How to permanently disable the "save session" feature in Xubuntu?

Question

I'm running Xubuntu 13.10 with xfce4-panel 4.10.1 and my sessions keeps getting saved involuntarily. I'm well aware that this is a bug so I'd like to ask if anyone knows a workaround to permanently disable/delete this feature (by removing/editing some files maybe)?

I've spent hours searching and tried a lot of the methods already but none of them worked, or at least were not permanent. Some of the stuff I've tried:

How can I turn off Xfce session saving system-wide?
(This basically just removed the tick-box in the logout prompt)

Xubuntu reopens last session applications even though it shouldn't
(Deleting the cached sessions was not a permanent solution)

I would greatly appreciate your help!

My temorarily solution:
I created a simple bash script and placed an application launcher (which runs the script when pressed) on my task panel. The script will delete the "~/.cache/sessions" directory and promt log out.

The script can be found here: http://pastebin.com/aqx483pn

Basically this will be the button which you use to logout/reboot/shutdown.

Update: This only occurs if you added "restart" to the listing, in your "Action Button" (the button with your username written on). If you restart using log out -> restart it should reboot normally and not save your session. Thus, the temporarily solution above is not necessary, I will leave it there as a reference.

Answer 1

The solution is two-step.

1. Disable Automatically save sessions on logout in Settings > Sessions > General > Logout Settings. Also make sure that you disable Save session for future logins in the Logout prompt (the window that pops when you actually try to logout).

   See:

   • How do I totally disable all forms of session management in Xubuntu?

2. You need to log out, delete the contents of ~/.cache/sessions, then log into a clean session. (You can also delete your current session via Settings > Sessions > Session > Clear Saved Sessions.)

   See:

   • Xubuntu reopens last session applications even though it shouldn't

Answer 2

Delete existing sessions:

rm .cache/session/*

Make directory read-only:

chmod -w .cache/session

You can enable session-saving by granting Write right on the directory:

chmod +w .cache/session

Tested with Xubuntu 14.04.

Answer 3

I'm sorry if it isn't answer, but I can't comment.

I have had the same problem with that bug. And I "resolved" it by using "delete part" of your script:

#!/bin/bash
#edit.1: It will be launched by root, so we have to use full path here.
DIR=/home/USERFOLDER/.cache/sessions/
delete_sessions(){
    # Deletes whatever is in DIR
    rm -r -- "$DIR"
}
is_directory(){
    if [ -d "$DIR" ]; then
        delete_sessions
    else 
        echo "wtf man, it's not there?!"
    fi
}
is_directory

I execute this-way modified script on reboot and shutdown.

This can be set-up according to instructions here.

Answer 4

One (crude)way is patching /usr/bin/xfce4-session

searching into xfce4-session

objdump -D /usr/bin/xfce4-session | grep '<gtk_toggle_button_set_active@plt>$' -B2
2319b:   8b 74 24 24             mov    0x24(%rsp),%esi
   2319f:   48 89 c7                mov    %rax,%rdi
   231a2:   e8 f9 04 ff ff          call   136a0 <gtk_toggle_button_set_active@plt>

according to documentation

void gtk_toggle_button_set_active (
  GtkToggleButton* toggle_button,
  gboolean is_active
)

if we pass FALSE to is_active the toggle button is disabled

this can be done by patching

these bytes 8b 74 24 24 with these 31 f6 90 90

the result looks like this

objdump -D /usr/bin/xfce4-session | grep '<gtk_toggle_button_set_active@plt>$' -B4
2319b:   31 f6                   xor    %esi,%esi
   2319d:   90                      nop
   2319e:   90                      nop
   2319f:   48 89 c7                mov    %rax,%rdi
   231a2:   e8 f9 04 ff ff          call   136a0 <gtk_toggle_button_set_active@plt>