Debian Bug report logs - #901254
gnome-terminal: unable to init server, failed with result 'signal', segfault at 8

version graph

Package: gnome-terminal; Maintainer for gnome-terminal is Debian GNOME Extras Maintainers <pkg-gnome-extras-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org>; Source for gnome-terminal is src:gnome-terminal (PTS, buildd, popcon).

Reported by: Ernesto Alfonso <erjoalgo@gmail.com>

Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2018 16:45:01 UTC

Severity: important

Found in version gnome-terminal/3.22.2-1

Done: Jeremy Bícha <jbicha@debian.org>

Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.

View this report as an mbox folder, status mbox, maintainer mbox


Report forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, erjoalgo@gmail.com, Debian GNOME Maintainers <pkg-gnome-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org>:
Bug#901254; Package gnome-terminal. (Sun, 10 Jun 2018 16:45:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Ernesto Alfonso <erjoalgo@gmail.com>:
New Bug report received and forwarded. Copy sent to erjoalgo@gmail.com, Debian GNOME Maintainers <pkg-gnome-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org>. (Sun, 10 Jun 2018 16:45:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Ernesto Alfonso <erjoalgo@gmail.com>
To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>
Subject: gnome-terminal: unable to init server, failed with result 'signal', segfault at 8
Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2018 09:41:00 -0700
Package: gnome-terminal
Version: 3.22.2-1
Severity: important

Dear Maintainer,

I'm suddenly unable to start gnome terminal after an unexpected shutdown due to a hard-disk being
removed while the system was running.

Looking at the logs, I see the following:

>    Jun 10 09:26:21 debian-x1 systemd[1008]: Starting GNOME Terminal Server...
>    Jun 10 09:26:21 debian-x1 gnome-terminal-server[20909]: Unable to init server: Could not connect: Connection refused
>    Jun 10 09:26:21 debian-x1 systemd[1008]: gnome-terminal-server.service: Main process exited, code=killed, status=11/SEGV
>    Jun 10 09:26:21 debian-x1 systemd[1008]: Failed to start GNOME Terminal Server.
>    Jun 10 09:26:21 debian-x1 systemd[1008]: gnome-terminal-server.service: Unit entered failed state.
>    Jun 10 09:26:21 debian-x1 systemd[1008]: gnome-terminal-server.service: Failed with result 'signal'.
>    Jun 10 09:26:21 debian-x1 kernel: [ 1380.245111] gnome-terminal-[20909]: segfault at 8 ip 000055ec9b9bccb7 sp 00007ffc9dedb030 error 4 in gnome-terminal-server[55ec9b9a8000+4c000]
>    

I checked the dbus service, which seems to be running:


>    sudo service dbus status -l
>    ● dbus.service - D-Bus System Message Bus
>       Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/dbus.service; static; vendor preset: enabled)
>       Active: active (running) since Sun 2018-06-10 01:13:31 PDT; 12min ago
>         Docs: man:dbus-daemon(1)
>     Main PID: 644 (dbus-daemon)
>        Tasks: 1 (limit: 4915)
>       CGroup: /system.slice/dbus.service
>               └─644 /usr/bin/dbus-daemon --system --address=systemd: --nofork --…on
>    
>    Jun 10 01:13:31 debian-x1 systemd[1]: Started D-Bus System Message Bus.
>    Jun 10 01:13:31 debian-x1 dbus[644]: [system] Activating via systemd: servi…ice'
>    Jun 10 01:13:32 debian-x1 dbus[644]: [system] Successfully activated servic…me1'
>    Hint: Some lines were ellipsized, use -l to show in full.
>    

I'm not sure what else to check.

Other X applications (browser, xterm) work normally.

I see 'Connection refused'... to which service is gnome terminal trying to connect?
What does "Failed with result 'signal'" mean?
What does "segfault at 8 ip 000055ec9b9bccb7 sp 00007ffc9dedb030 error 4 in gnome-terminal-server[55ec9b9a8000+4c000]" mean?

Thanks,

Ernesto

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 9.4
  APT prefers stable-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable'), (500, 'oldstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.9.0-4-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE='' (charmap=UTF-8) (ignored: LC_ALL set to en_US.utf8), LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) (ignored: LC_ALL set to en_US.utf8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages gnome-terminal depends on:
ii  dconf-gsettings-backend [gsettings-backend]  0.26.0-2+b1
ii  gnome-terminal-data                          3.22.2-1
ii  gsettings-desktop-schemas                    3.22.0-1
ii  libatk1.0-0                                  2.22.0-1
ii  libc6                                        2.24-11+deb9u3
ii  libdconf1                                    0.26.0-2+b1
ii  libglib2.0-0                                 2.50.3-2
ii  libgtk-3-0                                   3.22.11-1
ii  libnautilus-extension1a                      3.22.3-1+deb9u1
ii  libpango-1.0-0                               1.40.5-1
ii  libuuid1                                     2.29.2-1+deb9u1
ii  libvte-2.91-0                                0.46.1-1
ii  libx11-6                                     2:1.6.4-3

Versions of packages gnome-terminal recommends:
ii  dbus-user-session [default-dbus-session-bus]  1.10.26-0+deb9u1
ii  dbus-x11 [dbus-session-bus]                   1.10.26-0+deb9u1
ii  gvfs                                          1.30.4-1
ii  yelp                                          3.22.0-1

gnome-terminal suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information

Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Debian GNOME Maintainers <pkg-gnome-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org>:
Bug#901254; Package gnome-terminal. (Mon, 11 Jun 2018 02:39:02 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Jason Crain <jason@inspiresomeone.us>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian GNOME Maintainers <pkg-gnome-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org>. (Mon, 11 Jun 2018 02:39:02 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #10 received at 901254@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Jason Crain <jason@inspiresomeone.us>
To: Ernesto Alfonso <erjoalgo@gmail.com>, 901254@bugs.debian.org
Subject: Re: Bug#901254: gnome-terminal: unable to init server, failed with result 'signal', segfault at 8
Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2018 21:25:06 -0500
On 2018-06-10, Ernesto Alfonso <erjoalgo@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm suddenly unable to start gnome terminal after an unexpected shutdown due to a hard-disk being
> removed while the system was running.
> 
> Looking at the logs, I see the following:
> 
> >    Jun 10 09:26:21 debian-x1 systemd[1008]: Starting GNOME Terminal Server...
> >    Jun 10 09:26:21 debian-x1 gnome-terminal-server[20909]: Unable to init server: Could not connect: Connection refused
...

Are you using broadway? I looked for the source of that error message.
The most likely place I found is in GTK when it is trying to initialize
the broadway backend.



Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Debian GNOME Maintainers <pkg-gnome-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org>:
Bug#901254; Package gnome-terminal. (Mon, 11 Jun 2018 04:06:02 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Ernesto Alfonso <erjoalgo@gmail.com>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian GNOME Maintainers <pkg-gnome-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org>. (Mon, 11 Jun 2018 04:06:02 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #15 received at 901254@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Ernesto Alfonso <erjoalgo@gmail.com>
To: jason@inspiresomeone.us
Cc: 901254@bugs.debian.org
Subject: Re: Bug#901254: gnome-terminal: unable to init server, failed with result 'signal', segfault at 8
Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2018 21:02:50 -0700
[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]
I'm not aware of using broadway. I don't have a broadway service based on
service --status-all, a broadwayd executable, nor either of the
packages libgtk-3-bin libgtk-3-0-dbg installed in my system.

On Sun, Jun 10, 2018 at 7:27 PM Jason Crain <jason@inspiresomeone.us> wrote:

> On 2018-06-10, Ernesto Alfonso <erjoalgo@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'm suddenly unable to start gnome terminal after an unexpected shutdown
> due to a hard-disk being
> > removed while the system was running.
> >
> > Looking at the logs, I see the following:
> >
> > >    Jun 10 09:26:21 debian-x1 systemd[1008]: Starting GNOME Terminal
> Server...
> > >    Jun 10 09:26:21 debian-x1 gnome-terminal-server[20909]: Unable to
> init server: Could not connect: Connection refused
> ...
>
> Are you using broadway? I looked for the source of that error message.
> The most likely place I found is in GTK when it is trying to initialize
> the broadway backend.
>
[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Debian GNOME Maintainers <pkg-gnome-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org>:
Bug#901254; Package gnome-terminal. (Wed, 11 Jul 2018 16:09:07 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Guillaume Morin <guillaume@morinfr.org>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian GNOME Maintainers <pkg-gnome-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org>. (Wed, 11 Jul 2018 16:09:07 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #20 received at 901254@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Guillaume Morin <guillaume@morinfr.org>
To: 901254@bugs.debian.org
Subject: Re: Bug#901254: gnome-terminal: unable to init server, failed with result 'signal', segfault at 8
Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2018 18:07:49 +0200
I am experiencing the same issue.  Fwiw the workaround listed in
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1353953 (for a similar
problem) allows me to start gnome-terminal in a shell:
DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=""
eval `dbus-launch --sh-syntax --exit-with-session`

Also https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=868461 seems to
be the same bug.

-- 
Guillaume Morin <guillaume@morinfr.org>



Reply sent to Jeremy Bícha <jbicha@debian.org>:
You have taken responsibility. (Mon, 24 Nov 2025 05:45:05 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Notification sent to Ernesto Alfonso <erjoalgo@gmail.com>:
Bug acknowledged by developer. (Mon, 24 Nov 2025 05:45:05 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #25 received at 901254-done@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Jeremy Bícha <jbicha@debian.org>
To: 851822-done@bugs.debian.org, 679810-done@bugs.debian.org, 822736-done@bugs.debian.org, 901254-done@bugs.debian.org, 712104-done@bugs.debian.org, 968290-done@bugs.debian.org, 718397-done@bugs.debian.org, 788301-done@bugs.debian.org, 689185-done@bugs.debian.org
Subject: closing old gnome-terminal bugs
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2025 00:42:31 -0500
There have been many changes to Debian since this bug was originally
reported. If you are still experiencing this issue with Debian 13 (or
with Debian 12 or Testing or Unstable), please report a new bug.

Thank you,
Jeremy Bícha



Bug archived. Request was from Debbugs Internal Request <owner@bugs.debian.org> to internal_control@bugs.debian.org. (Mon, 22 Dec 2025 07:51:35 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Send a report that this bug log contains spam.


Debian bug tracking system administrator <owner@bugs.debian.org>. Last modified: Fri Jan 23 19:39:14 2026; Machine Name: berlioz

Debian Bug tracking system

Debbugs is free software and licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2. The current version can be obtained from https://bugs.debian.org/debbugs-source/.

Copyright © 1999 Darren O. Benham, 1997,2003 nCipher Corporation Ltd, 1994-97 Ian Jackson, 2005-2017 Don Armstrong, and many other contributors.