Bug#913996: mate-desktop-environment: subprocess goes into infinite loop if user does not own D Conf user file
Package: mate-desktop-environment
Version: 1.20.0+5~bpo9+1
Severity: important
Dear Maintainer,
This problem occurs out of the blue at random times, on average once a day, and usually
involves ‘mate-panel’ or ‘mate-settings-demon’. The process eventually eats up all
available memory so that a hard reset is the only way out.
On inspection, I found the file /var/run/user/1001/dconf/user was owned by root:root
instead of me (UID 1001).
If file ownership is reset (using Sudo) to 1001:1001 and the subprocess killed quickly
enough, the problem disappears for the moment (except for swap space clearing only
slowly).
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 9.6
APT prefers stable-updates
APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386
Kernel: Linux 4.18.0-0.bpo.1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_IE.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_IE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_IE:en (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
Versions of packages mate-desktop-environment depends on:
ii mate-desktop-environment-core 1.20.0+5~bpo9+1
Versions of packages mate-desktop-environment recommends:
ii atril 1.20.2-1~bpo9+1
ii desktop-base 9.0.2+deb9u1
ii engrampa 1.20.1-1~bpo9+1
ii eom 1.20.1-1~bpo9+1
pn ffmpegthumbnailer <none>
ii mate-applet-brisk-menu 0.5.0-8~bpo9+1
ii mate-applets 1.20.2-2~bpo9+1
ii mate-backgrounds 1.20.0-2~bpo9+1
ii mate-calc 1.20.2-1~bpo9+1
ii mate-icon-theme-faenza 1.20.0+dfsg1-2~bpo9+1
ii mate-media 1.20.1-1~bpo9+1
ii mate-notification-daemon 1.20.1-1~bpo9+1
ii mate-power-manager 1.20.2-1~bpo9+1
ii mate-screensaver 1.20.2-1~bpo9+1
ii mate-system-monitor 1.20.1-1~bpo9+1
ii mate-user-guide 1.20.1-1~bpo9+1
ii mate-utils 1.20.1-1~bpo9+1
ii pluma 1.20.2-1~bpo9+1
Versions of packages mate-desktop-environment suggests:
ii bsd-mailx [mail-reader] 8.1.2-0.20160123cvs-4
ii evolution [mail-reader] 3.22.6-1+deb9u1
ii mailutils [mail-reader] 1:3.1.1-1
ii mate-desktop-environment-extras 1.20.0+5~bpo9+1
ii mutt [mail-reader] 1.7.2-1+deb9u1
ii network-manager-gnome 1.8.18-2~bpo9+1
pn x-www-browser | firefox <none>
-- debconf-show failed
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