My bad, I posted first and then went checking, found the pid file in /var/run.

I do not know enough about Ubuntu startup scripts to tell if the execution order affects your issue or not. You can definitely try and rename S50dbus to S12dbus, if it fixes your problem then we both know more.

I do not have a /var/run/dbus.pid file

OK, that means dbus wasn't started for some other reason. Can you start it by hand? Do you get any error messages when starting it?

By the way, I thought of uninstalling and reinstalling dbus, but to my horror, it lists MANY packages that will be removed with dbus.

I think, these others depend on dbus, so since dbus is being removed, they will also be removed, is that right? Or is it that these are the dependencies dbus needs, and since dbus is being removed they are not needed and will also be removed.

If it is the former, I do not want to reinstall all those after removing and installing dbus. If it is the latter, they would be automatically installed with dbus, right?

Is uninstalling and reinstalling something like dbus, which looks like a central part of the OS, even a good idea?

Thanks.

Looks like, although I do not have that pid file, dbus was actually started. Because, if I run

sudo service dbus start

it says "job is already running".

This may be false positive. In case your Ubuntu does not keep the pid file in /var/run but somewhere else (I hate when distros use unconventional locations) it is found and considered proof the service is running, while the process may be actually dead and the pid file is stale. What was the location mentioned in this thread earlier again? /usr/local/something ... maybe your stale pid file is somewhere there ...

Are you referring to this?

[ 12.691095] init: Unable to connect to the D-Bus system bus: Failed to connect to socket /usr/local/var/run/dbus/system_bus_socket: Connection refused

If so, I now removed that, too, and restarted. Still the same...

Did you look into /usr/local/var/run/, if the dbus.pid is there remove it and try starting dbus again.

No dbus.pid file there. Just /usr/local/var/run/dbus/system_bus_socket, which I've removed (and rebooted). Didn't work.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks.

What message you get when you stop the dbus?

Just a confirmation that it is stopped.

When I go to /etc and execute

ls -l rc?.d | grep dbus

I get nothing!

According to this thread

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=819551

I should have a line in one of these rc#.d files to start dbus, right?

OK, now try to start it again. What message you get if any.

$ sudo service dbus stop

dbus stop/waiting


$ sudo service dbus start

dbus start/running


that is all I get.