Public bug reported:
A simple typo in the Humanity icon theme likely has survived for years across
multiple Ubuntu releases, without being fixed properly. I have been one of the
users annoyed by terminal outputs such as .
(eog:199739): Gtk-WARNING **: 12:33:18.642: Theme directory of theme Humanity
has no size field
(eog:199739): Gtk-WARNING **: 12:38:39.906: Theme directory of theme Humanity
has no size field
(emacs:211837): Gtk-WARNING **: 12:41:06.955: Theme directory of theme Humanity
has no size field
(evince:211649): Gtk-WARNING **: 12:39:14.699: Theme directory of theme
Humanity has no size
...true cause of bug:
On line 9 of `/usr/share/icons/Humanity/index.theme`, under the `#Directory
list` block, there is a double comma (`,,`) hiding between two entries:
...stock/32,stock/48,,16x16@2/mimetypes,24x24/mimetypes...
Older versions of GTK skipped this silently, but modern GTK frameworks strictly
validate theme structures. The engine interprets the double comma as an empty
directory name (""), can't find a corresponding size parameter for it, and
screams this error into the terminal for *every single GUI application*
launched:
"Gtk-WARNING **: Theme directory of theme Humanity has no size field", such as
those listed above. And this happened for many years (I have been using Ubuntu
over 20 years ago, barely recall this ever got fixed.)
Online suggestions over a decade seem to recommend hiding the warning behind
'2>/dev/null'. But the actual fix is much simpler and more systematic: just
delete the extra comma so it reads:
...stock/32,stock/48,16x16@2/mimetypes,24x24/mimetypes...
ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 24.04
Package: humanity-icon-theme 0.6.16 [modified:
usr/share/icons/Humanity/index.theme]
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 7.0.0-38.38~24.04.4-generic 7.0.14
Uname: Linux 7.0.0-38-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_modeset nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.28.3-0ubuntu0.1
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: pass
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Sun Nov 1 13:11:16 2026
InstallationDate: Installed on 2025-10-22 (376 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS "Noble Numbat" - Release amd64 (20250215)
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: humanity-icon-theme
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
** Affects: humanity-icon-theme (Ubuntu)
Importance: Undecided
Status: New
** Tags: amd64 apport-bug noble
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2172729
Title:
Double comma ',,' in index.theme caused a decade of hidden GTK
warnings
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