Bug 2395249 - accessibility menu doesn't work in gnome-initial-setup environment
Summary: accessibility menu doesn't work in gnome-initial-setup environment
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED ERRATA
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: gnome-initial-setup
Version: 43
Hardware: x86_64
OS: Linux
unspecified
high
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: GNOME SIG Unassigned
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard: AcceptedBlocker
Depends On:
Blocks: F43FinalBlocker
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2025-09-15 15:03 UTC by Pavel Vlček
Modified: 2025-09-22 21:24 UTC (History)
15 users (show)

Fixed In Version: gnome-initial-setup-49.0-1.fc43
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2025-09-18 00:18:35 UTC
Type: ---
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)
journal.txt (199.25 KB, text/plain)
2025-09-16 11:17 UTC, Kamil Páral
no flags Details
rpm-qa.txt (68.48 KB, text/plain)
2025-09-16 11:17 UTC, Kamil Páral
no flags Details


Links
System ID Private Priority Status Summary Last Updated
GNOME Gitlab GNOME gdm issues 1016 0 None closed can not start orca gdm 49rc 2025-09-16 14:05:38 UTC

Description Pavel Vlček 2025-09-15 15:03:10 UTC
Unable to activate screen reader when initial-setup is in the screen.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
Download the latest Fedora 43 development Workstation, I used (https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/development/43/Workstation/x86_64/iso/Fedora-Workstation-Live-43-20250915.n.0.x86_64.iso). Boot to the live environment and now, press alt plus super plus s. You will hear screen reader on. Now, press it again, you will hear screen reader off. Now, install the system. After reboot, initial setup loads. Now, try activating Orca screen reader as in the live environment.
Actual Results:
Nothing happens, as a blind user, I am unable to set up my installed Fedora.

Expected Results:
Orca will start / stop as expected, as in Fedora 42.

Comment 1 Kamil Páral 2025-09-16 11:16:32 UTC
Actually, the problem is a bit different. *No* accessibility feature works in the gnome-initial-setup environment. It doesn't matter whether you try to enable it by a shortcut or by using the menu in the top right corner. All of them are nonfunctional (and also Dark mode from the standard user menu). 

I don't see any straight error about it in the journal, except this one, which could be relevant:

> Sep 16 13:10:05 localhost-live gnome-shell[1342]: failed to commit changes to dconf: GDBus.Error:org.gtk.GDBus.UnmappedGError.Quark._g_2dfile_2derror_2dquark.Code2: Cannot open dconf database: Failed to open file “/var/lib/gdm/seat0/config/dconf/user”: Permission denied

I assume the dconf database is used the store the a11y feature on/off value, and if the database can't be opened, the feature doesn't get activated?

Comment 2 Kamil Páral 2025-09-16 11:17:16 UTC
Created attachment 2106779 [details]
journal.txt

Comment 3 Kamil Páral 2025-09-16 11:17:20 UTC
Created attachment 2106780 [details]
rpm-qa.txt

Comment 4 Kamil Páral 2025-09-16 11:26:18 UTC
Proposing for a blocker discussion. Currently we have these criteria:

"If an initial setup utility is run or intended to be run after the first boot of the installed system, then it must start successfully and each page or panel of the initial setup utility should withstand a basic functionality test. "
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_43_Final_Release_Criteria#First_boot_experience

"All elements of the default panel (or equivalent) configuration in all release-blocking desktops must function correctly in typical use. "
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_43_Final_Release_Criteria#Default_panel_functionality

Especially the second one seems to hit it quite precisely, although this only concerns the gnome-initial-setup environment, and not the actual user session environment (everything works fine there). But the first criterion cares about the gnome-initial-environment (while not specifying the top panel). Furthermore, while we don't have specific a11y release criteria, if *all* a11y was completely broken, we would probably mark it as the gnome settings app not fulfilling its basic functionality requirement. This is more or less the same situation in the g-i-s environment, completely blocking people with disabilities from entering the user session.

