Here is the result of running the app: (xfce4-appearance-settings:11582): Gdk-WARNING **: Using Cairo rendering requires the drawable argument to have a specified colormap. All windows have a colormap, however, pixmaps only have colormap by default if they were created with a non-NULL window argument. Otherwise a colormap must be set on them with gdk_drawable_set_colormap (xfce4-appearance-settings:11582): Gdk-WARNING **: /build/gtk+2.0-KsZKkB/gtk+2.0-2.24.30/gdk/gdkpixbuf-drawable.c:1257: Depth of the source drawable is 24 where as the visual depth of the colormap passed is 16 The program 'xfce4-appearance-settings' received an X Window System error. This probably reflects a bug in the program. The error was 'BadValue (integer parameter out of range for operation)'. (Details: serial 193 error_code 2 request_code 53 minor_code 0) (Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously; that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it. To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)
I can't reproduce this anymore and this bugreport is fairly old (pre Gtk3 port).