CentOS 7.4 causes desktop issues?

[SamuelHenderson]

Hi everyone. I just updated to CentOS 7.4 from 7.3 today. For some reason after the update it seems that my desktop environment (Cinnamon) has become broken and I'm not sure why.

What's happening is that it seems as if the objects on the desktop and even my selection box are 'smearing' over top themselves... A picture is worth a thousands words I guess:

I suppose something that was installed in the update is conflicting with Cinnamon. I saw a post on Stackoverflow that identified similar behavior and suggested that Cinnamon and Nemo were conflicting with Unity and Nautilus.

[mralk3]

Try creating a new user, log in, and test to see if the same issue occurs. Sometimes weird things happen with old configuration files (dot files) in a user home directory and creating a new user with default settings can help troubleshoot the issue. If your issue persists with a different user then it could be something is broken. Maybe a video driver issue instead.

[SamuelHenderson]

Ahhh yes. I forgot to mention that I did try creating a new user to rule out the problem being with my user settings. It still happened with the new user as well. Also, it happens when I choose to log in using 'Cinnamon (Software Rendering)'.

When I run:

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$killall nemo

Then the icons and background disappear and I'm left with the CentOS 7 'shiny' background:


So it looks like something with nemo ... maybe?

EDIT:
I got a coworker who hasn't run the update to CentOS 7.4 yet to check which version of nemo he is running. It looks like he's running 2.8.7 which is the same version as me. So I guess if nemo is the same it must be something that has changed...

I have access to a PC at home that hasn't been updated yet. Perhaps tonight I'll try updating and see if Cinnamon breaks there too. If it does I'll try rolling back the update... I guess?

EDIT #2:
Ok, got home and upgraded my CentOS machine to Centos 7.4. It works perfectly fine. My graphics card at home is pretty dated, but it's a dedicated card whereas my graphics accelerator at work is a (fairly new I think?) integrated Intel graphics chipset. I'll post more details tomorrow from work.

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$lscpi -v:
.. snip ..
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation G84 [GeForce 8600 GTS] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
	Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0438
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 29
	Memory at de000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
	Memory at c0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
	Memory at dc000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=32M]
	I/O ports at dc80 [size=128]
	Expansion ROM at dbf00000 [disabled] [size=128K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: nouveau
	Kernel modules: nouveau
.. snip ..

EDIT #3:
And here's the chipset of the system that is having the issue in Cinnamon (Gnome, and Gnome Classic work fine)..

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$lspci -v
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 06) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
	Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 1998
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 27
	Memory at f7800000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
	Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
	I/O ports at f000 [size=64]
	Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: i915
	Kernel modules: i915

[SamuelHenderson]

Well, I'm getting somewhere sort of...

From a Gnome Classic session I ran the following command in a terminal:

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$cinnamon --replace --display=:0

and I got the following error:

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**
Clutter:ERROR:x11/clutter-stage-x11.c:1290:clutter_x11_get_stage_window: assertion failed: (CLUTTER_IS_STAGE_X11 (impl))
Aborted (core dumped)

So googling for this error message I saw some posts saying that setting CLUTTER_BACKEND=x11 fixed the issue. So I tried that before calling cinnamon --replace and cinnamon ran.

So then I edited /etc/environment and added

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export CLUTTER_BACKEND=x11

and rebooted, but the problem is still happening.

[desertcat]

Well, I'm getting somewhere sort of...

From a Gnome Classic session I ran the following command in a terminal:

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$cinnamon --replace --display=:0

and I got the following error:

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**
Clutter:ERROR:x11/clutter-stage-x11.c:1290:clutter_x11_get_stage_window: assertion failed: (CLUTTER_IS_STAGE_X11 (impl))
Aborted (core dumped)

So googling for this error message I saw some posts saying that setting CLUTTER_BACKEND=x11 fixed the issue. So I tried that before calling cinnamon --replace and cinnamon ran.

So then I edited /etc/environment and added

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export CLUTTER_BACKEND=x11

and rebooted, but the problem is still happening.

Hummm. You could *try* something radical: Run yum remove nemo or yum erase nemo, after which run yum install nemo. I run KDE and had Cinnamon installed as well, then when I did an update Nemo started, up -- I was Finding Nemo who clearly was NOT wanted. Somebody suggested that I simply remove Nemo since I was running KDE using yum remove or yum erase nemo. So I did, and the problem stopped. I then ran yum install nemo and the problem never cam back.

Occasionally in CentOS there is a specific loading order that if two programs require the same libs or files if installed improperly will prevent either from loading. When you updated your system I *suspect* you ran into the same problem I did. You actually may have two copies of Nemo running and it config files running. Removing Nemo so that it is gone, then reinstalling Nemo *may* -- or may *NOT* -- solve your problem, but it is worth a try.

[SamuelHenderson]

Hmmm I will try that tomorrow and post the results. I did try

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yum remove cinnamon

reboot

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yum install cinnamon

which of course didn't fix it.

But maybe as you say I need to remove Nemo instead of cinnamon. Does yum remove also remove config files?

[mralk3]

Does yum remove also remove config files?

It will remove any system files you have not modified but will leave user dot files intact.

[SamuelHenderson]

I see. Well, I completely reinstalled CentOS 7.4 from scratch (so I downloaded the 7.4 DVD, deleted all existing partitions, and reinstalled everything starting from a minimal installation).

The problem still happens! I can't believe it! I was sure it was something I must have done at some point but nope, even a default clean install and it's still broken.

Does this mean that there must a bug with Cinnamon or one of it's packages?

[TrevorH]

Does this fit your system? https://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=13717

[SamuelHenderson]

It does sound similar... x11 doesn't seem to have a problem starting on my machine though.

I'm going to try downgrading my xorg stuff to the version in 7.3 and see if that resolves the issue.

EDIT:
Ehhh... what is the best way to do this?