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Something happened few days ago in my Xubuntu 14.04. None of applications which require admin password won't open. Apps like GParted, Update Manager, File Manager when trying to open a folder as root, etc...

No matter how I start them. From the menu, desktop or in terminal using gksudo. In every case after entering the (the correct) password, the password dialog hides away and then the indicator light of the hard disk starts to blink heavily. But app window won't show up. Task Manager shows that the app uses 25% of CPU-time. And this keeps going no matter how long I wait.

Updating and upgrading work fine when started in terminal using sudo. Nano, leafpad and any GUI apps work fine even when started in terminal as NORMAL user, but not with gksudo nor sudo...

My username has sudo & adm groups. All been working fine for years but suddenly this problem occured. I'm wondering that hard disk usage which never ends. To get rid of that the OS must be rebooted.

So guys, how to sort this out?

qwerty193
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  • Any output or error messages when run from the terminal? How about tailing the syslog to see if any messages get logged during this process? tail -f /var/log/syslog – Parto Feb 26 '18 at 17:15
  • Eg. gksudo leafpad, entering the password and then nothing, no errors, no messages. Only pwd dialog disappears and then begins heavy hard disk usage. But in the syslog file few lines did appear, I try add them here: – qwerty193 Feb 26 '18 at 21:32
  • Have a look in here: Tailed syslog – qwerty193 Feb 26 '18 at 21:43
  • No issues in the system log. What about all the logs - repeat the same process but run this instead - tail -f /var/log/*.log – Parto Feb 27 '18 at 10:55
  • Here's quite a listing: Tailed all-logs – qwerty193 Feb 27 '18 at 14:18
  • Sorry, no idea. Hopefully someone sorts you out though. I have started the bounty to draw attention to the question. All the best. – Parto Feb 27 '18 at 21:28
  • Thanks for your time anyway, Parto. Probably I'm going to reinstall xubuntu from the scratch using the newer/newest version. – qwerty193 Feb 28 '18 at 08:16
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    does root have access to your display? – ravery Feb 28 '18 at 14:43
  • @ravery I'm not sure how to check that. In terminal as sudoer $DISPLAY is :0.0 – qwerty193 Mar 01 '18 at 07:57
  • xhost local:root will give root access to your display – ravery Mar 01 '18 at 09:49
  • Tried that, no help. The output was non-network local connections being added to access control list – qwerty193 Mar 01 '18 at 13:39
  • When you says "Task Manager shows that the app uses 25% of CPU-time. And this keeps going no matter how long I wait.", did you mean the app that you tried to lauch with (gk)sudo? – pim Mar 02 '18 at 08:04
  • @pim, yes. If I try to launch eg. Leafpad, Task Manager shows it's taking 25% of CPU-time. Or if I try to open a folder as root in Thunar, same thing, Thunar takes 25%. Or if I try to open Update Manager, same again, it (synaptic) takes 25%... – qwerty193 Mar 04 '18 at 04:11
  • And no matter how I launch the application, with gksudo, sudo or directly from GUI menu or desktop. If it requires admin privileges, after typing my password in, the app won't open visibly but takes 25% of CPU-time. – qwerty193 Mar 04 '18 at 04:18
  • Additionally heavy hard disk usage. And shortly the fan of laptop starts to blow heavily too. – qwerty193 Mar 04 '18 at 04:27
  • Try sudo su - and then run a gui command. Try enabling the root user with a very secure password and logging as root. Install sshd and ssh in into the loopback interface ssh -X root@local (you can limit sshd to only listen on the loopback interface.) – David Mar 04 '18 at 15:54

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If you're using Thunderbird you might want to look at: How to remove "Messaging Menu and Unity Launcher integration" from Thunderbird?

I had a similar problem and removing the above-mentioned extension seemed to clear the problem.

I suggest disabling the add-on in Thunderbird to see if your problem goes away before actually trying to remove it.

bollix47
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