Greetings OnDemand community!
We are having trouble with the Gnome desktop on the interactive apps. We configured XFCE and that works fine, just the Gnome desktop is not working in our deployments.
We are using Open OnDemand version 4.0.6 and GNOME Shell 3.32.2, we are using slurm 24.11.0.
$ gnome-shell --version
GNOME Shell 3.32.2
$ srun --version
slurm 24.11.0
I copied the bc_desktop to my dev directory so I could add more verbosity to the gnome script. I added set -x to the top of the script hoping to capture more details about what is going on, have the output here:
---------------- SLURM prolog script on FSL dnode0002 ----------------
Wed Sep 10 12:44:57 CDT 2025
NodeList=dnode0002
NumNodes=1 NumCPUs=1 NumTasks=1
WorkDir=/nobackup2/testuser1/ondemand/sys/dashboard/batch_connect/dev/bc_desktop_2/output/62342f16-97f2-4485-8835-facd784893ec
--------------- End of output from prolog script ---------------
Setting VNC password...
Starting VNC server...
Killing Xvnc process ID 103315
Xvnc process ID 103315 already killed
Xvnc did not appear to shut down cleanly. Removing /tmp/.X11-unix/X2
Xvnc did not appear to shut down cleanly. Removing /tmp/.X2-lock
Killing Xvnc process ID 107607
Xvnc process ID 107607 already killed
Xvnc did not appear to shut down cleanly. Removing /tmp/.X11-unix/X4
Xvnc did not appear to shut down cleanly. Removing /tmp/.X4-lock
WARNING: dnode0002.example.com:1 is taken because of /tmp/.X1-lock
Remove this file if there is no X server dnode0002.example.com:1
Desktop 'TurboVNC: dnode0002.example.com:2 (testuser1)' started on display dnode0002.example.com:2
Log file is vnc.log
Successfully started VNC server on dnode0002.example.com:5902...
Script starting...
Starting websocket server...
[websockify]: pid: 114117 (proxying 30992 ==> localhost:5902)
[websockify]: log file: ./websockify.log
[websockify]: waiting ...
Running "module reset". Resetting modules to system default. The following $MODULEPATH directories have been removed: None
Launching desktop 'gnome'...
++ gconftool-2 --set -t boolean /apps/gnome-screensaver/idle_activation_enabled false
++ gconftool-2 --set -t boolean /apps/nautilus/preferences/always_use_browser true
[websockify]: started successfully (proxying 30992 ==> localhost:5902)
Scanning VNC log file for user authentications...
Generating connection YAML file...
++ mkdir -p /home/testuser1/.config/autostart
++ cat /etc/xdg/autostart/gdu-notification-daemon.desktop /dev/fd/63
+++ echo X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false
cat: /etc/xdg/autostart/gdu-notification-daemon.desktop: No such file or directory
++ [[ -f /home/testuser1/.config/monitors.xml ]]
+++ dbus-launch --sh-syntax
++ eval 'DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS='\''unix:abstract=/tmp/dbus-llf2bfAyur,guid=ca7e98aba5918dca2545247068c1b91d'\'';' export 'DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS;' 'DBUS_SESSION_BUS_PID=114167;' 'DBUS_SESSION_BUS_WINDOWID=2097153;'
+++ DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:abstract=/tmp/dbus-llf2bfAyur,guid=ca7e98aba5918dca2545247068c1b91d
+++ export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
+++ DBUS_SESSION_BUS_PID=114167
+++ DBUS_SESSION_BUS_WINDOWID=2097153
++ source /etc/os-release
+++ NAME='Rocky Linux'
+++ VERSION='8.10 (Green Obsidian)'
+++ ID=rocky
+++ ID_LIKE='rhel centos fedora'
+++ VERSION_ID=8.10
+++ PLATFORM_ID=platform:el8
+++ PRETTY_NAME='Rocky Linux 8.10 (Green Obsidian)'
+++ ANSI_COLOR='0;32'
+++ LOGO=fedora-logo-icon
+++ CPE_NAME=cpe:/o:rocky:rocky:8:GA
+++ HOME_URL=https://rockylinux.org/
+++ BUG_REPORT_URL=https://bugs.rockylinux.org/
+++ SUPPORT_END=2029-05-31
+++ ROCKY_SUPPORT_PRODUCT=Rocky-Linux-8
+++ ROCKY_SUPPORT_PRODUCT_VERSION=8.10
+++ REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT='Rocky Linux'
+++ REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT_VERSION=8.10
++ [[ rhel centos fedora =~ fedora ]]
++ [[ 8.10 < 8.0 ]]
++ wayland
++ export XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11
++ XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11
++ export GNOME_SHELL_SESSION_MODE=wayland
++ GNOME_SHELL_SESSION_MODE=wayland
++ export GNOME_SESSION_MODE=wayland
++ GNOME_SESSION_MODE=wayland
++ /etc/X11/xinit/Xsession gnome-session
After hitting the “Launch Desktop” button, I got a VNC window in the browser that had a dialog window that let me select my language and a few other questions but when I got to the end of the setup it closed and I don’t see the gnome desktop. I believe this means that VNC is setup and was working at one point but something is not getting kicked off correctly. Now when I select the gnome desktop I only get a new browser window but a blank screen.
I have done some research on the forums and found the following articles:
- Gnome 3 Support for Interactive Desktops - #4 by surak
- Session briefly starts then immediately crashes; User authentication problem?
- Getting interactive desktops to work with gnome3
I didn’t see anything in these issues that was relevant to our situation but I might have missed it. Please let me know if you need different logs or have questions. Any help on what logs to look at or what else I can do to close in on the problem would be much appreciated.
Thank you for your time,
Matt Bruzek
