[KDE] Boot annoyance...

[timgood]

Hi Guys: I'm running Kubuntu 14.10 64bit. Following some updates about two weeks ago I'm getting some weird behaviour. Sometimes when I boot, the desktop loads normally but some applications (shutter, kup, conky) do not load. When I try to launch systemsettings and some other applications, I get a message saying 'kdeinit could not launch...' and the reboot, shutdown and logoff buttons become unresponsive. I can also not update the system using muon (it says authentication was not given, although it is not asked for.) I can update, install and launch applications directly from the terminal without any problems.

If I force a logout using 'sudo service lightdm restart' I just get a black screen. I can launch a terminal from there by hitting F1. After logging in, I can 'startx' and all my system tray icons for shutter, kup etc. come back and the desktop behaves normally. Then I reboot and the desktop launches fine. But subsequent reboots make the problem start again.

I suspect that it is something to do with PAM but this is driving me mad. Any ideas or suggestions as to what could be causing this and what I could do to fix it? I've tried 'sudo pam-auth-update --force' and other fixes, but the problem persists.

[Qqmike]

A wild shot. I had some similar (but quite different) issues recently. I wonder if this could be an .Xauthority issue? (The Muon permission thing, to me, sounds like a PolicyKit issue, but I am unable to locate anything for PolicyKit for 14.04 in System Settings. I fixed this problem simply by re-booting, but you are having trouble doing that, so ...)

How about trying to delete .Xauthority and let it regenerate itself?

Quoted from my recent thread:

You don't need to boot into recovery mode to remove .Xauthority. You can remove it from normal boot:

1. [when the login screen is visible] -- or when you can get a terminal, press Ctrl+Alt+F1 (to change to a virtual text terminal)
2. login with your user credentials
3. run 'rm ~/.Xauthority'
4. logout from terminal ( "exit" or Ctrl+d)
5. Switch back to the login screen (Ctrl+Alt+F7)

Secondly,
If your home partition isn't mounted automatically when you boot into recovery mode (command "mount" will list active mounts), you can mount it by running "mount /home"

Or, instead of remove, rename it, then try reboot:


mv .Xauthority .Xauthority.old
sudo shutdown -r now

[timgood]

A wild shot. I had some similar (but quite different) issues recently. I wonder if this could be an .Xauthority issue? (The Muon permission thing, to me, sounds like a PolicyKit issue, but I am unable to locate anything for PolicyKit for 14.04 in System Settings. I fixed this problem simply by re-booting, but you are having trouble doing that, so ...)

How about trying to delete .Xauthority and let it regenerate itself?

Quoted from my recent thread:

You don't need to boot into recovery mode to remove .Xauthority. You can remove it from normal boot:

1. [when the login screen is visible] -- or when you can get a terminal, press Ctrl+Alt+F1 (to change to a virtual text terminal)
2. login with your user credentials
3. run 'rm ~/.Xauthority'
4. logout from terminal ( "exit" or Ctrl+d)
5. Switch back to the login screen (Ctrl+Alt+F7)

Secondly,
If your home partition isn't mounted automatically when you boot into recovery mode (command "mount" will list active mounts), you can mount it by running "mount /home"

Or, instead of remove, rename it, then try reboot:


mv .Xauthority .Xauthority.old
sudo shutdown -r now

Thanks for this, have given it a go and so far, so good. Will monitor and report back. Your help is appreciated.

[Qqmike]

Glad it let some sunshine in. Hope it holds (which it probably will).

(Muon: I got that same problem with Muon after I got a whole bunch of system updates (I think 2-15-15) of 'serious-looking' programs. To solve the problem, a re-boot worked, even though the update did not call for a re-boot.)

[timgood]

Have rebooted now a couple of times and all seems well. If it stays this way, I'll mark this thread solved. Thanks once again for your help.