[SOLVED] X Can't open display: :0

zeebra · 05-13-2022, 04:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alfred-Augustus

Just 5 minutes ago, I got the errors again. So I had to Cntl-Alt-Backspace to kill X and get back to console. Once in console, I did startx. Now X is working perfectly.

This is because a new xorg authority is created when you do that. The question is, why do you lose your xorg authority in the first place.

From what I can see there is nothing interesting in /var/log/messages, and neither is /var/log/secure because it just shows you opening /var/log/secure with sudo..
Do you find anything interesting(in your opinion) in /var/log/secure if you look into it?

zeebra · 05-13-2022, 04:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alfred-Augustus

Xorg.0.log (part 2)

The end.

You're right, there doesn't seem to be anything interesting there. Can you edit those posts and put the xorg.log in code tags?

Alfred-Augustus · 05-13-2022, 04:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zeebra

Well, the error message is typically a message that you get when you have no authority to open an xorg window or use xorg. This typically happens if you try to open something as another user.

Something could have triggered you the owner an xorg authority in the running instance to drop/lose the authority, which would lead to a scenario like the one you describe.

What puzzles me though is your prompt

Code:

tpbox>

What kind of prompt is that? Is that a custom bash prompt you made in .bash_profile/bashrc?

PS1="$USER> "

Yes. It is actually xxx>. I changed it to tpbox> in the above posts.

I think I got this bashrc file from Fedora.

Code:

$ cat .bashrc 
# .bashrc

# Source global definitions
if [ -f /etc/bashrc ]; then
        . /etc/bashrc
fi

# User specific environment
if ! [[ "$PATH" =~ "$HOME/.local/bin:$HOME/bin:" ]]
then
    PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$HOME/bin:$PATH"
fi
export PATH

# Uncomment the following line if you don't like systemctl's auto-paging feature:
# export SYSTEMD_PAGER=

# User specific aliases and functions
if [ -d ~/.bashrc.d ]; then
        for rc in ~/.bashrc.d/*; do
                if [ -f "$rc" ]; then
                        . "$rc"
                fi
        done
fi

unset rc

PS1="$USER> "
############################################################################
############################################################################
s() { echo ; echo -n "bat "; cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/capacity ; echo ; }

alias cp='cp -i'
alias mv='mv -i'

alias ffplay='ffplay -autoexit'

Alfred-Augustus · 05-13-2022, 04:49 AM

Code:

tpbox> cat .bash_profile 
# .bashrc

# Source global definitions
if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
    . ~/.bashrc
fi

zeebra · 05-13-2022, 04:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alfred-Augustus

Yes. It is actually

Nice, it's not something seen so often these days

Well, there isn't anything useful in the logs as of yet. But to me it seems that you somehow drop your xauthority, and the question is why this happens. It shouldn't happen is the easy answer.

I know this might sound silly, but is there a particular pattern of things that you tend to do right before this error happens? I mean, something could potentially trigger this issue to happen. But what?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alfred-Augustus

Code:

ksiu> cat .bash_profile

I don't think bashrc and bash_profile is relevant to the issue. It's not impossible, but IMO very unlikely, but I don't have good enough eyes to exclude errors in bashrc.

Alfred-Augustus · 05-13-2022, 05:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zeebra

Nice, it's not something seen so often these days

Well, there isn't anything useful in the logs as of yet. But to me it seems that you somehow drop your xauthority, and the question is why this happens. It shouldn't happen is the easy answer.

I know this might sound silly, but is there a particular pattern of things that you tend to do right before this error happens? I mean, something could potentially trigger this issue to happen. But what?

I don't think bashrc and bash_profile is relevant to the issue. It's not impossible, but IMO very unlikely, but I don't have good enough eyes to exclude errors in bashrc.

My bashrc file really only just change the user prompt.
/etc/bashrc does not exist, so nothing is done there.
~/.basrc.d also does not exist.
So, I agree bash is irrelevent here.

LuckyCyborg · 05-13-2022, 05:14 AM

Basically, the xauthority files are in /tmp , with names like /tmp/xauth-1000-_0 .

Also the X11 server pipe files are into /tmp/.X11-unix directory with names like /tmp/.X11-unix/X0

Is something setup to mess with the /tmp files? Also, is the /tmp a standard directory or a tmpfs mountpoint?

Alfred-Augustus · 05-13-2022, 05:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zeebra

I know this might sound silly, but is there a particular pattern of things that you tend to do right before this error happens? I mean, something could potentially trigger this issue to happen. But what?

