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Zerthimon
Asked: 2020-05-31 04:07:25 +0800 CST

System settings won't open on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS after adding System76/pop PPA

  • 772

I'm trying to open System Settings but it won't open in any way.
Using GUI, Settings are trying to load for a moment and then they are gone.
Using Terminal (gnome-control-center), I get:

(gnome-control-center:8823): GLib-ERROR **: 14:44:15.433: ../../../glib/gmem.c:138: failed to allocate 13477064712 bytes
Trap Trace/breakpoint (core dumped)

I tried:

sudo apt-get remove gnome-control-center
sudo apt autoremove
sudo apt-get install gnome-control-center

With multiple reboots, but I had no result.

UPDATE!: Same errors persist BUT, when I type:

sudo gnome-control-center

(instead of just "gnome-control-center") suddenly System Settings appear! Is it a user permissions issue? Any suggestions?

UPDATE#2: After some system updates, sudo gnome-control-center now spawns "Segmentation fault".

ppa gnome-control-center system-settings 20.04

9 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Finally I found a solution!
    The cause of this problem was pop-theme, that I installed once, plus its repository entry, that provided me the broken System settings (gnome-control-center). In order to solve this:

    1. I installed Ubuntu desktop PPA.

      sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-desktop/ppa

    2. I removed all System76/pop (and other trush) entries, with update-manager, leaving Ubuntu desktop the only one active. update-manager

    3. Now that I have the proper repository entry added, I re-install gnome-control-center.

      sudo apt install --reinstall gnome-control-center

    4. Enjoy Gnome System settings!

    • 13

  2. I had the same issue. I was able to fix by removing the GNOME extension/theme which caused the issue and then running:

    sudo apt install --reinstall gnome-control-center
    • 9 
  3. sudo apt install ppa-purge

    For the next step the PPA has to be active.

    sudo ppa-purge ppa:system76/pop

    This removes packages from this PPA if they are not available from Ubuntu repositories, or reverts to Ubuntu package versions.

    • 5

  4. Hmm... a variant of this:

    • Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS
    • No Pop!_OS' PPA - present.
    • sudo gnome-control-center # worked, from a terminal/shell,
      but not so without 'sudo', no GLib-ERROR, with no output at all.
    • "Ubuntu software" - also affected, didn't try 'sudo' there though.
    • dconf reset -f /org/gnome/control-center/ didn't appear to help.
    • Neither did the apt --reinstall below.

    Remedy:

    • Reboot into "recovery console"
      hit ESC ONCE after the BIOS displays to get to the boot menu)

    • run the "dpkg" option to install / fix packages
      this brought in a gcc1 -thingie, didn't pay attention to exactly what*

    • also run fsck option

    • enable networking

    • drop to root prompt,
      press ENTER one extra time at the extra prompt

    • run:

    $ apt-get install -f --reinstall gnome-control-center gnome-control-center-data
$ reboot

    Note:
    Remedy worked only as it was run in recovery mode.

    • 3

  5. What worked for me was resetting all configurations of the control-center with the following command:

    dconf reset -f /org/gnome/control-center/

    This works until I click on "Display" in "System Settings". Then it stops working and I need to run the command again.

    This was tested on Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS (x86_64).

    • 2

  6. I faced the same issue on 20.04. I clearly remember at the time of Ubuntu installation system settings was working perfectly, but out of nowhere this problem arose. What i did:

    1. Reset the gnome-control-center by sudo dconf reset -f /org/gnome-control-center (but the problem didn’t go away).
    2. Then I tried to access settings through the terminal by typing gnome-control-center, but it said I don’t have this installed.
    3. After installing gnome-control-center by sudo apt install gnome-control-center I rebooted and it fixed my problem.
    • 2

  7. I had the same problem and looking at the question and answers here, I checked gnome-control-center in the terminal and it was not installed. Installing it solved the problem. I have no idea what happened.

    • 1

  8. Gnome-control-center is not able to load if any of key is not found. kindly run below commands.

    sudo rm -rfv /home/kali/.config/dconf
sudo apt install gnome-control-center --reinstall

    Now check the same.

    • 1

  9. If you find yourself coming back here every now and then, you can always make a shell script to make your life easier:

    nano ~/Desktop/settings-fix

    Ctrl+C this:

    echo "You again ? !?";
echo "Alright, lemme fix that for you ? !";
sudo apt install --reinstall gnome-control-center;
echo "You're good to go ?";
echo "More here ? https://askubuntu.com/questions/1245159/system-settings-wont-open-on-ubuntu-20-04-lts-after-adding-system76-pop-ppa";

    Ctrl+Shift + V it in the text editor

    Ctrl+Shift + O to save

    Ctrl+Shift + X to close the editor

    In your terminal:

    chmod 744 ./Desktop/settings-fix

    sudo cp ~/Desktop/settings-fix /usr/bin

    Now whenever you run to this again, you can simply run from your terminal:

    settings-fix
    • 1