Bug 2354592

Summary: GNOME crashes on startup if keyboard accessibility features are enabled
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Adam Williamson <awilliam>
Component: mutterAssignee: GNOME SIG Unassigned <gnome-sig>
Status: CLOSED ERRATA QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: urgent Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: 42CC: fedora, fmuellner, gnome-sig, jadahl, kparal, lbrabec, ngompa13, otaylor, robatino, walters
Target Milestone: ---   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard: AcceptedBlocker https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/common-issues/135380
Fixed In Version: mutter-48.1-1.fc42 Doc Type: ---
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2025-04-02 21:59:17 UTC Type: Bug
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:
Bug Depends On:    
Bug Blocks: 2291265    

Description Adam Williamson 2025-03-24 17:41:54 UTC
This is a downstream report of upstream https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/3708 , for blocker / FE tracking purposes.

Multiple folks have reported that GNOME can crash on startup if certain keyboard accessibility features are enabled: specifically 'mouse keys' (which allows controlling the mouse pointer with the numeric keypad) and also org.gnome.desktop.a11y.keyboard , which is described in gsettings-desktop-schemas as "Enable accessibility keyboard shortcuts", and I think may be the "Turn accessibility features on or off using the keyboard" setting in the control center (not 100% sure).

There are two MRs to fix this:

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/merge_requests/4083
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/merge_requests/4195

but both appear to be stalled currently.

Proposing as a Final blocker and FE for F42. Note, though, that this bug is actually also present in F40 and F41, since we have updated them to GNOME 47.

Comment 1 Adam Williamson 2025-03-24 17:43:39 UTC
Note that Ubuntu backported https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/merge_requests/4083 , so we are lacking a fix for this compared to them.

Comment 2 Adam Williamson 2025-03-24 18:11:40 UTC
scratch build with 4195 applied: https://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/taskinfo?taskID=130701694

can folks test and see if that resolves the issue? thanks.

Comment 3 Lukas Brabec 2025-03-24 18:27:31 UTC
Discussed during the 2025-03-24 blocker review meeting [1]:

* AGREED: 2354592 - AcceptedBlocker (Final) - this is accepted as a conditional violation of "A system installed with a release-blocking desktop must boot to a log in screen where it is possible to log in to a working desktop using a user account created during installation or a 'first boot' utility" in the case that an affected a11y setting is enabled

[1] https://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/blocker-review_matrix_fedoraproject-org/2025-03-24/f42-blocker-review.2025-03-24-16.02.log.html

Comment 4 Adam Williamson 2025-03-24 22:34:40 UTC
I can reproduce this by setting org.gnome.desktop.a11y.keyboard.enable to true . in my testing, https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/merge_requests/4195 does *not* fix it. https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/merge_requests/4083 *does* fix it.

Comment 5 Adam Williamson 2025-03-25 18:24:24 UTC
New version of 4195 from today *does* fix the bug for me.

Comment 6 Fedora Update System 2025-04-01 21:16:44 UTC
FEDORA-2025-c6e0804a85 (gdm-48.0-1.fc42, gnome-shell-48.0-1.fc42, and 3 more) has been submitted as an update to Fedora 42.
https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2025-c6e0804a85

Comment 7 Fedora Update System 2025-04-02 01:13:03 UTC
FEDORA-2025-c6e0804a85 has been pushed to the Fedora 42 testing repository.
Soon you'll be able to install the update with the following command:
`sudo dnf upgrade --enablerepo=updates-testing --refresh --advisory=FEDORA-2025-c6e0804a85`
You can provide feedback for this update here: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2025-c6e0804a85

See also https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Updates_Testing for more information on how to test updates.

Comment 8 Fedora Update System 2025-04-02 21:59:17 UTC
FEDORA-2025-c6e0804a85 (gdm-48.0-1.fc42, gnome-shell-48.0-1.fc42, and 3 more) has been pushed to the Fedora 42 stable repository.
If problem still persists, please make note of it in this bug report.

Comment 9 Kamil Páral 2025-04-03 05:59:40 UTC
Verified, works.