Saturday, March 16, 2013

Picuntu 0.9 RC3 crash in XFCE (dbus)



Symptoms:


If any of these happen to you:

- Ubuntu Software Center issues a crash report when clicking an app's "Install" button (plus install doesn't start)

- Settings Manager: crashes and no window opens when clicking over any of Settings icons (like "Language Support")



Spotting the problem:


Open a terminal and enter:
sudo cat /var/log/syslog
If the last lines report issues like:
Activated service '....' failed: Failed to execute program /usr/lib/dbus-1.0/dbus-dameon-launch-helper success
Then there likely are permission problems with the above mentioned dbus daemon helper. Now enter:
cd /usr/lib/dbus-1.0/
ll
If everything were right you would get the following result:

-rwsr-xr-- 1 root messagebus 170348 Oct 3 23:18 dbus-daemon-launch-helper*

Date/time/size are unimportant. The permissions (-rwsr-xr--) and group ownership (messagebus) is what matters.

In my case I got the following result:
-rwsr-xr-- 1 root ssh 170348 Oct 3 23:18 dbus-daemon-launch-helper*

 So the group ownership is dead wrong, preventing the file from being run properly.



Fix Procedure:


Enter the following commands:
sudo chgrp messagebus dbus-daemon-launch-helper
Now, doing "ll", you may find that the group is fine, but the permissions have changed. To correct them, type:
sudo chmod u=rwxs,g=rx,o=r dbus-daemon-launch-helper
Check that "ll" returns the above expected result and, then, safely restart the stick (you don't want to corrupt the SD flash card!):
sudo shutdown -P now 

Once you get back into Picuntu, the problem should be fixed.



References:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=659953


3 comments:

  1. Thanks. Fixes the problems.

    I can't ssh to my picuntu box. I suppose it might be a similar rights problem. Maybe you can have a look at it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have accessed by ssh to my picuntu after doing above changes.
      If you haven't changed anything (firewall, ssh conf, etc) then it must be a network problem.

      Delete
  2. It was the bcm40181 driver. Works correctly with Ralink USB adapter.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.