Gnome-shell starts, but most apps hang when launching with `Failed to register: Timeout was reached`

Ask Fedora
1

Today I booted Fedora 42, and most apps won’t launch. I’m using gnome with wayland.

gnome-shell starts fine, but the majority of applications will not start: clicking on them in gnome-shell results in the spinning icon for about 15s and then nothing.

Unlaunchable apps include: software update, nautilus, chrome, gnome-text-editor, terminal (ptyxis), steam.

Trying to launch these apps results in a Failed to register: Timeout was reached message:

~ > ptyxis
Failed to register: Timeout was reached

  • These apps DO launch normally (mostly non-gnome): foot, konsole, and weirdly gedit

  • I didn’t manually change anything before this happened, it just booted one day like this. I think it might have done a software update (kernel update?) in the background, because I get the dreaded “falling back to nouveau” message on boot indicating my nvidia drivers broke, again.

  • I tried doing a complete dnf upgrade, but the problem persists.

I straced gnome-text-editor trying to start, I’ve added a comment ~20 lines from the end where it hangs for ~15s before bailing:

``` execve("/usr/bin/gnome-text-editor", ["gnome-text-editor"], 0x7ffdc5ca64f8 /* 59 vars */) = 0 brk(NULL) = 0x5560935ab000 mmap(NULL, 8192, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x7f692cbfc000

SNIP, bunch of lines snipped out to make message short enough to post

openat(AT_FDCWD</home/seth>, “/usr/lib/locale/locale-archive”, O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = 9</usr/lib/locale/locale-archive>
fstat(9</usr/lib/locale/locale-archive>, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=233242544, …}) = 0
mmap(NULL, 233242544, PROT_READ, MAP_PRIVATE, 9</usr/lib/locale/locale-archive>, 0) = 0x7f690a000000
close(9</usr/lib/locale/locale-archive>) = 0
openat(AT_FDCWD</home/seth>, “/usr/share/locale/locale.alias”, O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = 9</usr/share/locale/locale.alias>
fstat(9</usr/share/locale/locale.alias>, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=2998, …}) = 0
read(9</usr/share/locale/locale.alias>, “# Locale name alias data base.\n#”…, 4096) = 2998
read(9</usr/share/locale/locale.alias>, “”, 4096) = 0
close(9</usr/share/locale/locale.alias>) = 0
openat(AT_FDCWD</home/seth>, “/usr/share/locale/en_US.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/glib20.mo”, O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
openat(AT_FDCWD</home/seth>, “/usr/share/locale/en_US.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/glib20.mo”, O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
openat(AT_FDCWD</home/seth>, “/usr/share/locale/en_US/LC_MESSAGES/glib20.mo”, O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
openat(AT_FDCWD</home/seth>, “/usr/share/locale/en.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/glib20.mo”, O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
openat(AT_FDCWD</home/seth>, “/usr/share/locale/en.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/glib20.mo”, O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
openat(AT_FDCWD</home/seth>, “/usr/share/locale/en/LC_MESSAGES/glib20.mo”, O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
eventfd2(0, EFD_CLOEXEC|EFD_NONBLOCK) = 9<{eventfd-count=0, eventfd-id=125, eventfd-semaphore=0}>
write(6<{eventfd-count=0, eventfd-id=124, eventfd-semaphore=0}>, “\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0”, 8) = 8
futex(0x5560935e3640, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
ppoll([{fd=9<{eventfd-count=0, eventfd-id=125, eventfd-semaphore=0}>, events=POLLIN}], 1, {tv_sec=24, tv_nsec=999999000}, NULL, 8) = 1 ([{fd=9, revents=POLLIN}], left {tv_sec=24, tv_nsec=999984630})
read(9<{eventfd-count=0x1, eventfd-id=125, eventfd-semaphore=0}>, “\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0”, 8) = 8
write(9<{eventfd-count=0, eventfd-id=125, eventfd-semaphore=0}>, “\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0”, 8) = 8
futex(0x5560935f0de0, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 2147483647) = 0
close(9<{eventfd-count=0x1, eventfd-id=125, eventfd-semaphore=0}>) = 0
futex(0x7f692c8c3e98, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 2147483647) = 0
write(6<{eventfd-count=0, eventfd-id=124, eventfd-semaphore=0}>, “\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0”, 8) = 8
futex(0x5560935e3640, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
futex(0x7f691800a030, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
futex(0x5560935e3308, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
eventfd2(0, EFD_CLOEXEC|EFD_NONBLOCK) = 9<{eventfd-count=0, eventfd-id=125, eventfd-semaphore=0}>
futex(0x5560935df100, FUTEX_WAIT_PRIVATE, 2, NULL) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
futex(0x5560935df100, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 0
futex(0x5560935e3308, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1

IT HANGS FOR A LONG TIME ON THIS FOR ABOUT 15 seconds BEFORE BAILING

ppoll([{fd=9<{eventfd-count=0, eventfd-id=125, eventfd-semaphore=0}>, events=POLLIN}], 1, {tv_sec=24, tv_nsec=999989000}, NULL, 8) = 0 (Timeout)

write(9<{eventfd-count=0, eventfd-id=125, eventfd-semaphore=0}>, “\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0”, 8) = 8
futex(0x5560935f0de0, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 2147483647) = 0
close(9<{eventfd-count=0x1, eventfd-id=125, eventfd-semaphore=0}>) = 0
write(6<{eventfd-count=0, eventfd-id=124, eventfd-semaphore=0}>, “\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0”, 8) = 8
write(6<{eventfd-count=0x1, eventfd-id=124, eventfd-semaphore=0}>, “\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0”, 8) = 8
write(2</dev/pts/2<char 136:2>>, “Failed to register: Timeout was “…, 40) = 40
ppoll([{fd=3<{eventfd-count=0, eventfd-id=113, eventfd-semaphore=0}>, events=POLLIN}], 1, {tv_sec=0, tv_nsec=0}, NULL, 8) = 0 (Timeout)
mkdir(”/home/seth/.local/share/org.gnome.TextEditor/drafts”, 0750) = -1 EEXIST (File exists)
newfstatat(AT_FDCWD</home/seth>, “/home/seth/.local/share/org.gnome.TextEditor/drafts”, {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0750, st_size=0, …}, 0) = 0
futex(0x5560935df8f0, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
futex(0x7f692c8c3e68, FUTEX_WAIT_PRIVATE, 0, NULL) = 0
ppoll([{fd=3<{eventfd-count=0, eventfd-id=113, eventfd-semaphore=0}>, events=POLLIN}], 1, {tv_sec=0, tv_nsec=0}, NULL, 8) = 0 (Timeout)
exit_group(1) = ?
+++ exited with 1 +++

</details>
2

Maybe my wayland portal is wedged? I wonder what could have caused that, I didn’t explicitly change anything before this broke, and not sure how to debug things in the new wayland world (I’m a dinosaur).

3

Have you checked for disk being full?

Have look at the user journal. For example run this in a terminal,
Given ptyxiscdoes not work you can use a console.
Access vis Ctrl-Alt-F3 then back the Gnome with Ctrl-Alt-F2 (i think).

journalctl --user -f

Now try to start a gnome app.
Now go back the console and look for error logs.

4

Have you tried repairing the nvidia driver?
sudo akmods --rebuild --force

If there was a kernel update in the background it is possible that a reboot occurred before the driver was properly built and installed.

You also can check the status of the nvidia drivers with dnf list --installed \*nvidia\*. Please post that output here.