xauth: error in locking authority file

agrestic · 02-02-2009, 04:30 PM

I installed 12.2, then the latest nvidia driver. I rebooted, leaving the initial boot parameters alone in inittab (e.g., init 3). I used startx as a normal user to log into KDE. Then to start GIMP as root, and edit slack.bmp, I did this as root:

Code:

xauth merge /home/agrestic/.Xauthority

Then I rebooted.

I logged in (init 3) as agrestic, then tried startx. I could move the mouse (which looked like an X) over the screen but KDE never loaded. I did Ctl+Alt+F1 and saw this error multiple times, once every few seconds:

Code:

AUDIT: Mon Feb 2 15:01:32 2009: 3486 X: client 1 rejected from local host (uid 500)

At the end of the errors, which lasted several minutes, I also got this, below the aforementioned error:

Code:

No protocol specified
xinit: Server error
xauth: error in locking authority file /home/agrestic/.Xauthority

Is this because root, instead of agrestic, executed "xauth merge /home/agrestic/.Xauthority"? If not, what did I do wrong?
TIA

******
SOLVED
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I found /$HOME/.Xauthority-c, .Xauthority-l, and .Xauthority. Deleted them all, rebooted, & all is right with the world again.
...Though I still don't know what I did wrong in the first place.

gilead · 02-03-2009, 05:56 PM

I haven't done that in a while, but I used to run xauth merge ~steve/.Xauthority on one of my older boxes so I could run a particular gui app as root. After running that command I had to run chown steve:steve ~steve/.Xauthority because the ~steve/.Xauthority file was being changed to root ownership.

If you strike the problem again it may be worth checking whether that has happened.