Aha. The most recent update, yesterday AM, was something to do with virtualbox, and I believe the machine was not successfully booted up after that. I'll pursue this angle first. Ta for the link. /Andrew
Sent from my iPad > On 28/03/2018, at 1:21 PM, Graham Furniss <[email protected]> > wrote: > > 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 _______________________________________________ Linux-users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.canterbury.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
