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It most likely has a temp file laying around.
I have no clue where they are, but with strace you can look to see what file it checks right before it gives you that message. Go, and delete it. Most likely something in /tmp
I did the 'strace', but was not able to make anything out of it. My effort to get the screenshot into this post of mine did not succeed, as I was unable to copy-paste the contents.
I noticed an interesting coincidence. All the logins from which I had used Yahoo! Chat had the problem. I wasn't able to execute startx again in those login names.
Problem is probably caused by a lockfile or temp file, as mentioned.
Check what "ls -la" says... make sure there are no files owner by "root" in your homedir. Try
"find /home/yourhome -user root" and check what is found. Also check /tmp for useless tempfiles.
I once got one of my own tempfiles replaced by root's tempfile when I did "sudo <graphical_program>". Couldn't log in to Gnome from GDM before it was removed.
1) I changed all the ownership of directories and files in my home directory to my username.
2) Removed directories/file(s) from the /tmp folder that had my ownership.
3) Deleted .X0-lock file from the /tmp folder
Result:
No difference!!! I am still not able to run startx under my user name.
It is about time that I found a solution to my problem. I realized, or stumbled upon, to be more precise, on the solution. I was able to get back the GUI after deleting the file .Xauthority from all the logins where I had the problem.
Any idea why that particular file was causing this?
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