My linux is Slackware 10.1.

when I started XFCE4.2 for the first time as a common user, it failed and displayed some error message such as:

"...xfce4-session: Unable to establish ICE Listeners: Cannot Socket..."
"-ICETransSocketUNIXCreateListener..."
"...SocketCreateListener() failed..."
"-ICETransMakeAllCOTSServerListeners:"
"...server already running"

if I start XFCE for the second time, it could successfully start up.
and if I start XFCE as root, it also could start up without any error.

I deleted the file ~/.ICEauthority, it's helpless to solve this problem.

Sounds like a permission problem. Try ls -l on your home directory and see what files are not owned by you.

This happened to me once. Here is what I did. I su to root, and then started X. I then killed it and dropped back to my normal user, and then I was able to log into X. Worked!

Thank you, spaceballs

I have followed your instruction to "su" -> "startx" -> "quit current session" -> "exit" -> "startx", I could start the XFCE as a common user just like starting it for the second time.

but after reboot my linux, I still need to start it twice.

what do you mean "killed it"? it's same to "quit" the XFCE4.2? how to "kill" XFCE when you are in itself?

BTW, I have used "chown -R abc.users /home/abc" to insure all the directory's ownership is of user "abc". It seems useless.

Hi.
My system was running fine for years (ub 10.xx or 11?).
Since a few weeks i've got this message about 'socket and ICE listener.

Did you solve your pb? How?

Anyway tks all.

ls -l in /~ shows actually a file owned by root:
-rw-r--r-- 1 kerb kerb 272 2010-11-27 19:20 21st Century Dictionary.desktop
drwxr-xr-x 2 kerb users 4096 2011-11-20 18:48 bin
drwxr-xr-x 2 kerb kerb 4096 2012-03-25 13:04 Bureau
drwxrwxrwx 26 kerb users 12288 2012-04-09 17:56 Documents
drwxr-xr-x 2 kerb users 4096 2010-06-26 22:12 Harraps
drwxr-xr-x 6 kerb kerb 4096 2012-02-26 09:00 Images
drwxr-xr-x 3 kerb users 4096 2011-11-20 18:48 lib
drwxr-xr-x 2 kerb kerb 4096 2010-10-17 17:36 Modèles
drwxr-xr-x 104 kerb kerb 12288 2012-02-05 21:54 Musique
-rw-r--r-- 1 kerb users 551 2011-11-20 15:03 Notes_connections_variateur
drwxr-xr-x 8 kerb users 4096 2012-02-18 14:44 OmegaT
drwxr-xr-x 2 kerb kerb 4096 2010-10-17 17:36 Public
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2984 2010-12-22 21:58 sources.list.sav

with ls -l on home directory i found a file owned by root. I removed it. (sudo rm file).

I just restarted it and the message didn't show up.