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I just upgraded to Ubuntu 16.04 from 14.04.

When I run System Settings, my CPU usage goes to 100%, and the Settings window always remains in focus. I tried to open System Monitor to kill System Settings, but the focus kept on changing back to Settings. When I click the close button, the current instance of Settings closes, but at the same time a new instance of the window pops up.

The only solution I found was to log out of the system.

Output of apt-cache policy unity-control-center:

unity-control-center:
  Installed: 15.04.0+16.04.20160413-0ubuntu3
  Candidate: 15.04.0+16.04.20160413-0ubuntu3
  Version table:
 *** 15.04.0+16.04.20160413-0ubuntu3 500
        500 http://jp.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     15.04.0+16.04.20160413-0ubuntu1 500
        500 http://jp.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 Packages
Zanna
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acceptedfreak
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    Exact same problem here. xkill does not help either, another instance respawns instantly. – Nicolas Raoul Jun 27 '16 at 05:18
  • I noticed this only happens after launching the Settings dialog and clicking on either "Text Entry" or "Details". Same for you? – Nicolas Raoul Jun 27 '16 at 05:54
  • Is this the same issue: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/activity-log-manager/+bug/1274728 – saji89 Jun 27 '16 at 06:08
  • When started from command line it appears that some libraries are missing: libgnome-desktop-3.so.12: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory. Which is turn is due to dependencies bugs that hit me when upgrading from 2015.10 to 2016.04: ifupdown : Breaks: systemd (< 228-3~) – Nicolas Raoul Jun 27 '16 at 06:51
  • @saji89: It indeed sounds similar (apart from that page being for 14.04 and mentioning a released fix) – Nicolas Raoul Jun 27 '16 at 06:53
  • @Sneetsher: Reproduced with both my usual account and Ubuntu's automatic guest account. I took the liberty to add apt-cache policy unity-control-center to the body of the question since it is too big for a comment and there is no sign of life from acceptedfreak. – Nicolas Raoul Jul 01 '16 at 02:20
  • @NicolasRaoul, another output for apt-cache policy systemd libgnome-desktop-3-12 and what do you get when trying to fix missing dependency with sudo apt-get install -f – user.dz Jul 01 '16 at 03:01
  • @Sneetsher: Actually I ran apt-get install -f just yesterday. Maybe that fixes the problem, actually? – Nicolas Raoul Jul 01 '16 at 06:02
  • @NicolasRaoul, that is expected to fix the problem of the missing lib libgnome-desktop-3.so.12 , by updating systemd (< 228-3~). the current one is v229 then installed libgnome-desktop-3-12. You can check the history using zmore /var/log/dpkg.log* | grep -e " purge " -e " remove " -e "install " | sort > ~/Desktop/dpkg-histroy-$(date -I).txt and see what installed or removed yesterday, If you can share that portion through http://paste.ubuntu.com .I will be thankful, I'm curios to know what happen too. – user.dz Jul 01 '16 at 06:17
  • @Sneetsher: Here is the result: https://gist.github.com/nicolas-raoul/bab5d3919eecf652b1b85b4a7d94b9d4 (I removed the lines timestamped before I upgraded to 2016.04) – Nicolas Raoul Jul 01 '16 at 06:42
  • @Sneetsher: Unfortunately dpkg.log does not go back to yesterday: https://gist.github.com/nicolas-raoul/1d1966217eec9f1afb02389292de930c – Nicolas Raoul Jul 01 '16 at 07:08
  • @NicolasRaoul, you may find old logs under same folder dpkg.log.1 or dpkg.log.1.gz ... – user.dz Jul 01 '16 at 07:18
  • I prepended with the content of dpkg.log.1 thanks! – Nicolas Raoul Jul 01 '16 at 07:45
  • Try Ubuntu falls back to old window style on every second boot and post the outcome. – eyoung100 Jul 02 '16 at 21:57
  • @NicolasRaoul, I tried reproducing same issue by downgrading to systemd-sysv 225 and libgnome-desktop-3-10. systemd-sysv seems not related. libgnome-desktop-3-10, I couldn't even login (login loop). God knows! Whatever, the important thing you get yours resolved. – user.dz Jul 03 '16 at 18:48
  • Are you operating on a completely clean install? Or do you have non-stock applications installed?

    I know I install a variety of additional options in Settings, and modify or create files like Xmodmap that affect the settings of various applications. I have seen this crash Settings before.

     – Spencer Hill Sep 28 '17 at 21:22

1 Answers1

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This was a bug that has since been patched. The version of unity-control-center shown in your output from apt-cache policy unity-control-center is out of date.

I issued the following commands:

sudo apt-get purge unity-control-center

sudo apt-get install unity-control-center

sudo apt-get install unity-control-center-signon

Note the change in output.

$ apt-cache policy unity-control-center
unity-control-center:
 Installed: 15.04.0+16.04.20170214-0ubuntu2
  Candidate: 15.04.0+16.04.20170214-0ubuntu2
Elder Geek
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