This may be un-related, but the symptoms appear similar. 

Had an issue yesterday with a machine where attempting to log in got a dialog 
box which began "session only lasted less than 10 seconds 
/com/ubuntu/upstart:..." . Full error looked something like:

initctl: Unable to connect to Upstart: Failed to connect to socket 
/com/ubuntu/upstart: Connection refused
syndaemon: no process found
/etc/mdm/Xsession: Beginning session setup...
localuser:raskolnikov being added to access control list

Turned out to be virtualbox-guest-x11 which had got installed as part of an 
update and was stuffing up cinnamon.

Removed it, forced a re-install of cinnamon and then a reboot and it was all 
fixed.

Lots of references on Google such as:

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/346136/linux-mint-18-64-bit-session-failed

This is interesting as immediately before this, the user had issues with a 
whole lot of applications not starting, some of them the same as yours.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

_______________________________________________________________________________
Graham Furniss                    
Computer/Electronics Technician
Department of Chemical and Process Engineering
College of Engineering
University of Canterbury
Phone +64 3 369 3616 or Extn 93616 on campus



-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] 
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of 
[email protected]
Sent: Wednesday, 28 March 2018 12:56 p.m.
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Linux-users] Mint 18: suddenly multiple applications don't launch

Yesterday on boot up and numerous reboots, Mint 18 Mate confronted me with 
something I've never seen before.  A few icons had disappeared from the dock 
(network, update). Multiple applications that I use every day refused to 
launch. They gave no error messages. Trying to launch from the GUI, the 
"Starting (name of application) bar would appear on the panel, then after a few 
seconds, nothing.  Trying to launch from the terminal, nothing, even appending 
-v or -vv to the command.  I tried running as root via sudo, same result.

The non functioning applications included Firefox, Chromium, Thunderbird, the 
network manager when called from Settings, the PDF viewer (whether invoked from 
the menu or by double-clicking a .pdf document's icon), and Synaptic.

Applications that seemed to be working normally included the Caja file manager, 
the display manager, Moneydance, the terminal and, as I then discovered, 
apt-get.

With respect to each of the nonfunctioning applications for which I tried 
apt-get install, apt-get told me it was already installed and at the latest 
version.

I was able to install Midori and xpdf, and they both worked.  When I then tried 
removing and reinstalling Thunderbird, though, it did remove and reinstall but 
it still wouldn't launch.  Thunderbird's data files seem mostly OK, although 
one or two of the mail sub folders may be duplicated.

I have a quite up to date backup of my home folder, so if I have to reinstall 
the OS it's a nuisance rather than a tragedy, but is there any other way 
forward anyone can recommend?

TIA - Andrew

Sent from my iPad
_______________________________________________
Linux-users mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.canterbury.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
_______________________________________________
Linux-users mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.canterbury.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/linux-users

Reply via email to