up vote 8 down vote favorite
6

I run Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS x64 in VirtualBox. After one very unfortunate misclick (reset saved state instead of load saved state) I got a very annoying problem.

Almost all applications (unity, synaptic, gedit, etc.) print on start:

Using the 'memory' GSettings backend.  Your settings will not be saved or shared with other applications.

And all GUI settings reset after reboot.

Another symptom:

$ GSETTINGS_BACKEND=dconf dconf-editor
(dconf-editor:2353): GLib-GIO-WARNING **: Can't find module 'dconf' specified in GSETTINGS_BACKEND
GLib-GIO-Message: Using the 'memory' GSettings backend.  Your settings will not be saved or shared with other applications

But /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gio/modules/libdconfsettings.so is present.

What I tried (and it didn't help):

  • sudo apt-get install -f --reinstall dconf-tools libdconf0 libdconf-dbus-1-0 dconf-service
  • Build dconf-0.5 from sources and make install it
  • Create empty user profile and start programs there

I have to keep current Ubuntu installation so a complete reinstall is not an option for me.

How can I fix it?

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up vote 10 down vote accepted

I've found the solution. It appears that I got several custom-built libraries in /usr/local/lib that "shadowed" system libraries from /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/.

I discovered it by checking dynamic libraries loaded by libdconfsettings.so:

ldd /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gio/modules/libdconfsettings.so

...
<  several dynamic libraries from /usr/local/lib >
...

It happened because of the order of search paths for dynamic libraries (defined in /etc/ld.so.conf.d/). The order was the following:

  1. /lib/i386-linux-gnu
  2. /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu
  3. /lib/i686-linux-gnu
  4. /usr/lib/i686-linux-gnu
  5. /usr/local/lib
  6. /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
  7. /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu

So if for example you put your own libc.so into /usr/local/lib it will be loaded instead of default libc.so from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu.

The fix:

sudo mv /etc/ld.so.conf.d/libc.conf /etc/ld.so.conf.d/xuserlocal.conf
sudo ldconfig
sudo reboot
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1  
Thanks, I also had this problem, because I tried to develop a patch for glib and executed sudo make install. sudo make uninstall solved the problem by removing those libraries at /usr/local/lib/ – mxmlnkn Apr 26 '16 at 11:11
    
+1. Really solved a similar problem came up after installation of Glib2. – 111 Oct 5 '16 at 22:55
1  
Linux Mint kept going back to default settings and not respecting any changes I made and double checked in dconf-editor. Turned out that I had built glib from source and sudo make install which I had no idea would not let me change my background or clock, or other cinnamon settings. Was driving me nuts. Back link: forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=244360&start=20 – RyanNerd Jun 8 '17 at 2:06
    
i get this error! mv: cannot stat '/etc/ld.so.conf.d/libc.conf': No such file or directory and i do not have any libraries in my /usr/loca/lib except the python environments i have on Anaconda. but the whole problem started when i installed a new package. and it does not happen when i run my code on jupyter-notebook instead of IDE! – Amir Jul 20 '17 at 21:53
    
@Amir Does ldd output is the same as in issue description? Probably you have another issue. – Dmitry Jul 21 '17 at 11:38
up vote 5 down vote

First check if this command returns true: 

gsettings writable com.canonical.Unity.Launcher favorites

If not, install the backend with:

sudo apt-get install dconf-gsettings-backend

If this doesn't help either, reset your profile with:

rm -rf ~/.gnome ~/.gnome2 ~/.gconf ~/.gconfd ~/.metacity .config/dconf/*

Afterwards reboot.

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the first command returns 'true' (along with "using 'memory' backend"). Regarding removing user configuration: I already tried to create an empty profile and the problem persists even with empty user account. – Dmitry Dec 9 '14 at 15:07
    
Do you have the dconf-gsettings-backend installed? – Frantique Dec 9 '14 at 15:12
    
Yes, dconf-gsettings-backend is installed (and reinstalled several times). – Dmitry Dec 9 '14 at 15:18
    
You mentioned a misclick. Where happened that? – Frantique Dec 9 '14 at 15:26
1  
Thanks for your answer. I found the solution (posted as an answer) – Dmitry Dec 9 '14 at 15:35
up vote 3 down vote

I encountered the same GLib-GIO-Message when trying to use gsettings to set the Launcher position. I searched thru the forum's posts and tried the suggestions here including resetting dynamic linker configuration using ldconfig. However, all could not fix the problem.

Then Dmitry's post got me thinking to use ldd to check 'gsettings' shared object dependencies, which caused me to find out the executable I was using came from that in Anaconda's installation.

By using the version in /usr/bin resolved the issue.

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thanks!! same problem here, same solution – elorenz Dec 16 '17 at 12:29
up vote 1 down vote

Just wanted to add my personal experience on this with ubuntu 16.10. Mine stopped working after using GNOME desktop environment for a while, and then switching to Unity to show a friend how nasty it looked (IMO :D), and back to GNOME. I then started getting the "...using memory backend...".

Doing

rm -rf ~/.gnome ~/.gnome2 ~/.gconf ~/.gconfd ~/.metacity .config/dconf/*
sudo ldconfig
sudo reboot

Fixed it for me.

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Note that this wipes all of the configuration for your desktop. – moorepants Jul 20 '17 at 16:18
up vote 1 down vote

I experienced same thing in Debian Jessie. But questioner's solution (he had failed with it) was proper for my case:

 sudo apt-get install -f --reinstall  dconf-tools libdconf0 libdconf-dbus-1-0 dconf-service

This problem had been killing me, but you saved my life, Thanks :D

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