I'm still running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS with GNOME 2.30 at this late date and just encountered this problem after installing LibreOffice 4.3.5, using a DEB archive obtained from LibreOffice.org. I didn't like the way the installer put the entries in the Applications menu and began editing the menu with alacarte (System -> Preferences - > Main Menu). During this edit I made a mistake, deleting a menu item, so I clicked on the "Revert" button, after which havoc ensued. A number of custom sub-menus changed from their original names to "alacarte-made-x", where "x" was some number, and those entries became non-editable. The problem appears to have been caused by alacarte improperly deleting one or more of its .directory files in /home/<user>/.local/share/desktop-directories and *possibly* by the LibreOffice installation causing additional corruption. I was able to recover by using the following steps.
1. In a terminal window in my home directory, I executed sudo chown -R <user> .config/menus sudo chown -R <user> .local (Substitute your user name for <user>.) This fixes improper file ownership issues. Some of the alacarte-made non-editable menu entries now became accessible with the Properties button, but several menus became cross-linked, so that when the name of one menu was changed in the menu editor, the name of another, completely unrelated menu also changed. 2. I looked in my .config/menus directory to find an "undo" .menu file with a time stamp just after the new package was installed. This was easy, because the file with LibreOffice 4.3.5 had entries containing "4.3.5" that could be found with a text editor. I renamed applications.menu as applications.menu.bak, then copied my chosen .menu .undo-xx file to applications.menu. 3. The first two steps still didn't fully correct the problem, but by looking in .local/share/desktop-directories and examining the contents of the various .directory files and comparing what alacarte-made-x entries there were displayed in my Applications Menu. From this I was able to deduce which .directory files were missing and using gedit I was able to recreate them, using the existing .directory files as a template. Once the missing alacarte-made-x.directory files were restored, the cross-linking of submenu entries in the Applications menu was fixed, allowing all submenus and items to be edited normally again with the Properties button. A more drastic alternative would have been to wipe out the contents of .local/share/desktop-directories and .config/menus and start over, but a bit of patience in performing manual repairs as described above saved me many, many hours of menu creation and customizing. I think this may not be a bug in alacarte as such, but a general lack of robustness in the GNOME 2 menu and the design of alacarte, in that alacarte is unable to detect corruption in the menu files or missing directory files, and simply gets confused. The utility should have automatic error detection and correction built in, or a button or menu that can be invoked manually by the user to repair the menu structure when something goes amiss. There may also be problems with the way the Revert feature works in alacarte, which *may* have been the cause of the problem in this instance. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to alacarte in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/499754 Title: I can not edit menu entries in alacarte at random - Ubuntu Lucid (10.04) Status in alacarte package in Ubuntu: Expired Bug description: Binary package hint: alacarte Hello, Sometimes I am unable to edit a menu entry in alacarte, but sometimes I can. If I click on the properties button for the menu entries, it sometimes fails to open, however, If I continue to click on the properties button to other random menu entries, I will be able to edit the one I want to edit eventually. It seems that when I repeatedly click on the same properties button that failed to open, it makes the problem worse. This applies to Ubuntu Lucid Alpha 1. Running alacarte in the terminal provides this output as soon as a properties button fails to open: james@Lucid:~$ alacarte Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/Alacarte/MainWindow.py", line 625, in on_properties_button_clicked self.on_edit_properties_activate(None) File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/Alacarte/MainWindow.py", line 377, in on_edit_properties_activate self.editor._MenuEditor__addUndo([(file_type, os.path.split(file_path)[1]),]) File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/Alacarte/MenuEditor.py", line 428, in __addUndo undo_path = util.getUniqueUndoFile(file_path) File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/Alacarte/util.py", line 109, in getUniqueUndoFile filename, extension = os.path.split(filepath)[1].rsplit('.', 1) ValueError: need more than 1 value to unpack james@Lucid:~$ lsb_release -rd Description: Ubuntu lucid (development branch) Release: 10.04 apt-cache policy alacarte alacarte: Installed: 0.12.4-1ubuntu1 Candidate: 0.12.4-1ubuntu1 Version table: *** 0.12.4-1ubuntu1 0 500 http://mirror.anl.gov lucid/main Packages 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status james@Lucid:~$ apt-cache show alacarte Package: alacarte Priority: optional Section: utils Installed-Size: 1332 Maintainer: Ubuntu Desktop Team <ubuntu-desk...@lists.ubuntu.com> Original-Maintainer: Debian GNOME Maintainers <pkg-gnome-maintain...@lists.alioth.debian.org> Architecture: all Version: 0.12.4-1ubuntu1 Replaces: smeg Provides: smeg Depends: python (>= 2.4), python-support (>= 0.90.0), python-gtk2 (>= 2.13.0), python-gmenu (>= 2.27.92), gnome-menus (>= 2.27.92), python-gobject (>= 2.15.1) Recommends: gnome-panel Conflicts: smeg (<< 0.8-0ubuntu1) Filename: pool/main/a/alacarte/alacarte_0.12.4-1ubuntu1_all.deb Size: 58004 MD5sum: a69323948d770f6b47f104adc1c3586c SHA1: 50a5372e001097d6ef8a4ba1d23fa83bd51ff84b SHA256: c8eea88df662e7e71e3ad96fd6c97db26ce55c2e4e491b1f66506c2dd3c6c184 Description: easy GNOME menu editing tool Alacarte is an easy-to-use menu editor for GNOME that can add and edit new entries and menus. It works with the freedesktop.org menu specification and should work with any desktop environment that uses the spec. Python-Version: 2.6 Bugs: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+filebug Origin: Ubuntu Task: ubuntu-desktop, edubuntu-desktop, xubuntu-desktop, mythbuntu-backend-master, mythbuntu-backend-slave, mythbuntu-desktop, mythbuntu-frontend, ubuntu-netbook ProblemType: Bug Architecture: i386 Date: Wed Dec 23 03:44:09 2009 DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04 InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha i386 (20091209) NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia Package: alacarte 0.12.4-1ubuntu1 PackageArchitecture: all ProcEnviron: LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SHELL=/bin/bash ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-7.10-generic SourcePackage: alacarte Tags: lucid Uname: Linux 2.6.32-7-generic i686 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alacarte/+bug/499754/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : desktop-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
