Color does not persist after reboot

[ViniciusBRodrigues]

I change the panel color background in the mate panel properties. However, the background color does not persist after reboot, backing to default values. I'm using the arc theme, but this issue is not exclusively related to the theme.

Linux debianvbr 4.9.0-8-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.9.110-3+deb9u6 (2018-10-08) x86_64 GNU/Linux

MATE Desktop Environment 1.16.2

[lukefromdc]

This sounds like the panel background value not getting written to dconf. Try running killall mate-panel to force the panel to restart and see if the background reverts. If it does not, try logging out and back in and see if the background reverts.

I have never once seen this kind of issue with the panel background code itself, and when it had to be rewritten for GTK 3.20 a couple years ago I did a lot of testing with a lot of different GTK 3 versions.

Any app not getting its settings written to dconf is going to come back up with default settings(normally ALL settings returning to default). Try adding an applet and seeing if that applet is still there after a reboot. If not, we have a confirmed case of panel settings not getting written to dconf. Should not be the old ~/.config/dconf/user permissions issue though (ownership getting set to root), as that normally will cause Caja not to start and hang the start of the mate-session.

[ViniciusBRodrigues]

killall mate-panel reverts the background color and back to default. The applets still ok, I didn't find nothing wrong after reboot or killall.
Many thanks

[lukefromdc]

OK, for some reason that probably isn't getting written to dconf. You should be able to see this by opening dconf-editor and navigating to /org/mate/panel/toplevels/ but if not (as with my older 3.18 dconf version) running
dconf dump /org/mate/panel/toplevels/
will show the result of any background change that was successfully stored. Here's an example, with a color background set, showing just the "background" value. You won't see it at all even with dconf-dump on a newly created panel though, as it won't be in the dconf database for the panel you are running until it has been changed at least once. If changing it does not make this key and value appear even when running dconf-dump, than again it is not being stored

[toplevel-0/background]
color='rgb(0,92,115)'
type='color'
 

On my system the FIRST "toplevel" listed is the active one, I have only one panel. I get a bunch of others for test panels I have made and deleted. Your system may be different.

If these values do NOT change when you change the panel background, than the change is not getting stored to dconf and that is confirmed to be the problem. If they DO change we have an issue of the stored value not getting read for some reason;

[ViniciusBRodrigues]

These are initial values:

viniciusbr@debianvbr:~$ dconf dump /org/mate/panel/toplevels/
[top]
enable-buttons=false
expand=true
enable-arrows=true
orientation='top'
screen=0
size=24

[top/background]
color='#545c5b'
type='color'

[toplevel-0]
enable-buttons=true
orientation='left'
enable-arrows=true

Then I changed to "use system theme color"

viniciusbr@debianvbr:~$ dconf dump /org/mate/panel/toplevels/
[top]
enable-buttons=false
expand=true
enable-arrows=true
orientation='top'
screen=0
size=24

[top/background]
color='#545c5b'
type='none'

[toplevel-0]
enable-buttons=true
orientation='left'
enable-arrows=true

So a changed the color manually:

viniciusbr@debianvbr:~$ dconf dump /org/mate/panel/toplevels/
[top]
enable-buttons=false
expand=true
enable-arrows=true
orientation='top'
screen=0
size=24

[top/background]
color='rgb(46,52,54)'
type='color'

[toplevel-0]
enable-buttons=true
orientation='left'
enable-arrows=true

Then I killed the panel and the color back to default:

viniciusbr@debianvbr:~$ dconf dump /org/mate/panel/toplevels/
[top]
enable-buttons=false
expand=true
enable-arrows=true
orientation='top'
screen=0
size=24

[top/background]
color='#545c5b'
type='none'

[toplevel-0]
enable-buttons=true
orientation='left'
enable-arrows=true

So, the values are changing but the system are not keeping it.

[lukefromdc]

Note that MATE 1.16 is now quite old, though little has changed in the panel background code since mate-panel 1.16 came out and nothing I can see offhand that would affect panel background handling. The question is what is keeping your mate-panel install from reading the dconf/gsettings value for background-and only for background. @monsta, @raveit65, @muktupavels, any ideas?

[raveit65]

No idea.
I can't confirm that with rhel7 and mate-1.16.x with gtk2 in a VM.
Local problem?
Better update to a supported MATE version, which is 1.20 ?
Or file out a bugreport against the distro and ask maintainer for help?

[ViniciusBRodrigues]

No idea.
I can't confirm that with rhel7 and mate-1.16.x with gtk2 in a VM.
Local problem?
Better update to a supported MATE version, which is 1.20 ?
Or file out a bugreport against the distro and ask maintainer for help?

Yeah, 1.16 is quite old. I will activate the debian backports to upgrade it.

Many thanks

[ViniciusBRodrigues]

Ok, I updated to 1.20.3 and the issue still persist.

[raveit65]

Does it happens with a new account too?

[ViniciusBRodrigues]

Does it happens with a new account too?

No. I tested with a new account and worked fine. My session begins with the color that I picked and fade into default color in some seconds after new log in.

[raveit65]

Ok, than a setting in your home dir causes the issue.
You can try to reset dconf/gsettings keys. see gsettings help

1. list all schemas to get the right name of a schema
   gsettings list-schemas | sort
2. gsettings reset-recursively org.mate.panel.menubar && gsettings reset-recursively org.mate.panel
   This will reset the panel to default

Or do the hard way and remove whole dconf settings
sudo rm ~/.config/dconf/user && rm /var/run/user/1000/dconf/user
and restart session. You can save the file before.
This will give you a clean new session.
Of course you need to setup your account again.

[monsta]

I guess I'm a bit late to mention it... but for the record, this MATE 1.16 (in Debian 9) is built with GTK+ 3.22.

[ViniciusBRodrigues]

I found the problem: mate-dock-applet. Without this applet the panel work fine.

Now the minor issue that I'm facing now is this black border in the popup:

[raveit65]

mate-dock-applet is third party.

[selectiveduplicate]

Just looked at the code of mate-dock-applet, and the org.mate.panel.applet.dock.gschema.xml file describes two keys such as change-panel-color and change-panel-color-dock-only- these might have something to do with the issue; it needs investigating, though I doubt the issue has something to do with MATE directly...

[ViniciusBRodrigues]

mate-dock-applet is third party.

Yeap, I already remove it from the system. Many thanks.

[ViniciusBRodrigues]

Just looked at the code of mate-dock-applet, and the org.mate.panel.applet.dock.gschema.xml file describes two keys such as change-panel-color and change-panel-color-dock-only- these might have something to do with the issue; it needs investigating, though I doubt the issue has something to do with MATE directly...

No problem then. I can use something else. Many thanks.

[monsta]

The black borders on the notification window happen when the compositing in the window manager is disabled: mate-desktop/mate-notification-daemon#98.