[Bug 2083593] Re: gdbus reports enable-animations as false when they are enabled

[Filip Hracek]

Additional note: `gdbus` is how Flutter finds out the OS preference for
animations, and therefore whether to skip (fast-forward) animations or
not. That means that all Flutter apps that hit this issue will skip
animations. I originally filed an issue against Flutter SDK here:
https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/155982 (because I thought
Flutter detects the OS preference incorrectly). Now I think the issue is
actually in Ubuntu itself.

Sorry for spamming.

** Bug watch added: github.com/flutter/flutter/issues #155982
   https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/155982

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2083593

Title:
  gdbus reports enable-animations as false when they are enabled

Status in glib2.0 package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  Last week, I did a clean install of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS on a relatively
  beefy Thinkpad. This is going to be my Linux build machine (for a game
  I'm working on) so I installed only a few things: VSCode, Steam,
  Caffeine, Timeshift, and the requirements for building the game
  (Flutter SDK, development libraries).

  While testing the game, I noticed that all animations in the game are
  skipped. I checked what the app thinks about the environment and it
  reports animations in the OS as disabled. I double-checked that
  they're not.

  1. They are not disabled in Settings > Accessibility.

  2. `gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface enable-animations`
  returns `true`

  3. `dconf read /org/gnome/desktop/interface/enable-animations` returns
  `true`

  Yet, I get this when using `gdbus`:

  ```
  $ gdbus call --session --dest org.freedesktop.portal.Desktop --object-path /org/freedesktop/portal/desktop --method org.freedesktop.portal.Settings.Read org.gnome.desktop.interface enable-animations
  (<<false>>,)
  ```

  Apparently, `gdbus` is where some applications are looking when trying
  to figure out whether animations are enabled. From what I understand,
  this is _the_ correct way, even.

  Yesterday, I tried installing Ubuntu from scratch and I reproduced the
  issue on the clean OS install as well, so it's not something I botched
  along the way. You can see my screenshot gallery here:
  https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/155982#issuecomment-2387958637
  . This issue seems to not appear in installations of Ubuntu that were
  upgraded from version 22.04, only in clean installations of Ubuntu
  24.04.

  Another person on Mastodon was able to reproduce this issue, too:
  https://mastodon.social/@sesivany@vivaldi.net/113238290862309705

  I also asked this as a question on askubuntu
  (https://askubuntu.com/questions/1528661/clean-ubuntu-install-reports-
  enable-animations-as-false-when-theyre-enabled) but, in retrospect, I
  think this is a bug in the system, not a support question. I know I
  can fix this for myself but I want this to work as expected for
  others.

  System:

  ```
  $ lsb_release -rd
  No LSB modules are available.
  Description:	Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS
  Release:	24.04
  ```

  ## Expected

  gdbus (or whatever the subsystem that gdbus uses) returns the correct
  value for animations enabled/disabled state

  ## What happens instead

  gdbus returns false while everything else returns true

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 24.04
  Package: libglib2.0-bin 2.80.0-6ubuntu3.1
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 6.8.0-45.45-generic 6.8.12
  Uname: Linux 6.8.0-45-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.28.1-0ubuntu3.1
  Architecture: amd64
  CasperMD5CheckMismatches: ./boot/grub/grub.cfg
  CasperMD5CheckResult: fail
  CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
  Date: Thu Oct  3 11:18:41 2024
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2024-10-02 (1 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS "Noble Numbat" - Release amd64 (20240424)
  ProcEnviron:
   LANG=en_US.UTF-8
   PATH=(custom, no user)
   SHELL=/bin/bash
   TERM=xterm-256color
   XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
  SourcePackage: glib2.0
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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