45

My PC has Ubuntu 18.04 installed.

It does not want to launch the System Monitor.

This seems to be an OS related issue. I have launched it before and it worked fine. Possibly due to some updates it has stopped working.

I am not looking for a solution. I just wanted to report this and I hope the issue will be remedied soon with an update.

I would like to know whether other people have the same issue with 18.04.

More info:

  • I try to launch it via: Super+A, open System Monitor. No errors. For a few seconds the "loading circle" tries to convince me that there is an attempt to launch it. But then it disappears and nothing happens.

  • I am not sure whether this is the command to open from the terminal, but when I run gnome-system-monitor, it tells me:

/snap/gnome-system-monitor/41/bin/desktop-launch: line 23: /home/sandu/.config/user-dirs.dirs: Permission denied
You need to connect this snap to the gnome platform snap.

You can do this with those commands:
snap install gnome-3-26-1604
snap connect gnome-system-monitor:gnome-3-26-1604 gnome-3-26-1604


(the '3-26-1604' number defines the platform version and might change)
Sandu Ursu
  • 1,028
  • how do you try to launch it ? – cmak.fr Jun 11 '18 at 08:38
  • Updated description. – Sandu Ursu Jun 11 '18 at 09:08
  • 4
    The error message says what you need to do, run the following commands: snap install gnome-3-26-1604 and snap connect gnome-system-monitor:gnome-3-26-1604 gnome-3-26-1604. – pomsky Jun 11 '18 at 10:07
  • 2
    Yes, but please understand my frustration: it worked fine before. It should work fine without me moving a finger. Why is it that it has stopped working? Why do I have System Monitor in the Applications if it does not even launch? This looks like a bug to me. A minor one, but it is. – Sandu Ursu Jun 11 '18 at 10:33
  • 10
    The issue is Ubuntu shipped snap version of system monitor with 18.04. This issue is specifically due that decision. If you want a hassle-free fix, consider removing the snap version (snap remove gnome-system-monitor) and install the traditional one (sudo apt install gnome-system-monitor). – pomsky Jun 11 '18 at 10:41
  • 2
    Also this site is not the right place for complaints and bug reports as we're in general not Ubuntu developers or Canonical staff, we're just a community of Ubuntu users. Bugs should be reported as launchpad.net. – pomsky Jun 11 '18 at 10:43
  • Will keep that in mind for the future. I suspected that Ubuntu developers peek from time to time at the issues here. Thank you. – Sandu Ursu Jun 11 '18 at 10:51

4 Answers4

58

As suggested from comments:

snap remove gnome-system-monitor
sudo apt install gnome-system-monitor

worked for me.

Stephen Rauch
  • 1,156
Perchemastik
  • 604
  • It worked. Snap behaves strangely when the home directory is nonstandard (e.g. not /home/username) – Lucian Sasu Oct 15 '19 at 07:10
  • This did not work for me. I still have the same error. More info here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1275959/gnome-system-monitor-does-not-launch-even-after-apt-installation – Homero Esmeraldo Oct 08 '20 at 01:52
11

I had the same issue. The gnome-system-monitor is now available as a snap and it appears an update either broke something or didn't change everything properly (I don't really know why it stopped working).

A solution is to reinstall the snap (using snap, not apt) with:

snap remove gnome-system-monitor
snap install gnome-system-monitor

Doing this will install/connect the System Monitor properly and it will work once again from both icon and terminal.

Eliah Kagan
  • 117,780
Daniel
  • 3,980
  • 4
  • 29
  • 36
  • reinstalling it via sudo apt-get install gnome-system-monitor worked fine on my machine.. interestingly, gnome-system-monitor was in the known/installed apps I can run (it got autocompleted by my terminal) but when I did apt-cache policy gnome-system-monitor, it reported it's not installed at all. Then I installed it and it works fine (except it's the "old" one with the old icon.. fine by me) – edison23 Oct 20 '19 at 12:18
2

If sudo snap get gnome-system-monitor gives an error, probably something went wrong during the upgrade, thus just do: 

sudo apt install --reinstall gnome-system-monitor

and reboot.

Antonio Molinaro
  • 264
  • 1
  • 4
0

Is some package-dependency not solved ? For system-monitor there is package rsyslog (or rsyslogd?) necessary.

You should install it with:

 sudo apt-get install --reinstall rsyslog

Am not sure if this is today correct, because this was a while ago necessary. You might check further dependencies here:

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/bionic/+source/gnome-system-monitor

Maybe a sudo apt-get install --reinstall <package> helps and then reboot your machine.

wjandrea
  • 14,236
  • 4
  • 48
  • 98
dschinn1001
  • 3,829