Hello! First time posting here!

So I have an Ubuntu Server 12.04, which was recently messed up.

Everything is almost OK now, but I have some KDE apps installed which I used to control just fine and now I can't.

If I execute the app normally, I can operate it. If I open them with "gksu" or "kdesudo" (I need to control some apps as root) I get a blank window, like there is some sort of problem with the graphics.

If I open a graphic root session the error is not present, and I can use the apps, but since I'm trying to "repair" my server from it's recently errors, I want to do what I used to do, to use those apps the way I did.

I'm guessing some libraries or configs may be wrong or not present at all, but no idea of what to do.

Can anyone help me?

Some extra info if I run the app from the terminal:

Code: Select all

X Error: BadDrawable (invalid Pixmap or Window parameter) 9
  Major opcode: 62 (X_CopyArea)
  Resource id:  0x3e0005b
X Error: BadDrawable (invalid Pixmap or Window parameter) 9
  Major opcode: 62 (X_CopyArea)
  Resource id:  0x3e0005b
X Error: BadDrawable (invalid Pixmap or Window parameter) 9
  Major opcode: 62 (X_CopyArea)
  Resource id:  0x3e0005b
X Error: BadDrawable (invalid Pixmap or Window parameter) 9
  Major opcode: 62 (X_CopyArea)
  Resource id:  0x3e0005b
kuser(11554)/kdecore (KConfigSkeleton) KCoreConfigSkeleton::writeConfig:
X Error: BadPixmap (invalid Pixmap parameter) 4
  Major opcode: 54 (X_FreePixmap)
  Resource id:  0x3e0005b
X Error: BadShmSeg (invalid shared segment parameter) 128
  Extension:    129 (MIT-SHM)
  Minor opcode: 2 (X_ShmDetach)
  Resource id:  0x3e0005a

Thanks!

The error messages you are getting are quite unusual. I'm not sure what could be causing those - if you create a new account on the system, does that user experience the same issues with running applications as root?

This is what happens from another user enviroment (as root):

Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyInvalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keykuser: cannot connect to X server :50.0

Any ideas?

Having an X server DISPLAY key of :50 is quite unusual.
Can you please compare the output of "echo $DISPLAY" from GNOME Terminal and Konsole, running under the same user?
Also, do regular X applications such as XTerm operate correctly?

:50.0 on both...

If I execute them normally (not with sudo or as root or with gksu/kdesu) they work with no graphical error.

I remember having the "blank windows" problem too when running apps as a different user too, it was somehow related to X permissions. Does "xhost +" fix the issue?

Output of "xhost +" (on the problematic user graphic session, on a terminal as root):

Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyInvalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyxhost: unable to open display ":50.0"

It is possible that your ~/.Xauthority file has become corrupted.
Logout of all graphical sessions on your system, and login on a virtual terminal, then remove that file and try logging in again.

eXtremeDevil wrote:Output of "xhost +" (on the problematic user graphic session, on a terminal as root):

Don't run xhost as root! You have to run it as user to grant access to that user's X session...

And you can't run GUI programs from another user's environment just like that either, because they won't find the display.
Try using the --display option in that case.

I deleted Xauthority, but nothing different happened

Output of "xhost +" on the problematic user:

access control disabled, clients can connect from any host

How do I use the --display option?

Thanks.

eXtremeDevil wrote:I deleted Xauthority, but nothing different happened

Output of "xhost +" on the problematic user:

access control disabled, clients can connect from any host

How do I use the --display option?

See the output of "any_KDE_app --help-qt":

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  --display <displayname>   Use the X-server display 'displayname'


So in your case it would be this I guess:

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any_KDE_app --display :50.0

Or set the $DISPLAY environment variable accordingly, this would also work with non-Qt programs:

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DISPLAY=:50.0 my_application

Nothing works. If I do this on my "normal" user:

$ any__kde_app

It works just fine.

If I do this:

# any_kde_app

The app is just a blank-grey window, and in the terminal I can read those weird errors.

No matter what options I use, if I'm on root on the terminal, I can't get the app to work.

Does passing an argument such as "-style plastique" to any KDE application have any impact here?

Same result...

Is your normal user configured to use anything such as Desktop Effects, particular themes, etc?
Also, please try moving ~root/.kde4/, ~root/.config/ and ~root/.local/ elsewhere.

Be aware that this may result in the loss of preferences for non-KDE applications as well depending on where they store them (in which case moving .config or .local back should restore their preferences).