Hello,

I would like to know how to get programs to stop autostarting when I load Xwindows / Gnome.

When I login I get about 3-4 programs that Autostart which I do not want starting. One of these programs is Pidgin Internet Messenger.

I have looked in all the normal places for autostarting programs such as: xinit, rc2.d, ALL autostart folders, and the Sessions tape in Preferences > Sessions.

No matter where I look I can't find where these programs have hidden there autostart commands.

Could someone please tell me.

Thank you !

Did you check System->Administration->Services and the Startup Programs tab under System->Preferences->Sessions? I find it hard to believe that an open source program was written to hide its autostart command, save for the ones that are necessary for system operation. BTW- I use pidgin, and it didn't add an autostart command on my system when it was installed.

Cheers

Yes i looked under services and pref>sessions and it isn't running there. I don't know where it is auto starting from ? It if very odd. Typically it is in the Preferences>Sessions section but the only stuff in there is the normal services like network manager, bluetooth crap, etc, etc

Did you check the Preferences and Account Settings menus for Pidgin? (right-click the system tray icon and select from menu.) They're not in mine, but it's an older version that, again, did not add an auto-start command.

Cheers

Yeah I looked in the programs prefrences however nothing about starting on bootup or auto-starting. Even if it did have a setting like that it would be in a file somewhere or put in a startup location somewhere. I find it very wierd and have yet to find a solution. Pidgin is only 1 of the programs I got like 4 or 5 that do this on startup and I don't know why. I have never seen this before with any of the apps I have ever installed in any way weather it was with synapics or apt-get, or from source.


Any further insight would be great if anyone has any?

How are you logging off the machine when you are done? The programs that are all starting may be saved in the system state. Try logging on, closing everything (including closing pidgin from the system tray), and log off through System->Quit. Then try logging in and seeing if the programs all start again.

Hmmm this is a possibility. However I have closed all the applications even out of the system tray and then just go log off user. I will have to check the services. Whats the commmand agian to see all active services and to sniff out which programs use which service when running. I forget what it is, i used to have to use it to find zombie processes and kill them.

Look at:
top is better known than htop, but I like htop much better.

Sure sounds like those programs are listed in System/Preferences/Sessions/Startup Tab. I've removed/added programs there on several occasions w/ success. That said, I've never had a problem w/ Pidgin starting upon boot. It doesn't start until I select it.

IGF

i have the same problem with my recent upgrade. did you ever get a solution to this?

may be its a flaw in the new 9.x Ubuntu.

I tired everything you guys did with no success. Its annoying for sure.

It is amazing to me that everywhere I look people say go to System -> Preferences -> Sessions and when I go there, there is no "Sessions" in my Preferences menu! So none of this applies. I have pidgin auto starting but now I want it to stop autostarting because I'm using Empathy.

-Wayne

What distro, what ver., what DE? -- How can we help you if we don't know what you're asking about?

Unfortunately I have lost my notes on how to solve this problem and no longer use Gnome but I do remember that it was caused by having "save session" or similar configured when logging out and that there was no way to delete the saved session from the GUI so it just kept restarting the apps that happened to be running when that session was saved on logout. It seemed to be a known problem; netsearching found reports of it and the solution. IIRC the solution was to empty a directory under one of Gnome's many ~/.* directories. Sorry -- can't remember which but cd ; find .* -type d -iname '*session*' might find it or at least some candidates to netsearch for the problem with.

You can also try running gnome-session-properties from a terminal.