"these windows do not support save current setup" message questionable

Bug #35316 reported by Martin Pool
46
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
gnome-session
Fix Released
Undecided
Unassigned
metacity (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Low
Ubuntu Desktop Bugs

Bug Description

To reproduce:

1. Log in to a gnome session.
2. Run e.g. rxvt
3. Choose System/Log out
4. Observe that gnome shows a window saying 'Warning: These windows do not support "save current setup" and will have to be restarted manually next time you log in'

The message is factually correct and will (I presume) happen if you run any X applications old or primitive enough not to understand session manager messages.

The value of displaying this message to typical users to me seems very questionable:

- Most users will not be able to take any meaningful action on the dialog other than click OK. They're generally not in a position to fix the application. Telling them about it every single time they logout just just seems like an attempt to bully them into not using those apps.

- Lack of automatic restart is the expected behaviour for old non-gnome applications.

- If closing other applications takes some time the user may have stopped paying attention to the display by the time the window comes up. e.g. they may have closed a laptop's lid. This dialog prevents the machine from shutting down, which is highly unlikely to be desired by the user. If it is not removed entirely, it should at least have a 30 or 60 second timeout before closing automatically.

- The message refers to X11 implementation details that will not be meaningful to most users.

- If the user realizes that they actually don't want to quit let they can't cancel the logout at this point, so the dialog is really just mocking them. In fact it's non modal so they can click in other windows to close them, but this is not obvious.

There is an argument that some users may have unsaved data in old applications and may forget to save it before quitting their session. Many users will not be in that category - if they use such applications they will be accustomed to automatically saving before quitting. In any case there is already a logout confirmation dialog. if the goal of the dialog is to protect against this case then the emphasis of the message should be on unsaved data, not on the fact that they won't be restarted.

I'd like instead a dialog something like this:

   Some running applications do not support GNOME session management and cannot be automatically saved. Do you want to logout anyhow?

  You will be automatically logged out in 60...59... seconds.

  [ ] Don't show this mesage again.

  [Cancel] [Logout]

The text is still a bit jargonish. Ideally "logout" would be replaced with "reboot", "shutdown" as appropriate.

Martin Pool (mbp)
description: updated
Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

Thanks for your bug. That's known upstream: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=160712. I've forwarded your comment and mentionned that page on the upstream bugzilla

Changed in gnome-session:
assignee: nobody → desktop-bugs
status: Unconfirmed → Confirmed
Changed in gnome-session:
status: Unconfirmed → Confirmed
Changed in gnome-session:
status: Confirmed → Needs Info
Changed in gnome-session:
status: Needs Info → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
C de-Avillez (hggdh2) wrote :

Upstream considers this bug a metacity issue, not a gnome-session issue.

Revision history for this message
Tiede (marcarthur) wrote :

hmmm... June 2008, and this issue is still present.
Will it ever be resolved upstream?

Anyway, I think this has some importance. Especially since I am left currently with no viable option.
In my case, I am using stalonetray. It works quite well and I don't want to part with it.
After receiving this message, I tried a simple "killall stalonetray" and saving the session. I also disabled the stalonetray entry in the current session tab and unticked the stalonetray box in the Startup Programs tab.
At first, I was happy. Saving the session and logging out did not prompt that warning.
So I reanabled it and made sure NOT to press the save-session button... No dice, once I try to logout, the message is there again... Although I never told it to try to save the session... This is most annoying. I do hope it gets some attention...

In the mean time, anybody knows a noob-friendly work-around or a way to fix this issue. (even if it just makes it silent, that'll be fine. At least my laptop would shut off as expected)...

Revision history for this message
cement_head (andorjkiss) wrote :

I have this issue with conky

Revision history for this message
gfnord (gfnord) wrote :

This is really annoying. It practically disables proper shutdown.

Revision history for this message
Christopher (soft-kristal) wrote :

Karmic Alpha 2 kernel 2.6.31-1

My message refers to login window Gdm-simple-greeter, but other than changing my username to my real name, it doesn't appear to affect anything else.

It started after today's update to gdm.

Revision history for this message
Sanael (grayswandir2) wrote :

Idem here, with kernel 2.6.31-2

Revision history for this message
powerplayx (powerplayx) wrote :

Karmic Alpha 2 kernel 2.6.31-1

I use on my AMD64 notebook
Acer Aspire 4530
- AMD turion 64 ZM82
- Nvidia Geforce 9100M G
- 4GB of RAM

Confirm this bug appear everytime after login

Revision history for this message
Brian Rogers (brian-rogers) wrote :

The state of this bug is already in the 'confirmed' state. It does not need any more confirmations.

Revision history for this message
Manuel Muradás (dieresys) wrote :

Christopher, powerplayx: please look at Bug #395324, I think it may fit better with your description.

Revision history for this message
Per Ångström (autark) wrote :

I didn't see this message at all in Jaunty but ever since I started running Karmic (Alpha 4) I get this message on logging out, concerning Thunderbird and gconf-editor if they happen to be open. I don't get any message concerning the greeter.

Does anybody know what changes in Karmic have brought about this change in behavior?

Revision history for this message
Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson) wrote :

Moving to metacity

affects: gnome-session (Ubuntu) → metacity (Ubuntu)
Changed in metacity (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Triaged
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package metacity - 1:2.27.0-0ubuntu4

---------------
metacity (1:2.27.0-0ubuntu4) karmic; urgency=low

  * debian/patches/015_set_restartifrunning_on_replace.patch:
    - Make sure that RestartStyleHint is set to RestartIfRunning
      when replaced (LP: #389686).
    - Only display warning dialog for clients that don't implement session
      saving during a "Local" or "Both" SaveYourself request when the user
      wants to save their session state, rather than at the end of every
      session (LP: #35316).
    - Patch taken from GNOME Bug #588119.

 -- Chris Coulson <email address hidden> Wed, 09 Sep 2009 08:59:29 +0200

Changed in metacity (Ubuntu):
status: Triaged → Fix Released
Changed in gnome-session:
importance: Unknown → High
Revision history for this message
Martin Pool (mbp) wrote :

I haven't seen this for years; I don't think anything remains to be fixed.

Changed in gnome-session:
importance: High → Undecided
status: Confirmed → New
status: New → Fix Released
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