Cinnamon Skipping Startup Items You Manually Add

[smileynet000]

Distribution

Linux Mint 22.1 Cinnamon Edition

Package version

6.4.8

Graphics hardware in use

Intel Iris Plus Graphics G1 vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver

Frequency

Quite often

Bug description

When I add startup entries in cinnamon, in this distro, with the startup applications GUI, or when I add them manually, or semi-manually, but the same way it does, but especially if I don't change what it came out of the box with, but simply add to it, it will randomly, but quite often skip running some of these things that I tell it to run. I believe it showed up in this version, because I don't remember having this issue with other versions at least quite so much.

This may have been fixed, in 22.2, I don't know, I haven't tried it with much success yet. I don't know for sure, which version it showed up in, but this is a guess, because I haven't used every version. But since my Mom, is using version 22, it's a safe bet to say, that it began in 22.1.

It was keeping me from successfully and fully having a working computer at all for a bit. The fix or workaround? I did what I was going to do anyway at some point, and created my own startup mechanism. It still relies upon this builtin feature to run, so it still skips running it sometimes. But now that there are fewer things for it to startup, it takes less time for the system to sucessfully boot fully, because it only has two things that it might skip. It usually doesn't skip them both at once. My script starts the rest of the items, and lives outside of the way, in my system tray, thanks to kdocker. If I close the script, all these items I started will close.

When it was set up with all the items in the startup applications GUI, this skipping, would appearently cause conflicts in my system, where the system would refuse to boot properly. That frequency was very much, so it would often take hours for me to just start my system. This was uancceptable, because it was almost what windows was going through, and that's why I am no longer using windows. I almost had to switch distros and see what happened. Or at least window manager/desktop enviroments. Please verify that the bug doesn't remain, and if it does, fix it as soon as you can. Thanks!

I had to add to the startup, for things like discord to function for me.

Steps to reproduce

1. Add to the startup applications GUI, a script or program
2. Reboot your computer
3. The more you add, the more it becomes a problem

Expected behavior

It just does what you ask it to, without fail every time, in the startup applications GUI. Sometimes you have to set a delay, for it to work, sometimes it just works, when you set it whatever you set the delay at.

Additional information

I was struggling with this issue for the longest time ever.

[smileynet000]

I'm preparing a video, if it will let me upload it, because sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. It's random, but it was common enough that I got the problem on video, after my fix, but the problem still shows up sometimes. I got both a successful boot (or logon), and one that's not so successful after my fix. It's transferring to my computer as we speak, so I can make the pieces make some sense with some editing.

[smileynet000]

URL: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1_H12uL5zA)

My video is there, showing my issue. It both shows, as of now, a proper bootup with my startup system, and the time before it, when it didn't work. If you guys could please verify that this is fixed, and if not fix it. It could eventually be a deal breaker for me for this distro, if it's not fixed. Or maybe it just occurs with this cinnamon desktop enviroment, which I believe it actually does.

I'm believing I got the right component for the bug, but I haven't looked at the code. Thanks, and I'll leave you alone now, but hopefully you'll get back to me at some point, or fix it silently. Thanks!

[leigh123linux]

I got bored watching the video after 2 minutes, nothing should take that long to start IMO.

Maybe try staggering the startup apps using the time delay if your hardware is that weak.

[clefebvre]

Hi @smileynet000 ,

You do have the right component afaik, but please be more concise. We don't need proof that it happens, we need to be able to reproduce it easily and understand what's failing. Can you give us an example entry and check its .desktop file for instance?

Thanks.

[leigh123linux]

You do have the right component afaik,

It's cinnamon-session that runs the autostart apps

The reporter needs to set session to debug to help show the issue

gsettings set org.cinnamon.SessionManager debug true

[smileynet000]

Sorry that I couldn't respond back right away. I was helping my family all day, clean out an apartment. I didn't even get to go to my Linux User Group today, because of it. So...the video was just in case. I know it took awhile for the computer to load, and I'm not as talented at some at making videos, so it was hard to make it interesting but still show what I was trying to show.