Comment 5 Kamil Páral 2025-09-16 11:43:45 UTC
(In reply to Kamil Páral from comment #1)
> > Sep 16 13:10:05 localhost-live gnome-shell[1342]: failed to commit changes to dconf: GDBus.Error:org.gtk.GDBus.UnmappedGError.Quark._g_2dfile_2derror_2dquark.Code2: Cannot open dconf database: Failed to open file “/var/lib/gdm/seat0/config/dconf/user”: Permission denied

In the log, we also have this, which seems to hint at the same issue:

Sep 16 13:10:14 localhost-live wireplumber[1352]: wp-state: <WpState:0x55ebe1837020> could not save stream-properties: Failed to create file “/var/lib/gdm/seat0/state/wireplumber/stream-properties.F0CXC3”: Permission denied


Here's the full file list view in the gdm directory:

$ ls -la -R /var/lib/gdm/

/var/lib/gdm/:
total 4
drwxrwx--T. 1 gdm  gdm   62 Sep 16 13:01 .
drwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 978 Sep 16 13:01 ..
drwx------. 1 gdm  gdm   10 Sep 11 00:17 .config
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root   1 Sep 16 13:01 .migrated-dyn-users
drwxr-xr-x. 1 root root  22 Sep 16 13:01 seat0

/var/lib/gdm/.config:
total 0
drwx------. 1 gdm gdm 10 Sep 11 00:17 .
drwxrwx--T. 1 gdm gdm 62 Sep 16 13:01 ..
drwx------. 1 gdm gdm 20 Sep 11 00:17 pulse

/var/lib/gdm/.config/pulse:
total 4
drwx------. 1 gdm gdm  20 Sep 11 00:17 .
drwx------. 1 gdm gdm  10 Sep 11 00:17 ..
-rw-------. 1 gdm gdm 320 Sep  4 02:00 default.pa

/var/lib/gdm/seat0:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x. 1 root                root   22 Sep 16 13:01 .
drwxrwx--T. 1 gdm                 gdm    62 Sep 16 13:01 ..
drwx------. 1 gnome-initial-setup nobody 10 Sep 16 13:01 config
drwx------. 1 gnome-initial-setup nobody  0 Sep 16 13:01 state

/var/lib/gdm/seat0/config:
total 0
drwx------. 1 gnome-initial-setup nobody 10 Sep 16 13:01 .
drwxr-xr-x. 1 root                root   22 Sep 16 13:01 ..
drwxr-xr-x. 1 gnome-initial-setup nobody 20 Sep 16 13:01 pulse

/var/lib/gdm/seat0/config/pulse:
total 4
drwxr-xr-x. 1 gnome-initial-setup nobody  20 Sep 16 13:01 .
drwx------. 1 gnome-initial-setup nobody  10 Sep 16 13:01 ..
-rw-------. 1 gnome-initial-setup nobody 320 Sep  4 02:00 default.pa

/var/lib/gdm/seat0/state:
total 0
drwx------. 1 gnome-initial-setup nobody  0 Sep 16 13:01 .
drwxr-xr-x. 1 root                root   22 Sep 16 13:01 ..




/var/lib/gdm/seat0/{config,state} seem to be owned by the gnome-initial-setup user, which sounds OK (I see the /usr/libexec/gnome-initial-setup process running under it as well). Not sure what the permission issue is.

Comment 6 Adrian Vovk 2025-09-16 13:20:59 UTC
Upstream bug report for this is https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gdm/-/issues/1016. What I said there applies here

Comment 7 Kamil Páral 2025-09-16 14:33:15 UTC
(In reply to Adrian Vovk from comment #6)
> Upstream bug report for this is
> https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gdm/-/issues/1016. What I said there applies
> here

Interestingly enough, I have no problems with starting orca in gdm using both the shortcut and the menu. It's only gnome-initial-setup that's broken.

Comment 8 Pavel Vlček 2025-09-16 14:50:30 UTC
(In reply to Kamil Páral from comment #7)
> (In reply to Adrian Vovk from comment #6)
> > Upstream bug report for this is
> > https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gdm/-/issues/1016. What I said there applies
> > here
> 
> Interestingly enough, I have no problems with starting orca in gdm using
> both the shortcut and the menu. It's only gnome-initial-setup that's broken.

