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I am a relatively new Linux user using ubuntu 16.04 LTS. It has been going pretty well so far (with copious help from Google), but I have had an issue for the past couple days that I cannot resolve. My file explorer (nautilus) starts to get hung up on "loading" and displays only a blank screen. Attempting to force quit or end the processes leads to it not being able to be launched at all, with the following error:

(nautilus:19397): GLib-GIO-CRITICAL **: >g_dbus_interface_skeleton_unexport: assertion 'interface_->priv->connections != NULL' failed

(nautilus:19397): GLib-GIO-CRITICAL **: g_dbus_interface_skeleton_unexport: assertion 'interface_->priv->connections != NULL' failed
Could not register the application: Timeout was reached

(nautilus:19397): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_icon_theme_get_for_screen: assertion 'GDK_IS_SCREEN (screen)' failed

(nautilus:19397): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: invalid (NULL) pointer instance

(nautilus:19397): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_signal_connect_object: assertion 'G_TYPE_CHECK_INSTANCE (instance)' failed

I have found several instances of this issue, but none of the suggested fixes have worked for me. I've tried:

  • running updates to ensure everything is up to date (using sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get upgrade)
  • quitting via nautilus -q
  • killing processes via the system monitor
  • killing processes using sudo killall nautilus && (nautilus &)
  • various combinations of the above

The only thing that works is restarting, but I'm trying to avoid having to restart several times a day when it decides to stop working. Any ideas? Not sure if I am missing another solution or if this is just a bug. It only started for me in the last couple days, so maybe it was an incompatible update?

pomsky
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Nora Bailey
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  • Indeed, I see [it was reported](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+bug/1569970), but due to sporadic appearance nobody could provide sure-steps-to-reproduce for devs. Anyways, try running `nautilus -c` *(acc. to docs it should run self-tests)*, and see if it shows anything useful in the output. – Hi-Angel Dec 01 '17 at 18:02
  • To elaborate: if you see anything new in the output *(except lines `running nautilus_self_check*`)*, add the output to your question, and either way ping me in comments. – Hi-Angel Dec 01 '17 at 19:01
  • Okay, so it spontaneously started working again so I had to wait for the bug to arise again, which it did this morning. I got the same error code as I posted before, and running `nautilus -c` just gave all the running self check comments. – Nora Bailey Dec 05 '17 at 14:33
  • Alrighty then. Just making sure: when the bug happens, and nautilus can't be started — upon running from terminal it simply quits *(as opposed to hanging)*, right? In this case try running `strace nautilus &> /tmp/log` *(make sure there's no space in between `&>`, and you have `strace` installed though)*. After it quits you'll have file `log` in /tmp/ directory, it'd be pretty big, maybe multiple MBs in the size — upload it somewhere, e.g. to google drive, and share the link in comments. – Hi-Angel Dec 05 '17 at 16:56
  • Okay, should be at [link](https://www.dropbox.com/s/rr3ai23yi8fftp5/log?dl=0). – Nora Bailey Dec 06 '17 at 16:48
  • Well, as a bystander I don't see anything obvious, no messed up permissions or missing configurations files *(well, it can be missing files, but the output is cluttered too much by `ENOENT`s)*. I assume it's something with dbus communication, however my dbus-fu is basically non-existent, so I can't comment on this. – Hi-Angel Dec 06 '17 at 18:28
  • I'd recommend to attach this log to the linked bug-report. As far as your usability concerned, I'd recommend to try another file manager, e.g. I like `dolphin` and `pcmanfm-qt` *(which I nowadays use instead of Dolphin)*. See [this question](https://askubuntu.com/q/343859/266507). Also note that 16.04 have 2 years old nautilus, it's possible the problem is fixed upstream too. – Hi-Angel Dec 06 '17 at 18:28

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