Display problems

kris.c · 03-01-2008, 03:03 PM

Hi,
I am only able to boot into the command line interface. After logging in, I tried startx as user and root, I got the following error message :

Code:

xauth : Creating a new authority file /home/user_name/.serverauth.2585

Fatal server error : 
 Server is already running for display 0
Xlib : Connection to "0:0" refused by server
Xlib : Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 key 
Giving up
Xinit : Unable to connect to X-server
Xinit : No such process ( errno 3) : server error

What can I do to restore the display back to normal?

osor · 03-01-2008, 04:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kris.c

I am only able to boot into the command line interface.

Perhaps you have a display manager already running on a different VT. Try tapping Alt-Left a few times (until you either run into your display manager or return to the VT where you started).

rjlee · 03-01-2008, 05:10 PM

As Osor suggests, the message “Server is already running for display 0” implies that an X server is already running with an ID of 0, which is what startx tries to create by default.

This is probably on another virtual terminal but it's also possible that the other X server is running on a “pure” virtual terminal, such as for a VNC server, in which case you might try

Code:

startx -- :1

to start a server with display ID 1 (instead of the default 0).

You may need to try higher numbers if you get a similar message, since there's no arbitrary limit on the number of display managers you can have running, so there may be more than one.

Hope that helps,

—Robert J Lee

kris.c · 03-02-2008, 10:27 AM

I happened to reboot my comp and everything worked fine

Thanks anyway.