I still see this problem, running maverick. In my case the executable's group was avahi:
-rwxr-sr-x 1 root avahi 35432 2010-03-24 06:35 /usr/bin/mlocate Ian's fix in comment #5 fixed it. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Eee Coders, which is subscribed to Easy Peasy. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/281471 Title: Unable to use 'locate' to locate files mlocate.db permission denied Status in Easy Peasy: New Status in “mlocate” package in Ubuntu: New Bug description: I'm using Hardy on a 1000h. When I'm trying to locate a file using locate I receive $ locate gdm locate: can not open `/var/lib/mlocate/mlocate.db': Permission denied I listed /var/lib/locate and mlocate.db seems to be owned by root and group mlocate $ ls -al /var/lib/mlocate total 3204 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2008-10-11 00:33 . drwxr-xr-x 51 root root 4096 2008-10-06 21:01 .. -rw-r----- 1 root mlocate 3266135 2008-10-11 00:33 mlocate.db _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-eee-coders Post to : ubuntu-eee-coders@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-eee-coders More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
