Hi,
Every time I boot into Ubuntu Mate(18.04), my desktop is with a wrong theme (I can see white panels instead of my chosen panel color).
Another thing I have detected is that I also don’t have touchpad touch click when that happens.
It seems that something isn’t loading from the start.
I can fix it manually by opening “Appearance” ou “Mouse”
What can of info can I give you to help sort this out?
What is the best way to share pictures with you?
The most likely cause of the issue is that the MATE settings daemon is not loading at session start for some reason, so it doesn’t apply any settings, doesn’t load themes, etc.
You can check this easily: after login in your session, when you see the issue, open a terminal and check if the process is running:
ps -A | grep mate-settings
You’ll probably get nothing. If you then open Appearance or Mouse, check again, you should see a process called “mate-settings-daemon” (or “mate-settings-d” as ps/the term will cut the end of the name).
That being said, if this is indeed the issue, I have no idea why the settings daemon would fail to launch on startup…
Check your /etc/xdg/autostart directory, there should be a mate-daemon-settings.desktop file. This is the file responsible for starting this process. Maybe something is wrong there…
Go to the directory, open the file with Pluma and kindly post the contents of the file.
I have the following file:
/etc/xdg/autostart/mate-settings-daemon.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=MATE Settings Daemon
Name[am]=የ ሜት ማሰናጃ ረዳት
Name[ar]=محثّ إعدادات متّة
Name[as]=MATE Settings ডেমন
Name[ast]=Degorriu d’axustes de MATE
Name[be]=Дэман настáўленняў MATE
Name[bg]=Сървър за настройките на MATE
Name[bn]=MATE Settings ডেমন
Name[bn_IN]=MATE Settings ডেমন
Name[ca]=Dimoni dels ajusts de MATE
Name[ca@valencia]=Dimoni de paràmetres del MATE
Name[cmn]=MATE 設定值守護程式
Name[crh]=MATE Ayarları Cını
Name[cs]=Démon nastavení MATE
Name[da]=MATE-indstillingsdæmon
Name[de]=MATE-Einstellungsdienst
Name[el]=Δαίμονας ρυθμίσεων MATE
Name[en_AU]=MATE Settings Daemon
Name[en_GB]=MATE Settings Daemon
Name[es]=Administrador de preferencias de MATE
Name[et]=MATE sätetedeemon
Name[eu]=MATEren ezarpenen daemon-a
Name[fi]=MATEn asetuspalvelin
Name[fr]=Service des paramètres MATE
Name[ga]=Deamhan Socruithe MATE
Name[gl]=Servizo de configuracións do MATE
Name[gu]=MATE સુયોજનો ડેઇમન
Name[he]=מנוע ההגדרות של MATE
Name[hi]=गनोम सेटिंग डेमॉन
Name[hu]=MATE beállításdémon
Name[hy]=MATE Կարգաբերման պարամետրերի օժանդակ ծրագիր
Name[id]=Daemon Penataan MATE
Name[it]=Demone di impostazioni per MATE
Name[ja]=MATE 設定デーモン
Name[kk]=MATE баптаулар қызметі
Name[kn]=MATE ಸಂಯೋಜನೆಗಳ ಡೀಮನ್(Daemon)
Name[ko]=마테 설정 데몬
Name[lt]=MATE nustatymų tarnyba
Name[lv]=MATE iestatījumu dēmons
Name[mk]=Демонот за поставувања на MATE
Name[ml]=ഗ്നോമിലെ സജ്ജീകരണങ്ങളുടെ നിരന്തരപ്രവൃത്തി
Name[mr]=MATE संयोजना डीमन
Name[ms]=Daemon Tetapan MATE
Name[nb]=MATE oppsettstjenestenisse
Name[nl]=Mate Achtergronddienst voor instellingen
Name[nn]=MATE innstillingsnisse
Name[or]=MATE ବିନ୍ୟାସ ଡେମନ
Name[pa]=ਗਨੋਮ ਸੈਟਿੰਗ ਡੈਮਨ
Name[pl]=Usługa ustawień środowiska MATE
Name[pt]=Servidor de Definições MATE
Name[pt_BR]=Daemon de configurações do MATE
Name[ro]=Serviciul de configurări MATE
Name[ru]=Демон параметров MATE
Name[sk]=Démon nastavení MATE
Name[sl]=Ozadnji program nastavitev MATE
Name[sr]=Мејтов услужник подешавања
Name[sr@latin]=Uslužni program za podešavanje Gnoma
Name[sv]=MATE-inställningsdemon
Name[ta]=MATE அமைவுகள் கிங்கரன்
Name[te]=MATE అమర్పుల డెమోన్
Name[th]=ดีมอนค่าตั้ง MATE
Name[tr]=MATE Ayarlar Servisi
Name[uk]=Служба параметрів MATE
Name[ur]=میٹ ترتیبات ڈیمن
Name[vi]=Trình nền Thiết lập MATE
Name[zh_CN]=MATE 设置守护程序
Name[zh_HK]=MATE 設定值伺服程式
Name[zh_TW]=MATE 設定值守護程式
Exec=/usr/bin/mate-settings-daemon
OnlyShowIn=MATE;
X-MATE-Autostart-Phase=Initialization
X-MATE-Autostart-Notify=true
X-MATE-AutoRestart=true
After I have opened Appearance
ps -A | grep mate-settings
12402 ? 00:00:01 mate-settings-d
Before, I will do the command later
The file seems fine, nothing wrong there. Are you using and SSD with a core-i7 processor or something newer?
