This file gives me grief every time I log in via one of the window managers (fluxbox, windowmaker, etc.). It gets hosed somehow, and I always have to change write permissions to it. After that, DCOP works during the session. When I log out, and log back in, .ICEauthority is hosed again with its permissions changed.

Can anyone tell me what this file is; and why it gets hosed?

Thanks.

As far as I know the ICE protocol is the Inter-Client Exchange protocol. The .ICEauthority file holds session info for your X stuff. I've seen the .Xauthority file's ownership changed when running xauth merge ~steve/.Xauthority as root to be able to run some gui app as root, but I haven't seen .ICEauthority affected that way.

What are the permissions/ownership being changed to?

Can you check this out.

You have logged in as user 'X' .
You open a KDE application [like konqueror or k3b ] as root user or have given suid permission to some application and execute it.
This will change the ownership of .ICEauthority file.

Check if that is being done anywhere.

Thanks for the replies; and apologies for the delayed response. Now gilead asked "What are the permissions/ownership being changed to?" The file permissions get changed to read/write for the user only. After I change permissions to 777, then DCOP begins functioning again, and I can log into a KDE session. Windowmaker will still work regardless, but DCOP keeps complaining when I launch konqueror from any window manager other than KDE. KDE simply will not launch while permissions are user rw only. Odd, huh?

Zulfilee: I believe this has to do with KDE at session open and session close; but I haven't check this out yet. I'll post results when I have them.

Thanks to you both, and if you find any more enlightenment (no pun) please post!