Dependency problem: alacarte crashes on 'New Item' with OSError because gnome-desktop-item-edit not found

I cannot reproduce it here, may you please add some steps so we can recreate the crash? Thanks.

Sure - i went to the "Ubuntu start" icon and went to "Main menu".

With "Main menu" open, click "New item".
A few seconds will pass and it will report that Main menu has crashed; a new menu item is not created.

Still reproducable here.

Strange....after today's updates, when i try to reproduce this - nothing happens. No error but also no new menu item created?

Scratch that - back to crashing again :(

ant@Master-ant:~$ alacarte
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/alacarte/Alacarte/MainWindow.py", line 311, in on_new_item_button_clicked
    process = subprocess.Popen(['gnome-desktop-item-edit', file_path], env=os.environ)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 679, in __init__
    errread, errwrite)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 1239, in _execute_child
    raise child_exception
OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the comments. this has been sent upstream at https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=656821, feel free to subscribe to it. Thanks again.

Thank you for taking the time to report this crash and helping to make Ubuntu better. This particular crash has already been reported and is a duplicate of bug #756513, so is being marked as such. Please look at the other bug report to see if there is any missing information that you can provide, or to see if there is a workaround for the bug. Additionally, any further discussion regarding the bug should occur in the other report. Please continue to report any other bugs you may find.

I was having the same problem using Xubuntu after I installed this package. This happened even after installing straight from source from the gnome site.

What I found is that it appears that the alacarte package is actually dependency on package gnome-panel. Simply installing gnome-panel it fixed this problem.

Hope this helps,
lachild

PS. I installed all the dependencies from gnome-panel one at a time to see if maybe you just needed something from one of gnome-panels dependents... Unfortunately it did actually need gnome-panel and all of it's dependents to work correctly.

I just was trying to view the properties of an item of the menu, and voilà it crashed!

Same as with #10. Viewing properties triggered the bug here.

I am Using 11.10 and trying to view properties crashed alacarte.
This is the output that appear when I click properties:
me@computer:~$ alacarte
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/alacarte/Alacarte/MainWindow.py", line 382, in on_edit_properties_activate
    process = subprocess.Popen(['gnome-desktop-item-edit', file_path], env=os.environ)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 679, in __init__
    errread, errwrite)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 1239, in _execute_child
    raise child_exception
OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory

Same as 10 and 11 . Tried to view properties and crash notification occurred but main menu stayed open and was useable except properties.

It's working for me now on Oneiric, after an update few days back.

I too have this problem when trying to view properties of an item, Oneiric (freshly updated)

Just got Oneiric release and still see this problem.

The problem is that alacarte calls /usr/bin/gnome-desktop-item-edit in a subprocess in order to install new menu items. However, /usr/bin/gnome-desktop-item-edit is in the gnome-panel package, which is only a Recomends: for the alacarte package rather than marked as a true dependency.

Workaround: install gnome-panel through your package manager

Fix: three possibilities:
(1) alacarte should depend on gnome-panel
(2) gnome-desktop-item-edit program should be in the alacarte package
(3) gnome-desktop-item-edit program should be in some third package, on which alacarte should in turn depend

I'll update the bug description accordingly.

Confirmed on 11.10

Here's the gist:
user@comp:~/.local/share/applications$ alacarte
* pressed New Item *
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/alacarte/Alacarte/MainWindow.py", line 311, in on_new_item_button_clicked
    process = subprocess.Popen(['gnome-desktop-item-edit', file_path], env=os.environ)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 679, in __init__
    errread, errwrite)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 1239, in _execute_child
    raise child_exception
OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
^CTraceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/alacarte", line 37, in <module>
    main()
  File "/usr/bin/alacarte", line 34, in main
    app.run()
  File "/usr/share/alacarte/Alacarte/MainWindow.py", line 76, in run
    gtk.main()
KeyboardInterrupt
user@comp:~/.local/share/applications$ sudo alacarte
[sudo] password for user:
* pressed New Item *
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/alacarte/Alacarte/MainWindow.py", line 311, in on_new_item_button_clicked
    process = subprocess.Popen(['gnome-desktop-item-edit', file_path], env=os.environ)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 679, in __init__
    errread, errwrite)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 1239, in _execute_child
    raise child_exception
OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
user@comp:~/.local/share/applications$ sudo apt-get install gnome-panelReading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  gir1.2-panelapplet-4.0 gnome-applets gnome-session-fallback
  libpanel-applet-4-0
Suggested packages:
  gnome-netstatus-applet deskbar-applet cpufrequtils epiphany-browser
  desktop-base
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  gir1.2-panelapplet-4.0 gnome-applets gnome-panel gnome-session-fallback
  libpanel-applet-4-0
0 upgraded, 5 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
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