Next, sorry about dealing with the wrong part. Hopefully we can apply it to the right part, even if we talked here about it. I didn't know until I was able to learn how to do more research about how cinnamon works, and couldn't just read the code quite yet, although in some languages and projects, I am a programmer as well.

On my other thread, I might have found some ways to get around the issue, due to my own startup system being created. I'll experiment with this a bit. If you want code snippets that will allow you to duplicate this functionality, you guys let me know, and I'll start explaining how my startup system works and how to duplicate it, first in english. But I'm not yet ready to release my full code quite yet. I'm at least, waiting on my upm to be more complete.

I'll run that debug command, and then please tell me how to see it's output, and turn it off when I'm done. Actually, I'll try to look it up, but just in case, if I can't find out, then I'll go back and ask for how it works.

[smileynet000]

Oh! And you wanted my desktop files! I'll provide them after I try a boot and see if I can duplicate my results, like I did last time, in my video.

[smileynet000]

I turned on the debug setting, and this time, it worked quite a bit. I'd installed an applet, when trying to figure out what a session manager was, I uninstalled it now. If the problem is still there, it will show up again, but for now I'll leave the debugging setting on, just in case it comes back. I'm aware of what it does. It was easy to find what the command does. I'm not going to fix the issue for now, completely, even if I can, by bypassing cinnamon-session. That way, I can help others, even if it is possible. It works enough, that I'll keep it this way, and delay my other computer plans, until we can troubleshoot this a bit together. Then, I'll try to deal with just me.

OK. So next, I'll post my .desktop files it is skipping.

apply_look.desktop
[Desktop Entry] Type=Application Name=apply_look Comment=Applies look and feel Exec=/usr/bin/gnome-terminal --window --wait -- /usr/bin/apply_look.sh X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true NoDisplay=false Hidden=false Terminal=false Name[en_US]=apply_look.desktop X-GNOME-Autostart-Delay=15

logongui.desktop
[Desktop Entry] Type=Application Exec=/usr/bin/gnome-terminal --window --wait -- /etc/settings/startup_scripts/logongui.sh X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true NoDisplay=false Hidden=false Name[en_US]=logongui.desktop Comment[en_US]=A Logon Script for the Cinnamon GUI X-GNOME-Autostart-Delay=15

When I last applied them, this is what they were. The basis for them, with possibly the delay changing a bit, was created with the startup applications GUI. But it might have been with 21.3, which could be the issue as well, but I'm not sure. I can't verify yet, that they didn't change when I installed the applet, but could verify that if you needed that information, with a diff command and some copying. I didn't change it at all myself.

So I'll wait, now, until I can tell if the issue will show up again or not. It could also be that the debugging code being on, fixed the issue, as I've heard of that before, but we'll see. I probably don't need more video though when it does happen.

[smileynet000]

apply_look.txt
logongui.txt

Had to change them to .txt files, change them to dos format, and attach them for it to work. I hope this works. I deleted a previous post, that would have been junk. I don't want to clutter this, I want to show it and get it to show you what you want.

[smileynet000]

There. That worked. Hopefuly what is being done will be enough to troubleshoot. Thanks for working on this.

[leigh123linux]

The extra session debugging will show up in ~/.xsession-errors

cat ~/.xsession-errors

[smileynet000]

.xsession-errors.txt

There. If that worked, there is the .xsession-errors file, after it happened once, plus a few more logons, when I tried to see if it would happen again. Sorry again, that I didn't have the right component. I really tried. It could be happening for more than one reason, as it looks like it's skipping some things because of no network sometimes. A lot of this stuff, it probably shouldn't skip just for that reason, but it looks like it does. Hopefully, this will be all you need, but let me know if it's not. If it happens again, I'll leave debugging on, just in case, for now, and then I'll post the most recent version. But it doesn't happen as often as it did with more startup items, but still sometimes. Note that I renamed it to have a .txt extension, for posting. Hopefully it doesn't need DOS lines.