Yes, only initial-setup is broken for me. I had this issue with gdm, but it was in Gnome 49 beta, it also affected Gnome os, but for Gnome os, this was fixed in August with GDM 49 RC.

Comment 9 Pavel Vlček 2025-09-16 14:56:09 UTC
In other words, when I upgrade from 42 to 43, I can activate / deactivate Orca as usual.

Comment 10 Adrian Vovk 2025-09-16 19:51:57 UTC
I just pushed another patch https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gdm/-/merge_requests/320, and tagged another GDM release (49.0.1), which changes the fix a little. With 49.0.1 it will no longer be necessary to manually ask GDM to re-run the dynamic user migration (by deleting the .migrated-dyn-user stampfile). There were more people running GDM 49.rc than expected, so I decided to have GDM unconditionally run the fixup on startup

> Interestingly enough, I have no problems with starting orca in gdm using both the shortcut and the menu. It's only gnome-initial-setup that's broken.

Yeah it's the same bug that manifests itself slightly differently on different distros

GDM by default (on GNOME OS and Arch) creates /var/lib/gdm with permissions 0700 and ownership gdm:gdm. Fedora's packaging of GDM creates /var/lib/gdm on its own, with permissions 0770 instead.

GDM 49 and later runs the login screen as gdm-greeter[-###]:gdm and the initial-setup session as gnome-initial-setup[-###]:gnome-initial-setup. On Arch and GNOME OS this means that neither the login screen nor initial-setup are able to access anything inside of /var/lib/gdm, and thus the accessibility settings are broken in both places. With Fedora it's slightly different: the login screen runs as the gdm group, and the permissions are configured to allow the gdm group access to the directory, so the login screen does function correctly. But gnome-initial-setup, which doesn't run as the gdm group, still doesn't have access

Comment 11 Michael Catanzaro 2025-09-16 20:20:04 UTC
(In reply to Adrian Vovk from comment #10) 
> GDM by default (on GNOME OS and Arch) creates /var/lib/gdm with permissions
> 0700 and ownership gdm:gdm. Fedora's packaging of GDM creates /var/lib/gdm
> on its own, with permissions 0770 instead.

I can switch it to use 0700 if you want, to reduce risk of future bugs caused by this divergence? Or maybe we should change upstream to use 0770 instead, since there's probably not much value in preventing gdm group from accessing /var/lib/gdm?

Comment 12 Fedora Update System 2025-09-16 21:21:07 UTC
FEDORA-2025-111bd2a0c7 (adwaita-icon-theme-49.0-1.fc43, at-spi2-core-2.58.0-1.fc43, and 61 more) has been submitted as an update to Fedora 43.
https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2025-111bd2a0c7

Comment 13 Fedora Update System 2025-09-17 01:42:36 UTC
FEDORA-2025-111bd2a0c7 has been pushed to the Fedora 43 testing repository.
Soon you'll be able to install the update with the following command:
`sudo dnf upgrade --enablerepo=updates-testing --refresh --advisory=FEDORA-2025-111bd2a0c7`
You can provide feedback for this update here: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2025-111bd2a0c7

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

Comment 14 Kamil Páral 2025-09-17 07:52:06 UTC
(In reply to Fedora Update System from comment #12)
> FEDORA-2025-111bd2a0c7 (adwaita-icon-theme-49.0-1.fc43,
> at-spi2-core-2.58.0-1.fc43, and 61 more) has been submitted as an update to
> Fedora 43.
> https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2025-111bd2a0c7

With this update included, the issue is fixed, accessibility options work both in gnome-initial-setup and gdm. Thanks.

Comment 15 Adam Williamson 2025-09-17 20:02:49 UTC
+4 in https://pagure.io/fedora-qa/blocker-review/issue/1929 , marking accepted.

Comment 16 Fedora Update System 2025-09-18 00:18:35 UTC
FEDORA-2025-111bd2a0c7 (adwaita-icon-theme-49.0-1.fc43, at-spi2-core-2.58.0-1.fc43, and 61 more) has been pushed to the Fedora 43 stable repository.
If problem still persists, please make note of it in this bug report.

Comment 17 Adrian Vovk 2025-09-22 18:49:26 UTC
*** Bug 2395957 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***


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