Could not init font path element unix/:7100, removing from list!
 

Hey linux gurus...

I have been unable to boot my fedora core, and as you can read in the post titled "fedora wont boot, displays nvidia splash screen over and over" I had origianlly thought it was an nvidia driver or card issue. However, when I recently typed "startx" from the command line (in runlevel 3) I found the following error message after it went to the nvidia splash screen and then returned to the command line:


Could not init font path element unix/:7100, removing from list!

Fatal server error:
could not open default font 'fixed'


So I commented out the line

#FontPath "unix/:7100"

in XF86Config and typed startx. Now, the splash screen comes on for only a moment (as it used to) and then it goes the the black X cursor that you see when booting right before you see the boot progress. I almost jumped out of my seat, as I though it was fixed. But after about two seconds it went back to command line, and shows the following error:

Could not init font path element /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/, removing from list!

/root/.Xclients: line 8: /root/.Xclients-default: No such file or directory
/root/.Xclients: line 8: exec: /root/.Xclients-default: cannot execute: No such file or directory


So, anybody have any ideas? I still a bit of a newbie, and I'm totally stuck here. PLEASE HELP!!!!

fixed!
 

Thanks for helping everyone.

It turns out it was related either to the font path element or the "/root/.Xclients: line 8: /root/.Xclients-default: No such file or directory" error, because I commented out the 'FontPath "unix/:7100" ' from the XF86Config file, and copied my existing .Xclients-localhost..... file to .Xclients-default and EVERYTHING is fine again!!

Still dont understand what happened to cause all this, or what "all this" even was about, but for now I'm glad it's fixed.

This forum is such a great resource! What a lifesaver it has been for a guy trying to dump windows, but who has NO programming experience. Thanks to all!

That kind of error message means that X can't talk to the font server it is expecting to find listening on port 7100. This either means you've not got an X font server (so shouldn't be trying to use it), or it's died.

cheers

Jamie...

To restart if it is dead:

% /etc/init.d/xfs start

Hope this helps.

You can also use the service command to work with the scripts in /etc/init.d . So for xfs it would be:

service xfs [start|stop|restart]

I guess I'm showing my age :).

Refer to is as experience ;). I actually have you by about 2 months in the age department. :)

Most likelly your harddrive is full

Emil

hi.

i'm getting that "could not init font path element" on a number of my font directories, and i don't use xfs. the x server still starts, and actually i never realized the issue until one day when i logged in through the console and had to do a "startx" for a few minutes. when i came out i saw what it had output before starting the x server and there were around 7 or 8 directories that it could not init. any ideas?

fideli

HI,

I was indeed out of disk space like one of the replies suggested, although it sounds like perhaps this is not your problem. Aside from confirming that the paths causing the trouble actually exist, and have write permissions, I'm not sure what to tell you.

Anyone else?

I am not sure if it is the same but I had some problems with my font paths, actually I checked my /var/log/messages and I found this "xfs: ignoring font path elements .....'
after doing a search, I found a fix.
I just removed the path to the fonts and problem solved.
This is what I did for each path listed as not found, I typed as root
$ chkfontpath -l
whatever was not found I just removed the path
$ chkfontpath -r <name of font path not found>

try using port 7110 instead of port 7100. i did an update a while back and this fixed it.

Thanks very much!! I think i can fix it now, it's the usage of disk is 100% !
ok, now i'm using lynx to browser. it's blessing that this site can be browserd by lynx. now i rm all the file in /tmp/ any will try to startx after posting this reply...

I have such trouble, xfs running, but X can't connect to fontserver. It occured then / (root partition) hasn't free disk space.
Sweep your / or bay new harddisk :), .
#rm ~/.fonts.cache-1. (with old .font.cache-1 doesn't work)
#service xfs restart
#startx

i have 30GB free on /
 

hello

i am having the same issue, when i type startx i receive the error message mentioned.

I dont believe the cause of my issue is disk space. i have a 60GB hdd. I checked with du and im only using 28GB. i checked fdisk and it shows the / slice is mounted to a partition with 58GB.

this issue didnt appear until I transplanted the hdd into a totally different box. everything uninstalled/reinstalled ok as far as i can tell and I have not noticed any issues other than with xserver.

thanks!

Hi, I had the same "...font path element unix/:7100 removing from list" error after a "yum -y update" command. Commenting out the Fontpath line did help booting X on console correctly.
Thanks to all...

tried everything but ....
 

Hi all,

I think my problem is bit more convoluted then most cited here.

I was running fedora core for past 2-3 months and one day when booted the machine everything went fine up until I clicked on a folder on the desktop.

The graphics disappeared and problem was Xserver could not be started when i saw the log file error was: "could not open default font 'fixed' "


Being a complete newbie I searched for the solution here and tried the following :

1> freed up disk space (had 600mb now its 1.3 GB)
=> prob not solved
2> commented unix/:7100, restarted xfs , ran startx
=> saw the graphics for sometime when tried to open a folder... the problem reappeared
3> changed port to 7110
=> no relief


.............
Please tell me if I am missing something since the problem is existing even after trying everything.
When i reboot the system everything works fine until I try to open a folder (using mouse!)

Please help me... I have to finish my project on NS2 by 17th of May, and I am stuck with this problem.

Will the problem get solved if I reinstall Fedora???


Please REPLY as soon as you see it

Hoping to get the solution fast..

thanx

Solved for me
 

Hi i had the same problem

Fatal server error:
could not open default font 'fixed'

Could not init font path element unix/:7100, removing from list!

My OS is RHEL4

I edited /etc/X11/xorg.conf
and i added these lines to the "Files" section

FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/CID/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"

and then i rebooted my server
and every think is ok

I hope this work for you

Spent most of the morning trying to troubleshoot this too.

Fixed in the end by hashing out the following line in /etc/X11/xorg.conf and then rebooted

FontPath "unix/:7100"