[SOLVED] [GNOME 3.8] Nautilus not drawing background

Question

If I check "have file manager handle the desktop" then I lose my background image and get a white screen instead.
Right clicking the screen and going to the wallpaper settings shows my wallpaper as being there, and being the right one. But the background is, of course, white.
Changing the shell theme to default doesn't help. What to do?
Last edited by dontbugme (2013-04-26 20:56:12)

Answer 1

dcarros wrote:
I have read this and the thread referenced below. This is NOT solved and I believe the problem is NOT properly diagnosed. My problem was identical to the symptoms described. With select background images (using various themes) the background was a blank white (in my case). The default themes worked fine regardless of background. However, I noticed that if I turned off Nautilus for painting/controlling the screen my Icons went away and my background came back. Further, If I installed Nemo (which I prefer anyway) the icons returned and any theme displayed the background of my choice correctly. It is unclear whether the problem is Nautilus or the themes compatability with Gnome 3.8 or Gnome 3.8 itself that is the problem. It would be nice to see if others can reproduce my experiences so we can narrow down the culprit(s). I am not confident a trouble ticket is in order yet as I cannot pinpoint the problem.
I also believe the two threads should be combined so as not to promote further confusion.
You're probably right about merging threads - but that is upto a TU to do. On the question of whether or not this has been [SOLVED] in this case, yes it has been. The user's gtk+ theme was not compatible with gnome 3.8, there are many themes that are not.
Now, on the nautilus bit.
- As i have pointed out in both threads, nautilus no longer paints the wallpaper in 3.8 - it only paints a transparent window, GS paints the wallpaper behind it (which is probably what causes the incompatibility black/white window in gtk+ theme). It's also the reason why when you turn nautilus off, your background returns (because GS handles wallpaper) and nautilus was blocking it by not painting a transparent window.
- Nemo is based on nautilus *3.6* - in 3.6 nautilus doesn't paint a transparent window -> it paints the background for nautilus/desktop (but note: at this point GS in 3.8 would also be painting wallpaper behind that).
So there is no confusion here between nautilus and nemo, none at all - one does not handle painting wallpaper (nautilus), while the other one does handle painting dekstop wallpaper (nemo).
from my perspective, this appears to not be a bug, but rather a given gtk+ theme must be ported to 3.8.
that being said, if you have a working gtk+ 3.8 theme and nautilus 3.8 (not nemo) painting the desktop correctly - then you could try to switching through a few GS themes, allowing you to rule out GS theming as having any influence. Which would essentially verify that this is a gtk+ theme problem...
my only problem, is that i have not been able to identify any code in any gtk+ theme that i have that hints at the cause, but it may also be the gtk+ engine that has the bug - this i don't know.