@abacao - the only situation in which I’ve seen this behavior is when you compile your own mate-settings-daemon and end up overriding the included one.
Try running
sudo apt install --purge --reinstall mate-settings-daemon*
There are slightly more aggressive ways of fixing this, but try this first and report back.
@vkareh tested, didn’t solved the problem.
@terzag , straight after boot, the PS -A shows nothing.
I have a external monitor I have also more issues (maybe related).
The monitor arragenment is not set until I open appearance and I also have a Error:
“Indicator Applet Complete” has quit unexpectedly (delete, don’t reload, reload)
First backup your original mate-settings.daemon.desktop file before doing anything…
Then, if reinstalling didn’t solve the problem, you can try replacing the “Exec” in your mate-settings-daemon.desktop file with the following:
Exec= bash -c "sleep 2; /usr/bin/mate-settings-daemon/mate-settings-daemon"
Then reboot your PC.
Unfortunately, didn’t do anything different 
@abacao - could you check whether you have a local instance of m-s-d overriding the archive one? Run this:
locate *local/*mate-settings-daemon*
(it will check in /usr/local/ to see whether you have a conflicting m-s-d)
If you do, those would need to be removed.
Also, check that you have /usr/libexec/mate-settings-daemon. If you don’t, you might want to run
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/mate-settings-daemon /usr/libexec/mate-settings-daemon
and restart your sessio. This will create a symbolic link to m-s-d from the libexec directory, which is used internally for executable libraries.
@vkareh
I don’t even have the /usr/libexec folder…
tree -d -L 1 /usr/
/usr/
├── bin
├── games
├── include
├── lib
├── lib32
├── local
├── sbin
├── share
└── src
About the previous:
the locate don’t return anything
After a search
sudo find / -name mate-settings-daemon
I only have a return of:
/usr/bin/mate-settings-daemon
/usr/share/mate-settings-daemon
/usr/share/doc/mate-settings-daemon
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/mate-settings-daemon
/usr/include/mate-settings-daemon
/etc/mate-settings-daemon
I don’t either. Never seen such a directory on any Linux distro.
BTW, do you use 3rd-party repos? If so, which ones? If you’re not sure, you can check Software & Updates in the CC, second tab (Other softwares). And be sure you’re not using the Proposed repo (sixth tab).
@abacao - technically, it should be fine without it. But you can try adding it just in case and see if that helps:
sudo mkdir -p /usr/libexec
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/mate-settings-daemon /usr/libexec/mate-settings-daemon
Didn’t see any different result 
We can try the nuclear option:
sudo apt purge mate-* libmate* gir1.2-mate* && sudo apt install mate-* libmate* gir1.2-mate*
It’s a bit excessive, but hey…
There might be a few unnecessary packages installed after that, you can always remove anything specific you don’t wantb after the fact.
sudo apt purge mate-*
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
E: Unable to locate package mate-settings-daemon.desktop_autostart_xdg_etc
E: Couldn’t find any package by glob ‘mate-settings-daemon.desktop_autostart_xdg_etc’
E: Couldn’t find any package by regex ‘mate-settings-daemon.desktop_autostart_xdg_etc’
sudo apt install mate-*
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
E: Unable to locate package mate-settings-daemon.desktop_autostart_xdg_etc
E: Couldn’t find any package by glob ‘mate-settings-daemon.desktop_autostart_xdg_etc’
E: Couldn’t find any package by regex ‘mate-settings-daemon.desktop_autostart_xdg_etc’
Ah, hehe. You’re inside a directory that has files or folders that match the mate-* glob. Try doing it from a different directory
Unfortunately, it didn’t work…
Very strange. Mind posting the contents of ~/.xsession-errors?