Bug 1193311

Summary:	Error constructing proxy for org.gnome.Terminal:/org/gnome/Terminal/Factory0: Error calling StartServiceByName for org.gnome.Terminal: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ChildExited: Process org.gnome.Terminal exited with status 8
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Luigi Cantoni <luigic>
Component:	gnome-terminal	Assignee:	Matthias Clasen <mclasen>
Status:	CLOSED EOL	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	unspecified	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	21	CC:	mclasen, mikko.tiihonen, mschmidt, sangu.fedora, zeenix
Target Milestone:	---
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Hardware:	Unspecified
OS:	Unspecified
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2015-11-12 04:02:46 UTC	Type:	Bug
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Embargoed:

Description Luigi Cantoni 2015-02-17 07:16:48 UTC

Description of problem:
Upgrade from Fedora 20->21

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
Fedora 21

How reproducible:
gnome-terminal will not start

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Upgrade
2. choose gnome-terminal
3.

Actual results:
Error constructing proxy for org.gnome.Terminal:/org/gnome/Terminal/Factory0: Error calling StartServiceByName for org.gnome.Terminal: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ChildExited: Process org.gnome.Terminal exited with status 8

Expected results:
G=gnome-terminal should start

Additional info:
In my case it would appear that .config/dconf/user file was the issue.

I took an newly created version (new user from scratch) of the file and then did my changes to it.

My guess is some setting in the file was casing the issue but since many tools change this file I am unable to say what value was the cause.

It really would be most helpful if gnome-terminal would give a more meaningful error message and not just close down when invoked. It too most of a day reading articles all over the place and trying loads of things to get it fixed. I have to install various tools (like xterm, very useful for this as it enabled me to invoke it from a shell and see the error message).

The locale error LC_CTYPE setting is probably not the cause in my case unless that is in the file also.

NOTE ALSO: I have done several other system without this issue but this particular machine is my main development/testing machine and thus I will have done things that I did not do on the other systems as I decided these where not wanted etc.

Comment 1 Mikko Tiihonen 2015-02-23 10:26:31 UTC

I have the same problem on gnome-terminal-3.14.2-2.fc22 after latest gnome updates on 22 Feb 2015

Comment 2 Michal Schmidt 2015-02-24 09:20:21 UTC

(In reply to Mikko Tiihonen from comment #1)
> I have the same problem on gnome-terminal-3.14.2-2.fc22 after latest gnome
> updates on 22 Feb 2015

I saw this problem too. It went away today with gdm-1:3.15.90.4-1.fc22. Its changelog entry looks relevant:
- Fixes bus activated X clients

Comment 3 Fedora End Of Life 2015-11-04 13:28:37 UTC

This message is a reminder that Fedora 21 is nearing its end of life.
Approximately 4 (four) weeks from now Fedora will stop maintaining
and issuing updates for Fedora 21. It is Fedora's policy to close all
bug reports from releases that are no longer maintained. At that time
this bug will be closed as EOL if it remains open with a Fedora  'version'
of '21'.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version' 
to a later Fedora version.

Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we were not 
able to fix it before Fedora 21 is end of life. If you would still like 
to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it against a later version 
of Fedora, you are encouraged  change the 'version' to a later Fedora 
version prior this bug is closed as described in the policy above.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's 
lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a 
more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes 
bugs or makes them obsolete.

Comment 4 Luigi Cantoni 2015-11-12 04:02:46 UTC

Since I fixed the problem manually it has not returned.
I have also updated to Fedora 22 and then to 23 and the problem has not appeared after these updates.
I can only assume whatever corrupted the file either does not do that in Fedora 21 or possibly it was some sort of one-off event.