wjmaclean@ thinks that Chrome isn't abiding properly by the config-prefs file of my window manager (i.e. OpenBox).

This looks like  crbug.com/794376 . It may be that, like Cinnamon, your window manager is using a different location for the button layout setting.

FWIW, here is what I get from gsettings:
$ gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout
'close,minimize,maximize:'

Like in  issue 794376  all the other windows (Google Hangouts Chrome App, gvim, LXTerminal) place window controls on the right side of the window.  Chrome is the only one that places window controls on the left side of the window.

I am not sure if there is a way to track down what is the root source of the gsettings value that I see above.  FWIW, some time ago I did experience an issue ( issue 781347 ) with notifications where there were 2 conflicting sources of settings.

Thanks for the report. The easiest way to fix it is to run:

$ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout ':minimize,maximize,close'

As background, before M65 we were reading the button layout settings from gsettings, which (I believe) no desktop environment actually sets anymore (it's been deprecated for years). It's purely coincidental that the default layout (in Chrome) is the same as what you are using in Openbox.

For M65 we are changing to using gsettings, which is set by Gnome (and some other DEs). This allows us to remove an old unmaintained dependency, and also means we correctly read the settings for some common desktop environments. However, it also means that for less common setups like yours, we effectively break the experience.

This ends up only being a problem on Ubuntu 14.04. All other distros/versions have a high enough version of GTK+ which allows us to use an API to get the button layout setting instead. Also, because Ubuntu 14.04 defaults to Unity, and Unity puts the buttons on the left, this problem is exacerbated.

In short, use the command above to fix your personal experience. We don't want to add individual support for every WM out there (especially since this only affects Ubuntu 14.04, and I can't actually find any information about how Openbox configures the button layout), but I will chat with Tom to see if we can come up with a heuristic to lessen the impact on users.

Thanks.  Running the command below:

$ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout ':minimize,maximize,close'

helped (and didn't even require restarting Chrome).


Feel free to resolve the bug as WontFix based on what you said in #c6.

Interestingly, the issue started happening again after I've restarted Chrome to pick-up the newest Dev version (65.0.3298.3 although it probably doesn't matter).  I see that for some reason, the "org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout" setting got reverted:

$ gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout
'close,minimize,maximize:'

I am not sure what could have changed this setting - I can't think of any reason why it would change.  FWIW, AFAIR I did not restart the desktop in the last 48 hours.

That's very odd. Even a restart (of anything) shouldn't change those settings. That's the point of them, they are meant to persist. That suggests there is an app on your computer which is setting it back.

There is a 'gsettings monitor' command, but it doesn't show which program changed the settings, only what the new value is. It might at least be a little useful to leave that running so that you can see when it gets changed.

@lukasza: are you still finding that the settings are getting reverted? If not, we will close this bug.

No - the settings seem to be sticking.  Let's close this bug.