Missing cursor theme in GNOME

[hyperfekt]

Describe the bug

An ugly cursor is displayed that turns into a large white square on certain surfaces.

Steps To Reproduce

Change config to the following:

services.xserver = {
  enable = true;
  displayManager.gdm.enable = true;
  desktopManager.gnome.enable = true;
};

Expected behavior

A modern cursor theme that ships with GNOME by default is applied.

Additional context

The journal displays gnome-shell-wr[2198]: No cursor theme available, please install a cursor theme

The directory /run/current-system/sw/share/icons/Adwaita/cursors/ exists and is filled.

Notify maintainers

@jtojnar

Metadata

Please run nix-shell -p nix-info --run "nix-info -m" and paste the result.

[user@system:~]$ nix-shell -p nix-info --run "nix-info -m"
 - system: `"x86_64-linux"`
 - host os: `Linux 5.13.19, NixOS, 21.11 (Porcupine)`
 - multi-user?: `yes`
 - sandbox: `yes`
 - version: `nix-env (Nix) 2.3.15`
 - channels(root): `"nixos-21.11pre320334.82155ff501c"`
 - nixpkgs: `/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/nixos`

Maintainer information:

# a list of nixpkgs attributes affected by the problem
attribute:
 - gnome.gnome-shell
# a list of nixos modules affected by the problem
module:
 - services/x11/desktop-managers/gnome.nix

[jtojnar]

I have not seen anything like that, what surfaces did you see it one?

[hyperfekt]

The white square is everywhere on the Activities screen, or for example when hovering over the bar at the top of the screen. But elsewhere it's also clear that the theme is not the one intended (90s style white hands pointing at stuff). If you're on the latest unstable there must be another factor that seems unrelated at first but is causing it. Presumably you also aren't getting the failure to find a cursor theme in your log?

[jtojnar]

Yeah, I maintain GNOME on unstable and that is also the only channel where I support it.

I do not see the message in the journal:

$ journalctl -xa --since '-1 week' | grep 'cursor theme available'
$ 

Though I usually do not reboot my system after rebuild so I might not be running the latest Shell.

But I am not aware of any recent change that could affect this.

Did this only start recently for you?

Do you run X or Wayland session?

[hyperfekt]

I'd only used KDE until very recently so I can't compare it to older nixpkgs revs. Could there be impurities from KDE that are causing this? I tried to make doubly sure I didn't have any options left from it.
The cursor theme is still missing with wayland = false, but the white square doesn't appear.
Here's an image that should illustrate that the Adwaita theme (which to my understanding is the intended default) is not being applied. This is what shows when hovering over a link.

[jtojnar]

I have heard about Plasma state messing up with systems long after it was gone.

I would look at what is stored in the settings:

$ dconf read /org/gnome/desktop/interface/cursor-theme
'Adwaita'

Maybe also look at ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini.

[hyperfekt]

That's it! It was set to breeze_cursors. Not sure how we would go about preventing that without applying the setting with an overlay database (as proposed in #54150).

[jtojnar]

I would probably also expect GNOME to fall back to Adwaita if the selected cursor theme does not exist.

[nixos-discourse]

This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/gnome-broke-after-trying-plasma/16019/3

[ryantm]

I have a similar issue when I am trying to switch from Gnome X to Gnome Wayland:

[ryantm@home2:~]$ dconf read /org/gnome/desktop/interface/cursor-theme

[ryantm@home2:~]$ gnome-terminal
# Failed to load cursor theme Adwaita
# Failed to load cursor theme Adwaita
# Error creating terminal: Message recipient disconnected from message bus without replying

[ryantm]

When I deleted ~/.config/dconf it resolved itself. But that also got rid of all my customization, so probably not a recommended workaround.

[steffen678]

When I deleted ~/.config/dconf it resolved itself. But that also got rid of all my customization, so probably not a recommended workaround.

Thanks. I had to resort to this as well. Off to a fresh start, I guess.

[l0b0]

That's it! It was set to breeze_cursors.

Same. Fixing it was as simple as dconf reset /org/gnome/desktop/interface/cursor-theme.

[TobTobXX]

My icons were also messed up after switching from Plasma. This fixed it:

dconf reset /org/gnome/desktop/interface/icon-theme

(Just in case anyone has the same error.)