I’ve had a number of major issues with Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark). I thought I would catalog them and I’ll update as I find out more. Please comment if you find solutions!

VPN Won’t connect

My PPTP VPN connection won’t connect. My AnyConnect and VPNC connections seem to work.

When I try to save the VPN settings and add the password, I get this message:
Invalid VPN service type (cannot find authentication binary)

Here are the versions of the packages:

$ dpkg --list | grep network-manager
ii  network-manager                                                  1.8.4-1ubuntu3                                                              amd64        network management framework (daemon and userspace tools)
ii  network-manager-config-connectivity-ubuntu                       1.8.4-1ubuntu3                                                              all          NetworkManager configuration to enable connectivity checking
ii  network-manager-gnome                                            1.8.4-1ubuntu1                                                              amd64        network management framework (GNOME frontend)
ii  network-manager-iodine                                           1.2.0-1                                                                     amd64        network management framework (iodine plugin core)
ii  network-manager-openconnect                                      1.2.4-1                                                                     amd64        network management framework (OpenConnect plugin core)
ii  network-manager-openconnect-gnome                                1.2.4-1                                                                     amd64        network management framework (OpenConnect plugin GNOME GUI)
ii  network-manager-openvpn                                          1.2.10-0ubuntu2                                                             amd64        network management framework (OpenVPN plugin core)
ii  network-manager-openvpn-gnome                                    1.2.10-0ubuntu2                                                             amd64        network management framework (OpenVPN plugin GNOME GUI)
ii  network-manager-pptp                                             1.2.4-4                                                                     amd64        network management framework (PPTP plugin core)
ii  network-manager-pptp-gnome                                       1.2.4-4                                                                     amd64        network management framework (PPTP plugin GNOME GUI)
ii  network-manager-strongswan                                       1.4.2-1                                                                     amd64        network management framework (strongSwan plugin)
ii  network-manager-vpnc                                             1.2.4-4                                                                     amd64        network management framework (VPNC plugin core)

I tried to connect with nmcli and nmtui. I created the connection from scratch just to make sure that it wasn’t something in the file.

nmcli connection up GT2
nmcli --ask connection up GT2
nmtui

I get:
“Could not activate connection: Activation failed”
“Error: Connection activation failed: The VPN service stopped unexpectedly”

• Ubuntu Forums: 17.10 pptp connection doesn’t work
• Bug #1725062: Network Manager Applet can’t connect to VPN, but nmtui does
• Bug #1599650: nm-connection-editor does’t let me save when I check to ask password
• Bug #1324800: network-manager does not save vpn (openvpn) password anymore
• AskUbuntu: Connect/disconnect from VPN from the command line

Shutter Doesn’t Work in Wayland

As I understand it, Wayland has more security for programs grabbing screenshots of other applications.

At one point, I noticed that it started working again. Then, I realized that something had switch my session back to X11:

$ echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE
x11

Most likely, the it was because I had tried to enable the Nvidia driver. According to the wiki, the Nvidia drivers do not yet work.

Can Wayland be used with the closed source proprietary graphics drivers?

No, not at this time. fglrx, nvidia, psb, and other closed source drivers are developed externally to X.org and externally to Ubuntu. As far as we know, work to update them to conform to the new KMS/GEM/etc. architecture is not planned (at least, not publicly) and would need to be done before they could be used under Wayland.

My biggest question is: Is shutter still under active development? The shutter-project.org website requires a login when you go to visit it.

For now, the best solution other than switching to X11 is to …

1. Take the screenshot with Ctrl+shift+Print Screen
2. Paste it into shutter with Ctrl + Shift +V
3. Edit / Copy as desired

• Bug 1299293 – Shutter does not work with Gnome/ Wayland
• Bug #1502263: Shutter does not work in Wayland
• Gnome Bug 761737 – Shutter does not work on Wayland
• Unofficial Fork
• Alternative To: Shutter
• Launchpad Answers: How to use on Ubuntu 17.10?
• Launchpad: Shutter Home
• Ubuntu Wiki: Wayland
• Ask Ubuntu: How do you switch from Wayland back to Xorg in Ubuntu 17.10?
• OMG Ubuntu: Screenshot Tool ‘Shutter’ Gets First Update in Over 2 Years

GObject-CRITICAL

I keep seeing this message in the log:

• Bug #270744: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_unref: assertion `G_IS_OBJECT (object)’ failed

Dropbox Won’t Sync

I get this message:

Failed to run sh ‘/tmp/tmpcvCsUz’ as user root.

Unable to copy the user’s Xauthorization file.

It seems to be related to Wayland.

Update 11/9: I got a response back from the Dropbox support team: “Thank you for this feature request. We are always looking for user input when creating the next version of the Dropbox app. I will make sure your comments are passed along to our development team.”

• Dropbox not working on Fedora 25 Wayland KDE