[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: All settings are lost at logout





Den 2016-11-21 15:53, skrev Kent West:
> On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 8:41 AM, <70147persson@telia.com > <mailto:70147persson@telia.com>> wrote: > > > A[fter a reinstall of Debian] all looked very fine, and I decided to > restart the computer. The first observation was that suddenly all the > devices defined and mounted in /etc/fstab appeared as icons on the > desktop, and I could not remove them. Next was that all of my > settings of Caja file manager were gone. I use to make some personal > adaptation: first I prefer one mouse click to open a file from the > icon, the list view instead of icon view and a few other options like > these. Until now all of these settings has been saved and restored at > every login, but now they are lost and has to be redone every time. > The same deals with the wi-fi password, I have to write it in at > every login. > > Next observation is that I can  add no program starters to the panel. > Well, yes, I can add one starter, but no more, they do not appear > there. I can remove the first icon, and add another one, but still > just one. Creating them, even more than one, on the desktop causes no > problem. If all these effects come from the same source I do not > know, but I suspect they do. Some package might have unintentionally > been removed, but if so I have not been able to find out which one. I > have made reinstalls of al lot of them, e.g. mate-panel, but without > any result. Could anyone find the common factor, I would appreciate > it. If nothing else I will of course make a new reinstall, but it > takes a good deal of time, and I feel it ought to be unnecessary. > > Regards Kaj > > > My first guess is that when you didn't wipe your /home partition, you > preserved your old home directory, and then logged in after the > reinstall with the same name but different user ID, which means not > all of that directory belongs to you. > > I'd log out, switch to a VT (Ctrl-Alt-F2), log in as root, rename > your user directory (mv /home/kaj /home/kaj.bak), delete your current > user (deluser kaj), and then recreate your user (adduser kaj), so > that you have a fresh user directory. > > This is only one of two or three ideas that come immediately to mind > as a way to deal with / test my theory that your user directory > doesn't have the correct perms, but they all boil down to suspecting > your user directory perms, and fixing them. > > I doubt very seriously that a reinstall is needed. > > -- Kent > > > > > -- Kent West                    <")))>< Westing Peacefully - > http://kentwest.blogspot.com

Hi Kent. Thank you for your answer.

A wee of your thoughts I have had myself. Among others I have earlier noticed that all these hidden config files residing in the home directory can give very confusing results when you install a previously used program in a new environment. So I tested to move all these hidden directories, all starting with a dot, into a specially created directory, in order to being able to put personal settings back when the problem is solved.  When running the different programs, you can see how they create new hidden directories to put their config files in.

So this I have tested without success. Next I have created a new user (test) with an own, new home directory. No success on that neither.

So I think that I have tested the essential parts in your suggestion, even if I have not been that drastic to clean my home directory completely.

One reason for my suspicion of a mistakenly removed program is that the removal of PulseAudio also took away of a lot of other programs, e.g. Gimp. Those I have had to lay back manually afterwards. Despite a lot of searching however, I have not found which program or service is lacking.

/Kaj


Reply to: