installing Dropbox on ubuntu breaks nautilus ("Files")

[spmish]

Hi,

I installed ubuntu 22.04 yesterday and was hoping to install Dropbox to sync my files to the new machine. I installed Dropbox by downloading the .deb file from https://www.dropbox.com/install-linux

It installed without issues, but now if I try to open "Files" (nautilus), it crashes immediately. Running nautilus from the command line reveals some error messages, but it's unclear how to resolve the issue:

(nautilus-dropbox)

$ nautilus
Initializing nautilus-dropbox 2019.02.14

(org.gnome.Nautilus:8764): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:23:56.100: Two different plugins tried to register 'TerminalNautilus'.

(org.gnome.Nautilus:8764): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 09:23:56.100: g_type_add_interface_dynamic: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_INSTANTIATABLE (instance_type)' failed

(org.gnome.Nautilus:8764): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:23:56.100: Two different plugins tried to register 'TerminalNautilusMenuItem'.

(org.gnome.Nautilus:8764): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:23:56.100: Two different plugins tried to register 'EvPropertiesPlugin'.

(org.gnome.Nautilus:8764): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 09:23:56.100: g_type_add_interface_dynamic: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_INSTANTIATABLE (instance_type)' failed

(org.gnome.Nautilus:8764): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:23:56.100: Two different plugins tried to register 'NautilusNste'.

(org.gnome.Nautilus:8764): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 09:23:56.100: g_type_add_interface_dynamic: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_INSTANTIATABLE (instance_type)' failed
Initializing nautilus-dropbox 2019.02.14

(org.gnome.Nautilus:8764): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:23:56.100: Two different plugins tried to register 'NautilusDropbox'.

(org.gnome.Nautilus:8764): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 09:23:56.100: g_type_add_interface_dynamic: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_INSTANTIATABLE (instance_type)' failed

(org.gnome.Nautilus:8764): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 09:23:56.100: g_type_add_interface_dynamic: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_INSTANTIATABLE (instance_type)' failed
Shutting down dropbox extension

(org.gnome.Nautilus:8764): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:23:56.100: Two different plugins tried to register 'NautilusFileRoller'.

(org.gnome.Nautilus:8764): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 09:23:56.100: g_type_add_interface_dynamic: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_INSTANTIATABLE (instance_type)' failed

(org.gnome.Nautilus:8764): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:23:56.100: Two different plugins tried to register 'TotemPropertiesPlugin'.

(org.gnome.Nautilus:8764): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 09:23:56.100: g_type_add_interface_dynamic: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_INSTANTIATABLE (instance_type)' failed

(org.gnome.Nautilus:8764): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:23:56.100: Two different plugins tried to register 'NautilusImagesPropertiesPageProvider'.

(org.gnome.Nautilus:8764): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 09:23:56.100: g_type_add_interface_dynamic: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_INSTANTIATABLE (instance_type)' failed

(org.gnome.Nautilus:8764): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:23:56.229: invalid cast from 'TerminalNautilus' to '<invalid>'

(org.gnome.Nautilus:8764): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:23:56.229: invalid cast from 'NautilusNste' to '<invalid>'

(org.gnome.Nautilus:8764): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:23:56.229: invalid cast from 'TerminalNautilus' to '<invalid>'

(org.gnome.Nautilus:8764): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 09:23:56.229: g_object_new_valist: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_OBJECT (object_type)' failed

Segmentation fault (core dumped)

regular nautilus

$ nautilus

(org.gnome.Nautilus:9957): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:28:19.762: Two different plugins tried to register 'TerminalNautilus'.

(org.gnome.Nautilus:9957): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 09:28:19.762: g_type_add_interface_dynamic: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_INSTANTIATABLE (instance_type)' failed

(org.gnome.Nautilus:9957): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:28:19.762: Two different plugins tried to register 'TerminalNautilusMenuItem'.

(org.gnome.Nautilus:9957): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:28:19.762: Two different plugins tried to register 'EvPropertiesPlugin'.

(org.gnome.Nautilus:9957): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 09:28:19.762: g_type_add_interface_dynamic: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_INSTANTIATABLE (instance_type)' failed

(org.gnome.Nautilus:9957): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:28:19.762: Two different plugins tried to register 'NautilusNste'.

(org.gnome.Nautilus:9957): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 09:28:19.762: g_type_add_interface_dynamic: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_INSTANTIATABLE (instance_type)' failed

(org.gnome.Nautilus:9957): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:28:19.762: Two different plugins tried to register 'NautilusFileRoller'.

(org.gnome.Nautilus:9957): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 09:28:19.762: g_type_add_interface_dynamic: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_INSTANTIATABLE (instance_type)' failed

(org.gnome.Nautilus:9957): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:28:19.762: Two different plugins tried to register 'TotemPropertiesPlugin'.

(org.gnome.Nautilus:9957): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 09:28:19.762: g_type_add_interface_dynamic: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_INSTANTIATABLE (instance_type)' failed

(org.gnome.Nautilus:9957): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:28:19.762: Two different plugins tried to register 'NautilusImagesPropertiesPageProvider'.

(org.gnome.Nautilus:9957): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 09:28:19.762: g_type_add_interface_dynamic: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_INSTANTIATABLE (instance_type)' failed

(org.gnome.Nautilus:9957): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:28:19.835: invalid cast from 'TerminalNautilus' to '<invalid>'

(org.gnome.Nautilus:9957): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:28:19.835: invalid cast from 'NautilusNste' to '<invalid>'

(org.gnome.Nautilus:9957): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:28:19.835: invalid cast from 'TerminalNautilus' to '<invalid>'

(org.gnome.Nautilus:9957): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 09:28:19.835: g_object_new_valist: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_OBJECT (object_type)' failed
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

I've tried searching around a bit for a resolution, with no luck. I've tried reinstalling nautilus, removing dropbox, reinstalling dropbox, trying nautilus-dropbox instead, but I still can't open "Files" now. The only solution I've seen other people mention is a complete reinstall of the OS, which I'm hoping to avoid.

If anyone has guidance please let me know!

[Walter]

Hey @spmish, sorry to hear about this.

Can you please let us know the version and status of the Dropbox app installed on your machine?

Also, have you ensured that you're running Nautilus 3.10.1 or later?

Any additional information is more than welcome!

[spmish]

$ dpkg -l nautilus
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Architecture Description
+++-==============-=================-============-==========================================
ii nautilus 1:42.2-0ubuntu2.1 amd64 file manager and graphical shell for GNOME

Dropbox appeared to be working as intended, it's just that it seems to be conflicting with nautilus. I've since uninstalled dropbox in an attempt to fix this issue. Do you want me to reinstall it to report the version? The actual .deb file I downloaded from the dropbox website was dropbox_2020.03.04_amd64.deb

[Hannah]

Hey @spmish, sorry to jump in here!

Can you just clarify which version of Nautilus you're running?

[spmish]

@Hannah I showed it in the previous reply,

$ dpkg -l nautilus
...
nautilus 1:42.2-0ubuntu2.1 amd64 file manager and graphical shell for GNOME

[Hannah]

Thanks for that, @spmish.

Can we reach out to you via email, so we can look into this internally?

[Здравко]

---

@spmish wrote:

...

(org.gnome.Nautilus:8764): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: 09:23:56.100: Two different plugins tried to register 'TerminalNautilus'.

...

---

Hi @spmish,

Seems like you have issue with nautilus-extension-gnome-terminal plugin, not Dropbox' plugin. Have you installed something by hands (without using Ubuntu official package manager)? 🧐 If there are such plugins installed, wipe them out.

You can try temporary uninstall nautilus-extension-gnome-terminal package and make sure the folder /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/nautilus/extensions-3.0 doesn't contain something like libterminal-nautilus.so or something similar. Take a look on other places where plugins can reside in (like /lib/nautilus). If there is something left (which seems like terminal plugin for nautilus) wipe it out. At the end you can install the plugin back. Let's hope it's alone (no double installs) already and conflicts are impossible. 😉

Hope this helps.

[spmish · Accepted solution]

thanks for the input everyone, I ended up just reinstalling the OS to resolve the issue.

[Walter]

Thanks for keeping us in the loop @spmish - we're glad to hear it's sorted now.

See you around the Community and take care!