Empathy does not remember settings

Do you have dconf installed and running?

It was not installed, after installing dconf, the settings came back!
So it seems to be a packaging/dependency bug (this was a clean Maverick daily install)

dconf is a recommends so it should be installed (but not mandatory) as you could use other backends

So, since this was a complete clean install of Maverick, it failed to install any of the possible backends.
I don't know if the installer follows recommends, I know aptitude does.

previously libdconf used to be in the live cd I think before alpha 3 but not
its not in the daily build

On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 6:02 PM, Guy Van Sanden <email address hidden> wrote:

> So, since this was a complete clean install of Maverick, it failed to
> install any of the possible backends.
> I don't know if the installer follows recommends, I know aptitude does.
>
> --
> Empathy does not remember settings
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/620733
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to empathy
> in ubuntu.
>
> Status in “empathy” package in Ubuntu: New
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: empathy
>
> Empathy on Maverick no longer retains settings across program restarts like
> notification preferences, theme etc. Account settings are stored though.
>
> It seems that this new version no longer uses .gconf to store it's
> settings, maybe the problem is related?
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
> Package: empathy 2.31.6-0ubuntu1
> ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-15.21-generic 2.6.35.1
> Uname: Linux 2.6.35-15-generic x86_64
> NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
> Architecture: amd64
> Date: Fri Aug 20 00:13:25 2010
> InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Alpha amd64 (20100819)
> ProcEnviron:
> PATH=(custom, user)
> LANG=en_DK.utf8
> SHELL=/bin/bash
> SourcePackage: empathy
>
>
>

Installing libdconf0 solves the problem!

Installing libdconf0 solves the problem for me too

I see in the changelog for that in the last upload Robert Ancell removed the recommends for libdconf0, stating we do that at a higher level. I noticed it today in iso testing, libdconf0 is installed but some of our default settings are missing like theme.

Oh, the gconf settings for the theme comes from ubuntu-artwork.

Robert: Can you look at what needs to be done to get the default theme setting?

Fixed by moving the default from gconf to gsettings. In upload queue awaiting approval.

I did not have empathy installed in lucid and when I installed it in maverick, libdconf0 was not installed, as it is only a recommends and the "recommends as depends" behaviour was reverted for maverick. I suppose this is a cornercase, but is there a reason not to make libdconf0 a depends?

The thing is that GSettings can use various different backends and dconf is one of them so dconf is not really a dependency.

@Laurent, but by default there was no suitable backend installed, so there should really by at least one

This was my experience as well - upgraded from Lucid and _no_ GSettings backend was installed, so no prefs were ever saved until I manually installed libdconf0.

libglib2.0-0 package also recommends dconf backend (and yes recommends should be installed automatically)

I dont think this problem exists anymore as there has been no new bug report after maverick release.

This bug affects me. The two settings that come up as being incorrect fro me are 'Offline Contacts' and 'Show Protocols'. This has only happened since I upgraded to maverick 3 days ago, and I first noticed it two days ago.

I have a very similar problem, but I get different error messages. Empathy will not retain the settings after a relaunch.

I get the following errors when launching empathy from the command line:
** (empathy:<pid>): CRITICAL **: Unable to contact dconf service

My home directory is mounted via NFS and I think the problem steams from there or this error is not the problem and I am suffering the exact same problem as in this thread. However installing libdconf0 did not solve the problem.

On my other two computers (not using NFS) empathy worked perfectly out of the box after a fresh install.

If libdconf0 is installed dconf process is running you should maybe open a bug for libdconf0

@Laurent Bigonville, so you think that the "Unable to contact dconf service" error has nothing to do with this error of not saving the settings?

Well if dconf is running you shouldn't see that message.

The bug here is more about the fact that dconf is not installed at all for some reasons

This is stupid. Empathy depends on a settings backend, so it should obviously depend on one, not recommend. In debian/control, you can write the dependency list like (libdconf0 | libgconf2-4) or whatever the right packages are.

Assuming that packages marked as Recommends will always be installed is a pretty naïve assumption on the packager's part. Not everyone that installs software conforms to their narrow world-view.

I thought Ubuntu was about making a Linux distro for human beings. Well, guess what — human beings are diverse. They have diverse systems, with diverse settings. Not everyone has Recommended packages installed by default. Not everyone magically knows that a package is part of something if it is removed and no alert is made because it is only a Recommend.

Making Empathy work properly only on the default setup and nothing more diverse is simply naïve. It should be a dependency, not recommend.

According to debian policy[0] Recommends is defined as:

This declares a strong, but not absolute, dependency.
The Recommends field should list packages that would be found together with this one in all but unusual installations.

This looks pretty well for me.

If libdconf0 is not installed in certain cases (was it a clean install or an upgrade?) the problem lies into the package manager for not pulling and installing it.

[0]http://debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-relationships.html

I didn't get dconf on a clean install either but now that I installed it, I can finally store settings.

not a glib problem..

setting the status to confirmed since it seems alot of people are affected by this issue.

Hi,

I've the same problem like "Liam O'Reilly wrote on 2010-10-20 #20"
The settings will not be stored if the home directory is mounted via nfs (libdconf0 installed) .
If I use another user (local home dir) on the same system is't working.

derlinuxer

This bug is about the fact that libdconf0 is not installed by default.

For dconf not working on NFS, please look at bug 645448

Thanks,

also just found the problem with NFS and dconf.

I also found an workaround for this problem NFS/dconf/Empathy Problem.

 Past it to bug 645448

Is anything planned to deal with this issue. It seems unity is also affected if libdonf0 is not installed as its pinned launchers don't save.

Empathy in oneiric is depending on "dconf-gsettings-backend | gsettings-backend" so this fixed in oneiric.