ferrari                         ||  Tel.: +41.22.767.6119         |
|  C.E.R.N.                                ||  Fax.: +41.22.767.7555         |
|  European Laboratory for Particle Physics||                                |
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|  1211 Geneva 23                          ||     Alfredo.Ferrari at cern.ch    |
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