Public bug reported: Title: RDP reconnect to long-lived GNOME session fails during handover (UnknownObject) on Ubuntu 26.04.1, gnome-remote-desktop 50.2
Package: gnome-remote-desktop Ubuntu release: Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS (Resolute), amd64 ## User-visible problem The user reports repeated RDP reconnect/login-loop problems when connecting from Windows 11 to Ubuntu GNOME Remote Desktop. Their normal workflow keeps the Ubuntu desktop session alive for days and reconnects to that session. This has happened several times, not just once. The exact Windows build/client executable version and an exact count of user-visible failures have not yet been collected. Expected: reconnect and authenticate to the existing desktop session without losing the session or requiring a host reboot. Actual reported symptom: reconnect/login does not reliably return to the existing desktop; the symptom was described in the context of a recurring RDP login loop. The journal independently confirms a failed handover but cannot establish every screen shown by the client. ## Reproduction workflow (reported, not a controlled reproduction) 1. Connect from Windows 11 to Ubuntu using GNOME Remote Desktop remote login. 2. Use a desktop session that is kept alive for days. 3. Disconnect/reconnect to the existing desktop session. 4. Intermittently, reconnect/login fails rather than restoring the desktop. No deliberate reproduction or service restart was performed during evidence collection, to avoid interrupting the working session. ## Verified incident: 2026-10-07 (all timestamps CEST, UTC+02:00) The system GNOME Remote Desktop daemon had run from 2026-10-03 10:40:22 to 2026-10-07 23:28:17: systemd records 4d 12h 47min 54.859s of service lifetime. This is daemon uptime, not proof of a single continuous client connection or desktop session. At 23:18:07, an existing RDP daemon logs a client disconnect. Further connection attempts and server redirections appear at 23:18:25, 23:21:55, and 23:23:27. The key paired failure is: ``` 2026-10-07T23:21:18+02:00 ubuntu-host gnome-remote-desktop-daemon[1977]: [DaemonSystem] RDP client disconnected during the handover 2026-10-07T23:21:18+02:00 ubuntu-host gnome-remote-desktop-daemon[1580002]: [DaemonHandover] Failed to start handover: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownObject: Failed to start handover ``` The system daemon remained alive until a clean service stop at 23:28:17; it did NOT log the fatal handover assertion or an ABRT/core-dump for this incident. A host reboot is recorded at approximately 23:30:37. After reboot, GNOME RDP daemons start and the handover daemon negotiates graphics capabilities at 23:31:05. This supports successful post-reboot RDP setup, but is not a controlled test of reboot as the sole required recovery. ## Repeated reference-count warnings The system-service journal from 2026-10-02 through the collection cutoff (2026-10-07 23:36:00) contains 24 occurrences of: ``` g_atomic_ref_count_dec: assertion 'old_value > 0' failed ``` Counts by date: October 2: 6; October 3: 3; October 4: 6; October 5: 2; October 6: 5; October 7: 2. These are warning counts, NOT a count of failed logins. The warning also occurs on the apparently successful post-reboot handover at 23:31:05, so it alone does not prove a failed reconnect. ## Environment and version caveat Collected after reboot: - Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS, amd64 - Kernel: 7.0.0-38-generic (linux-image package 7.0.0-38.38) - gnome-remote-desktop: 50.2-0ubuntu0.1 (dpkg history: installed by upgrade on 2026-08-23) - gdm3: 50.1-0ubuntu0.1 - gnome-shell: 50.1-0ubuntu1.3 - libmutter-18-0: 50.1-0ubuntu2.4 - libfreerdp3-3: 3.32.1+dfsg-0ubuntu0.26.04.1 - Mesa / libgl1-mesa-dri: 26.0.8-1ubuntu0.3 - GPU: AMD Radeon 8060S; radeonsi/VAAPI and Vulkan initialization succeed in the daemon logs - Current post-reboot desktop session: Wayland, Remote=yes, Service=gdm-password - Both the system remote-login service and the user's GNOME Remote Desktop service are active after reboot; a user handover daemon is active too. Important: dpkg upgraded libfreerdp3-3 from 3.32.0 to 3.32.1 at 2026-10-07 20:37:09 while the pre-reboot system daemon had been running since October 3. Consequently, current installed versions do not establish which FreeRDP build each pre-reboot process had loaded. The failed system daemon could still have had the older build loaded; newly spawned handover daemons could have used the newer build. Loaded-library versions were not captured before reboot. Reconnect warnings also predate this October 7 package upgrade. No causal conclusion is drawn from the upgrade. ## Relationship to Launchpad #2146616 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-remote- desktop/+bug/2146616 describes reconnect/login-loop symptoms and a fatal assertion in on_authorize_handover_method with gnome-remote-desktop 50.0-0ubuntu2. As checked on 2026-10-07, that bug is Expired (May 29, inactivity); a maintainer previously said they could not reproduce it. It is NOT evidence of a confirmed root cause for this machine. Our case has a newer GNOME Remote Desktop version, similar reconnect symptoms and reference-count warnings, but a directly recorded UnknownObject handover failure and no matching fatal assertion. Please triage whether this belongs to the same bug or a separate handover/session-lifecycle defect. ## Evidence attached / available Sanitized, package-specific journal extracts: - failed-reconnect-daemons.log: all gnome-remote-desktop daemon messages during 23:17–23:30:30 in the previous boot (includes system, greeter and user/handover daemons). - post-reboot-daemons.log: gnome-remote-desktop daemon messages after reboot, through 23:36. - system-rdp.log: system remote-login service journal from October 2 through 23:36 on October 7. - assertion-timeline.txt: reference-count warning timestamps and counts. - environment.txt and supporting-evidence.txt: retained OS/session metadata, package versions/history, service-state checks, boot first entries and crash-tool/file availability. - collection-notes.txt: exact journal scopes and fatal-signature search provenance. Host name is replaced by ubuntu-host and journal boot UUIDs by anonymous boot labels. Any IPv4 addresses, email addresses and home-directory identifiers in these extracts are redacted. No credentials, RDP configuration files, raw crash dumps, or unrelated application logs are included. A package-specific fatal-signature search (on_authorize_handover, Bail out, code=dumped, core-dump, segfault) in GNOME Remote Desktop daemon messages for October 2–7 returned no matches. No GNOME Remote Desktop .crash file was present in /var/crash at collection time; coredumpctl was not available. This is absence of retained evidence, not a claim that no prior crash ever happened. ## Separate graphical-corruption observation (not this bug's evidence) On October 8, the user also supplied a screenshot of severe magenta/green pixel striping and rectangular display corruption during an established RDP desktop session. The user explicitly states that this is not directly related to the reconnect/login-loop problem. It is recorded in a separate graphics-corruption report and screenshot artifact; it is not evidence of the handover failure described above, and no common cause or duplicate relationship is asserted. ## Information still useful for triage - Exact Windows 11 build and RDP client version/settings. - Whether the failure requires a session age of days, desktop locking, multiple clients, or a disconnect during GDM-to-user redirection. - A controlled reproduction on fully restarted processes using the same FreeRDP build. - Debug logging/backtrace only if maintainers request it; currently no usable GRD crash dump is available. ** Affects: gnome-remote-desktop (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided Status: New ** Tags: amd64 handover rdp resolute -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2170125 Title: RDP reconnect to long-lived GNOME session fails during handover (UnknownObject) on Ubuntu 26.04.1, gnome-remote-desktop 50.2 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-remote-desktop/+bug/2170125/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
