The program 'mate-settings-daemon' received an X Window System error.

[Tectract]

Hi, I'm getting this error, on a Miint + Mate system. It's an older Mint 17.3 installation. I'm version-locked on Ubuntu 14.04 to avoid the systemd avalanche, so dist-upgrade is not possible for me.

The program 'mate-settings-daemon' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)'.
(Details: serial 190 error_code 8 request_code 140 minor_code 30)

Can anyone offer help? I'm stuck, I lost the ability to adjust background and monitor settings. I'm not sure how to determine the mate-settings-daemon version I have, or to attempt a proper re-installation, or debugging / troubleshooting process here. I'm not even sure what cause the issue, but maybe something to do with monitor switching settings...

Link to bugreport of your Distribution (requirement)

https://ubuntu-mate.community/t/the-program-mate-settings-daemon-received-an-x-window-system-error/24764

[Tectract]

See more discussion of the issue here also:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/linuxmint/+bug/1471254

[Tectract]

progress.

used this command to get a strace:

GDK_SYNCHRONIZE="1" strace mate-settings-daemon

I saw that it was trying to read one of my ~/.config/monitors.xml.backup files, for some reason.

I created a folder in ~/.config called monitors_xml_backups and moved all monitors.xml* files into it, leaving NO monitors.xml file in ~/.config. Restarted, got mate-settings-daemon back running.

Theres is currently no monitors.xml setting in ~/.config so I think it's reading from /etc/mate-settings-daemon/xrandr/monitors.xml, maybe.

I'm not sure what will happen when I try to adjust monitor settings and save them again...