Cinnamon 4.8.6.1 in Debain unstable crashes

[D.Hoeschen]

I tried to purge and reinstall the complete cinnamon packages but cinnamon
crashes every time with the same error.

undefined symbol: gmenu_desktopappinfo_get_type

I searched the Debian bug database but found no equivalent. So it might be a problem with my installation only.
And idea what to do?

example output for cinnamon-settings

Code: Select all

cinnamon: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/cinnamon/libcinnamon.so: undefined symbol: gmenu_desktopappinfo_get_type
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/cinnamon/cinnamon-settings/cinnamon-settings.py", line 731, in <module>
    window = MainWindow()
...
  File "/usr/lib/python3.9/subprocess.py", line 528, in run
    raise CalledProcessError(retcode, process.args,
subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command '['cinnamon', '--version']' returned non-zero exit status 127.

installed packages

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ii  cinnamon                           4.8.6-1      amd64        Innovative and comfortable desktop
ii  cinnamon-common                    4.8.6-1      all          Innovative and comfortable desktop (Common data files)
ii  cinnamon-control-center            4.8.2-1      amd64        configuration applets for the Cinnamon desktop
ii  cinnamon-control-center-data       4.8.2-1      all          configuration applets for Cinnamon - data files
ii  cinnamon-control-center-goa        4.8.2-1      amd64        configuration applets for the Cinnamon desktop - Gnome Online Account
ii  cinnamon-core                      4.8.2        all          Cinnamon desktop environment - essential components
ii  cinnamon-desktop-data              4.8.1-2      all          Common files for Cinnamon desktop apps
ii  cinnamon-desktop-environment       4.8.2        all          Cinnamon desktop environment - full desktop with extra components
ii  cinnamon-l10n                      4.8.3-1      all          Translation files for the Cinnamon desktop
ii  cinnamon-screensaver               4.8.1-2      amd64        Cinnamon screen saver and locker
ii  cinnamon-session                   4.8.0-2      amd64        Cinnamon Session Manager - Minimal runtime
ii  cinnamon-session-common            4.8.0-2      all          Cinnamon Session Manager - common files
ii  cinnamon-settings-daemon           4.8.5-1      amd64        daemon handling the Cinnamon session settings
ii  gir1.2-gmenu-3.0:amd64 3.36.0-1     amd64        GObject introspection data for the GNOME menu library

[Bloom]

Debian Unstable is not intended for normal daily use. If you don't know what you're doing, stick to Debian Stable.

[D.Hoeschen]

Debian Unstable is not intended for normal daily use. If you don't know what you're doing, stick to Debian Stable.

That's not completely true. Even Debian tells you to use unstable on Desktop.
And I do it since many years without problem. And as I wrote, I guess it's not a general error.

https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debi ... ng.en.html

If you are a desktop user with a lot of experience in the operating system and do not mind facing the odd bug now and then, or even full system breakage, use unstable. It has all the latest and greatest software, and bugs are usually fixed swiftly.

[Bloom]

Your last quote says it all: you need to know what you're doing to use Unstable. If you don't, stick to Stable or perhaps Testing.

[D.Hoeschen]

Finally I manually replaced libcinnamon.so with libcinnamon.so version 4.7

[Head_on_a_Stick]

I manually replaced libcinnamon.so with libcinnamon.so version 4.7

That's not a good idea. You should just wait for an update that fixes this issue, soname bumps are all part of the fun with sid.

[D.Hoeschen]

That's not a good idea. You should just wait for an update that fixes this issue, soname bumps are all part of the fun with sid.

I know. But it worked for me and because it seemed that the error is rare it could take some time to fix.
I don't want to use Gnome or Xfce longar than necessary. ^^

However I made a report at the Debian bug database.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

It's not really a "bug", as such, it's just part of the normal behaviour in sid during transitions. Use btrfs & snapper so you can rollback to a working configuration if an update messes things up like this again.