startx problem
 

OK guys....help me out. I've been using Slackware 13 since it was released and suddenly this morning startx quit working for me as a regular user. It will work as root. I also created a new user and it works fine there too. I'm thinking I have some corrupted files as my regular user but I don't know which ones to look at. I've already replaced the .Xauthority file but that didn't help. Any ideas??

Thanks !

If you think startx itself is corrupt, you might run xwmconfig to regenerate it.

If you have been using startx to get to KDE4, then it is possible that your /usr/tmp/kdecache-<username>/ksycoca4 database is corrupt. You could try running /usr/bin/kbuildsycoca4 to rebuild the database.

Startx itself works. I created another regular user and it works fine there....also as root. Just my regular user account quit. It's some file corrupted in my user startup I assume.

I misspoke in my previous post. Startx will source your user's .xinitrc if you have one. I would think that's where corruption might lie. Xwmconfig will regenerate your .xinitrc file - not startx itself.

I agree with DonnieP, it sounds like an issue with your .xinitrc file. If I were having this problem, I'd probably back up my .xinitrc, then copy over the .xinitrc from the user account that can startx to my home directory. See if that fixes your problem.

Also, are you getting any error messages when you try to startx? Have you checked your logs (/var/log/Xorg.0.log)? There might be some clues to be found..

Hope that helps!

OK......I'll give that a try. I'm away from home now but will be back tomorrow night and I will copy the .xinitrc file over then. I'll let ya'll know how it turns out!!

Thanks everyone!!!!

Well...that didn't work. I didn't have an .xinitrc in my home directory so I copied /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc and placed it in there. It still doesn't start. I also ran "xorgsetup" as root but that didn't help either. If I hit Ctrl+Alt+F1 it scrolls "No Protocol Specified" until it times out and gives some error message about "invalid argument" and no permission for my home .Xauthority. I've already replaced the .Xauthority with one I copied from the new user account I created but that didn't help either.

I'm considering just deleting this user account and recreating it but I have some emails I need to save first. Where can I find those emails as root so I can save them?? I've already copied everything I need out of that "home" directory.

Thanks

Oh.....I forgot to mention, I'm using Seamonkey for my browser and also my email. I've looked in /home/MyUserName/.mozilla/seamonkey but I there is no mail folder. Where do I look to find my email with Seamonkey?

Thanks

Mails in your 'inbox' will generally be in the file "/var/spool/mail/yourUserName". Mails you already downloaded will probably have been saved by the email app to somewhere in /home/yourUserName ... including in one of those lucky .hidden folders. (Make sure you do a 'FULL' backup of that /home/yourUserName ... not just a copy of the visible folders.)

Sorry to repeat myself, but you don't mention if you've tried this.

Your log file will probably give you some clues as to where to start looking for the problem. You can browse through it, and see what happens at the end. Or you can grep (EE) (for errors) or (WW) (for warnings) to just look at those types of messages. The file is at /var/Xorg.0.log

Of course, if you don't mind recreating your user account, you can always do that instead.

Hope that helps.