Can't login using Xfce

[nick623]

I recently installed Xfce via yum. When I log out and choose Session-> Xfce4 I get the following error.
"Your session only lasted less than 10 seconds. If you have not logged out yourself, this could mean than there is some installation problem or that you may be out of diskspace. Try logging in with one of th failsafe sessions to see if you can fix this problem.

view details(~/.xsessions-errors file)"

I can log in my default manager Gnome no problem. Also logged into failsafe terminal no problem.
Also there is no .xsession* files in my home folder.

Could this have something with a locked X file or pid file?

I might yum uninstall and reinstall it to see if problem is repeated. I'm sure it's probably something I'm overlooking though.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[daverj]

I have never installed xfce from yum. However, installing via the installer packages from the xfce website has never been an issue for me. You might want to try that.

[nick623]

I prefer to use yum if possible. Well I uninstalled and reinstalled with same problem.
I think it has something to do with the gnome window manager. Just a guess.

[Wayne]

I had this with another distro using XFce. I had to log-in as root and remove some config files from a user home sub-directory and I was able to log-in again. I can't for the life of me remember what and where they were located right now.

Wayne

[nick623]

Thanks rondonjin. I can't find any files owned by root in my home directory. Maybe in the /tmp file?
If you can remember please let me now. Maybe its a lock file somewhere?

[Wayne]

Thanks rondonjin. I can't find any files owned by root in my home directory. Maybe in the /tmp file?
If you can remember please let me now. Maybe its a lock file somewhere?

No, there weren't owned by root but by the user. The only way I could get in was via root. I have to leave now but I'll fire up that machine when I get back later, unless someone beats me to it.

Edit: I do remember that I was unable to login (same symptoms you describe) after changing a couple of options and the default theme. Maybe that's a clue to help find the files to remove.

Wayne

[Wayne]

OK. I think the file I removed was xfce4-session.rc under ~/.config/xfce4-session

Wayne

[JN4OldSchool]

Wayne is right. XFCE usually plays nice with the other DEs but you should always create a new user for each DE. This gets into permissions for each users /home but in my case I just use a shared partition for all personal documents anyway. This will also save you from the (getting very old now) trash can error between gnome and kde. And if you screw something up you still have alternative user accounts set up.

[Wayne]

Wayne is right. XFCE usually plays nice with the other DEs but you should always create a new user for each DE. This gets into permissions for each users /home but in my case I just use a shared partition for all personal documents anyway. This will also save you from the (getting very old now) trash can error between gnome and kde. And if you screw something up you still have alternative user accounts set up.

I remember way back when if you installed both KDE and Gnome on a Mandrake system on one of the desktops (Gnome?) you'd get two trashcans! Does that still happen?

Wayne

[JN4OldSchool]

I remember way back when if you installed both KDE and Gnome on a Mandrake system on one of the desktops (Gnome?) you'd get two trashcans! Does that still happen?

Wayne

yep, that is exactly what I'm talking about. You'd think they could have fixed this by now. You can also get a slew of other minor irritating little errors. Easier to just create a separate gnome account and KDE account. I call my accounts by my name then the DE, such as seangnome or seankde or seanxfce and seanflux. Then I just share a common partition. This keeps everything nice and separate.

[nick623]

What kind of permission issues are there if I don't have a seperate user for each DE I use.
I'm just curious on the details.

[JN4OldSchool]

What kind of permission issues are there if I don't have a seperate user for each DE I use.
I'm just curious on the details.

No, permissions issues if you DO have seperate users but want to share the same /home. It's not a big deal either way. It's just that each user should have their own /home or it defeats the purpose of having seperate users. Then if you want all users to access one /home for personal stuff you get into permissions...

[nick623]

Ok. Don't know if I did this right. I used the useradd command as root and created a new user "mynamexfce'.
I then used the "passwd mynamexfce' as root to create the new password for my new user. After I logged out and used the new user name to log in to Xfce and got the exact same error message.

Any ideas where I went wrong? I'm not actually that hell bent on getting the Xfce desktop. Right now I'm just wondering why something I thought should be relatively easy is becoming a hassle.

Oh, I was able to login under the "root" account. But I'm not comfortable moving around to long as root.

[JN4OldSchool]

Interesting. Why dont you try adding a new user in GUI mode. I am not sure where it is in Gnome, somewhere under the system menu. There should be a menu entry for users and groups. make sure you give that user it's own /home when it asks. Sounds like something in your install is botched.

[RupertPupkin]

I used the useradd command as root and created a new user "mynamexfce'.
I then used the "passwd mynamexfce' as root to create the new password for my new user. After I logged out and used the new user name to log in to Xfce and got the exact same error message.

Did you use the -m or --create-home option when you ran useradd? If not, then the user's home directory was not created. XFCE needs to put stuff in the user's home directory, so if that home directory doesn't exist or have the proper permissions then that may be why it's not letting you login.