Something terrible has happened!

Suddenly, I am unable to access any System Administration applications (e.g, Yast, File Manager - Super User Mode, Smart Package Manager). I get the prompt for the root password, enter it, then nothing happens.I can now only get at these functions by logging out, and re-logging in as root.

At the same time, the Terminal (Konsole)died! When I try to start a Terminal, a window appears, but displays just a static cursor. It will not accept any input. When I click on the close button, after a while it says something like " Shell - Konsole Not responding...." and gives me the options to terminate or keep running, I terminate, restart the computer, and the "dead" window re-appears. The only way I can get rid of it is to go to KSysGuard, find the Konsole process and "kill" it manually. The same happens if I try to use the normal (user) mode, or the Super User mode.

X-Terminal still works fine, and allows root access.

It all began when I tried to install the RPM for pdfedit. This installation failed, due to lack of a dependency "rtld". I posted a question on a forum, and someone said rtld should in glibc or glibc-devel. I checked (in Yast), and these were already installed, but I updated them in case something was missing. I tried to install pdfedit RPM again, and it still failed, so I gave up. The next time I restarted the machine I had this problem.

I'm running Suse 10.2, KDE 3.5.7. Kernel 2.6.18.8-0.5

I'm desperate! Someone PLEASE. PLEASE HELP!!

Wow, if your system administrator (a person) has died, it is serious

I had a problem with a non-xterm terminal emulator some weeks ago, it also started but I was unable to type anything, as there was just a "static cursor" like you said. My problem was simply that when I created the user in case, I had forgot to specify which shell that user uses. Of course bash was used by default, but for some reason the terminal emulator couldn't figure that out, and thus it looked like I had no shell and it refused to give me a terminal. Fix was to set the shell to bash (which I use) with
Though in your case, if it has worked before, I don't think it's about that. What if you started Konsole off xterm? Open up an xterm that works, and
then see if you get anything peculiar, like errors. They might be of help in figuring out the problem. The same goes for the administrative tools; you should try and start them off an xterm, and see if you get errors; now I'm neither a SuSE nor KDE user, but here's my guess:
or something similar. See if you get anything useful out of it (kdesu is the graphical little thing that asks for your password to run the given program with root privileges, and the other argument is the program you wish to run).

In my opensuse 10.2 system, glibc is version 2.5.25, what is yours? I haven't seen an update for glibc since I installed opensuse, what did you update it with?

Thanks everyone.

Sorry about the delay in replying, but my ADSL line got struck by lightening and I've been off-line for about 5 days, waiting for the phone company to fix it. I'm beginning to think "someone up there" doesn't like me!

I haven't had time to try out any of your suggestions yet, bOuncer, but i will in the next day or so, then I'll post another reply.

In answer to your question, Auxsvr, I "updated" glibc with the same version (2.5.25) just in case the original had become corrupted.

Thanks again for all your help

If you run something from the xterm, do any error messages appear? Try ldconfig as root. Check whether the line with your username in /etc/passwd includes /bin/bash in the end. By the way, I just installed pdfedit with --nodeps in the command line. Nice program!

OK - I tried to run Konsole in xterm, and I got a stream of messages like this:
4598: Warning:ignoring out-of-map direct binding for symbol _ZTV6KShred: 0x323ff6.

I have successfully run Yast2 from xterm. I get the same stream of messages, but then Yast2 starts OK and works.

If I type ldconfig as root, I get nothing, just the prompt.

I checked /etc/password and the entries all have /bin/bash at the end.

I hope this helps someone to suggest a solution. I really don't want to have to do a re-install, but it's looking increasingly likely!

Thanks again to everyone who is helping

Hi Myrlin,

just a suggestion as a diagnostic - are you able to access User Profiles and if so are you able to create a new user?

If you create a new user does the new user have the same problems?

This is a suggestion from an uneducated user - it's the problem I've been having with Mandriva and the reason I'm now (impatiently) waiting for my SuSE 10.2 disk to arrive in the mail. Something keeps corrupting my user profile.

What I've got that differs to your problem however is that everything works absolutely perfectly when I'm logged into a root gui.

I feel your pain, hope this helps.

Cheers,

Andrew.

Have you enabled prelink? This bugzilla page indicates that there's a problem with it. Try disabling it, it's pretty useless as far as I know. Or try enabling it, if you had enabled it before and nothing else works.

Andrew,

You must be telepathic! The same thought came to me in the middle of the night (sad, or what?). Just tried it, but the new user has the same problem. Thanks for your concern and good wishes, though.

Auxsvr,

Yes, I do have Prelink enabled. I will try disabling it to see if it makes any difference.

BTW, how did you install pdfedit? Did you use the RPM, or the tarball? I assume you installed it from the command line, not Yast. What command did you use, exactly? I would like to install it in my machine (safely!!) once I've got this problem licked.

Thanks. everyone.

YIPPEE!!!! EVERYTHING'S WORKING AGAIN!

I disabled Prelink, as you suggested Auxsvr, and everything came good!

I just can't thank you enough

I'm glad I could help, I installed pdfedit with the following command (as root): and everything worked fine.

..And another success! I downloaded and installed it with no problems.

Once again, thank you SO much, Auxsvr. I am really so very grateful.