domferr / domferr/tilingshell

GNOME Shell crashes with SIGABRT when launching Zed editor (Mutter paint assertion failure, GNOME 50)

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#583 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
Dominant language
TypeScript
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Forks
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Description

**Describe the bug**

GNOME Shell crashes entirely (SIGABRT / signal 6) when launching the Zed editor. The crash is a Mutter/Clutter assertion failure in the paint pipeline — `clutter_actor_continue_paint` → `clutter_paint_node_paint` → `meta_window_actor_paint_to_content`. Disabling Tiling Shell resolves the issue completely.

**To Reproduce**
1. Install Tiling Shell v17.3 on GNOME 50 / Mutter 50 (Wayland)
2. Install Zed editor (v1.9.0) — a GPU-accelerated, Vulkan-based code editor
3. Launch Zed from the app menu or terminal (`zeditor`)
4. GNOME Shell crashes immediately, user is logged out

**Expected behavior**
Zed opens normally without crashing the shell.

**Stack trace (from coredump)**
```
#0 pthread_kill (libc.so.6)
#1 raise (libc.so.6)
#2 abort (libc.so.6)
#3 g_assertion_message_expr (libglib-2.0.so.0)
#4 clutter_actor_continue_paint (libmutter-clutter-18.so.0)
#5 clutter_paint_node_paint (libmutter-clutter-18.so.0)
#6 clutter_actor_paint (libmutter-clutter-18.so.0)
#7 meta_window_actor_paint_to_content (libmutter-18.so.0)
```

Also present in journal before crash:
```
Attempting to call back into JSAPI during the sweeping phase of GC. This is most likely caused by not destroying a Clutter actor or Gtk+ widget with ::destroy signals connected...
```

**Environment**
- Tiling Shell version: **17.3**
- GNOME version: **50.3** (Mutter 50.3-1.1)
- Desktop: GNOME on **Wayland**
- GPU: Intel Alder Lake (Mesa Intel Graphics, Mesa 26.1.4)
- Distro: CachyOS (Arch Linux, rolling)
- Zed version: 1.9.0

**Additional context**
- Issue #579 reports a similar GNOME 50 rendering problem (windows failing to render), but this is more severe — it kills the entire GNOME Shell session.
- v17.3 does not list GNOME 50 in its metadata.json shell-version (same as #579). v18.0 RC (#582) adds GNOME 50 support — this crash may already be fixed there.
- Zed uses Vulkan for GPU-accelerated rendering, which likely triggers a different paint path than regular GTK apps.
- Workaround: disabling Tiling Shell, or launching Zed with `GDK_BACKEND=x11`.
- The `libmutter-clutter-18.so.0` shows as `(deleted)` in coredump metadata (library was replaced during a system update while the process was running).

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start by comparing v17.3's metadata.json with the GNOME 50 support added in the v18.0 RC referenced by #582, then reproduce the crash by launching Zed through Wayland with Tiling Shell enabled. Check whether the `clutter_actor_continue_paint` assertion and GC warning still occur; done means Zed launches without logging out the GNOME session.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
arch-linux, linux, typescript
Domain
desktop, operating-systems
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
48/100

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