1.1.7 : breaks xsession-errors, no more rotated

User comment:

Did a new install today, xsession-errors is now totally worthless.
Was written to only on the 1st session or so, then it stops completely & just shows the same thru restarts. log outs

So it's not replaced & it's being treated as if it was modified which prevents any further writing to

That was me - to add,
What's happening now is lines are being written but inside the file, not at the end. Also every time it writes a line some are removed.
Ex. - the file is now1886 lines. (xs1). I take a screenshot, (xs2) , a couple of lines are written, several are removed -

$ diff /home/doug/Desktop/xs1 /home/doug/Desktop/xs2
350d349
< ull)
352,358c351,352
< `menu_proxy_module_load': guayadeque: undefined symbol: menu_proxy_module_load
<
< Gtk-WARNING **: Failed to load type module: (null)
<
< `menu_proxy_module_load': guayadeque: undefined symbol: menu_proxy_module_load
<
< Gtk-WARNING **: Failed to load type module: (null)
---
> ** WARNING **: Unable to use GNOME Shell's builtin screenshot interface, resorting to fallback X11. Error: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.gnome.Shell was not provided by any .service files
> NG **: Failed to load type module: (null)

This issue still persist on Precise i386 logged as gnome-classic:

- the log is not rotated on log out/in and reboot
- new events are not added to the previous not rotated log, seems to be like locked
- the only workaround to get a working xsession-errors log is to delete the previous one before logging out or reboot

still present in daily iso image

LightDM has never rotated the files, it does now in the trunk version. I can confirm the odd writing into the middle of the file, investigating that now. I haven't been able to reproduce the case where an existing log file doesn't get overwritten - can you check the permissions on the file?

It still seems to be using the the *same* .xsession.errors thru log out/ins & restarts except parts are overwritten
So after a full day that includes numerous log out/ins & restarts the file would be 4 -5000 lines, even after a full restart.

Hard to make sense of because new entries can go anywhere.
As example deleted the file, did a full restart, after login it looked normal, about 50 lines

Then opened, closed firefox which wrote (appended), some lines, started ccsm which always writes. Some of the ccsm lines went to end, some disappeared, the rest in middle.

Then did a log out/in, followed by full restart.
Attached is file after that - notice that some lines only seen when restarting are found at the end so it's not a completely overwritten file

-rw------- 1 doug doug 8081 Mar 26 04:02 .xsession-errors

.xsession-errors user:user with read/write allowed for user ( -rw------- )

since this date report i need to delete that log to get a new one on next reboot or log out/in, otherwise some lines are added to the previous xsession-errors then seems to be locked (no more lines added)

Not very sure about lightdm , could be elsewhere.

Sorry to spam - a small progression may illustrate a bit clearer ? -

Fresh boot, no existing file, (removed from other install

Immediately restarting from the above (waited 60 sec

from the above opened & closed firefox, lines written to middle of file

A restart from above after closing FF, the lines are still there in middle

This bug is also present on the beta2 dvd install on 29 March 2012. The .xsession-error file does not rotate on log out or reboot. It just keeps adding to the file size until I manually remove the file than it keeps adding line to the file until I again delele the file.

lightdm trunk now rotates the log files and opens them in append mode.

Fixed in 1.2.0

This bug was fixed in the package lightdm - 1.2.0-0ubuntu1

---------------
lightdm (1.2.0-0ubuntu1) precise; urgency=low

  * New upstream release.
    - Backup .xsession-errors on login (LP: #951597)
    - Handle failures in pam_setcred
    - Open log files in append mode (LP: #951597)
    - Add extra checks in liblightdm so that it doesn't send invalid messages
      to the daemon (LP: #969023)
    - Fix gdmflexiserver not being added to the path (broken since 1.1.4)
      (LP: #953554)
    - Fix PAM conversations after authentication from locking up sessions
      (LP: #956848)
    - Fix PAM informational messages locking up autologin
    - Change XDMCP manage timeout from 10ms to 126s (maximum specified in the
      XDMCP specification)
    - Fix greeter-show-guest example (LP: #972711)
 -- Robert Ancell <email address hidden> Thu, 05 Apr 2012 17:26:50 +1000