On this Slackware, I have mostly use Firefox (Youtube and forums), Xterm and Mplayer. I haven't identified any pattern.

Alfred-Augustus · 05-13-2022, 06:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LuckyCyborg

Is something setup to mess with the /tmp files?

I have not used the /tmp directory for anything.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LuckyCyborg

Also, is the /tmp a standard directory or a tmpfs mountpoint?

I don't understand this question. I only have 3 partitions for Slackware: swap, / and /home. Here is my df -h output. Does that answer your question?

Code:

$ df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
tmpfs            32M  1.4M   31M   5% /run
devtmpfs        8.0M     0  8.0M   0% /dev
/dev/sda5        51G   16G   33G  32% /
tmpfs           1.8G     0  1.8G   0% /dev/shm
cgroup_root     8.0M     0  8.0M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/sda6        49G   12G   35G  25% /home
tmpfs           363M   12K  363M   1% /run/user/1000

LuckyCyborg · 05-13-2022, 06:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alfred-Augustus

I don't understand this question. But here is my df -h output. Does that answer your question?

Code:

tpbox> df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
tmpfs            32M  1.4M   31M   5% /run
devtmpfs        8.0M     0  8.0M   0% /dev
/dev/sda5        51G   16G   33G  32% /
tmpfs           1.8G     0  1.8G   0% /dev/shm
cgroup_root     8.0M     0  8.0M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/sda6        49G   12G   35G  25% /home
tmpfs           363M   12K  363M   1% /run/user/1000

Yes, it answers. Your /tmp is a standard directory.

The question was regarding that some users mount into /tmp a (in memory) temporary filesystem, like is /run . Think about something like a ramdisk.

Alfred-Augustus · 05-13-2022, 08:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LuckyCyborg

I recommend you to create a new user with "adduser" and to set the default groups for it, then to see if you can reproduce the issue while using this new user account.

I followed the Beginners Guide to add new user:

Code:

useradd -m -g users -G wheel,floppy,audio,video,cdrom,plugdev,power,netdev,lp,scanner -s /bin/bash slacker

I switched to this user and started using Firefox. About 30 minutes, later, the same X-authority problem started again.

ponce · 05-13-2022, 08:23 AM

Does this happens if you switch to a different WM like kde/xfce using xwmconfig (and do a startx again)?
Don't forget to backup your ~/.xinitrc in case you have customized it.

Alfred-Augustus · 05-13-2022, 09:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ponce

Does this happens if you switch to a different WM like kde/xfce using xwmconfig (and do a startx again)?
Don't forget to backup your ~/.xinitrc in case you have customized it.

yes, it hapens in KDE, Fvwm2, and Fluxbox.
yes, i use xwmconfig to switch WM.

henca · 05-13-2022, 12:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alfred-Augustus

yes, it hapens in KDE, Fvwm2, and Fluxbox.
yes, i use xwmconfig to switch WM.

As you were unable to find any clue in your log files, what about the output from startx in the console where X was started? My guess is that you at least there should find error messages about being unable to open display when you fail to start some application from the menus. X applications started from a terminal window will put their stderr with error messages to that terminal but applications started from the window manager will probably put their errors to stderr of the console where startx was run.

If you instead of using startx log in to some graphic environment like kdm you might get your error messages in a file ~/.xsession-errors

Is there any difference in the output from "xauth list" when you can open new windows and after it fails?

Just to make sure, check the output of "df -h" when opening new windows fails, a filled home partition might make it impossible to open new windows.

regards Henrik

Alfred-Augustus · 05-14-2022, 02:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by henca

As you were unable to find any clue in your log files, what about the output from startx in the console where X was started? My guess is that you at least there should find error messages about being unable to open display when you fail to start some application from the menus. X applications started from a terminal window will put their stderr with error messages to that terminal but applications started from the window manager will probably put their errors to stderr of the console where startx was run.

If you instead of using startx log in to some graphic environment like kdm you might get your error messages in a file ~/.xsession-errors

Is there any difference in the output from "xauth list" when you can open new windows and after it fails?

Just to make sure, check the output of "df -h" when opening new windows fails, a filled home partition might make it impossible to open new windows.

regards Henrik

No error message in the console, after the X-can't-open-display.

But there is a always this message after I execute startx...

Code:

$ startx
xauth:  file /home/tpbox/.serverauth.xxxx does not exist

The xxxx is some 4 digit number.

I didn't experience the problem today. So, I couldn't try "xauth list".