Enough to see that everything there looks right.
Well, if nothing else, we are familiarizing ourselves with the system.
Do you have an xsession errors file in your home directory?
.xsession-errors
Warning- it MAY be long. We would only be interested in entries for the past few days.
Yes - just found it. I have one, but the date stamp is January 5th. Looking through it, I don’t see anything that jumps out, but who knows. Also, that date stamp may be when it was first created, not its latest entry.
I’ll send a copy of the file (it’s fairly small) directly to you… not sure everything that’s in there.
Per previous:
check contents of
/etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/
Are there any files in that directory?
No - it’s empty.
Ok. Let’s make it Not Empty and see what happens.
Create two files. Name the first one
45-allow-colord.pkla
Paste into it the following and save
[Allow Colord all Users]
Identity=unix-user:*
Action=org.freedesktop.color-manager.create-device;org.freedesktop.color-manager.create-profile;org.freedesktop.color-manager.delete-device;org.freedesktop.color-manager.delete-profile;org.freedesktop.color-manager.modify-device;org.freedesktop.color-manager.modify-profile
ResultAny=no
ResultInactive=no
ResultActive=yes
next file:
46-allow-update-repo.pkla
[Allow Package Management all Users] Identity=unix-user:* Action=org.freedesktop.packagekit.system-sources-refresh ResultAny=yes
ResultInactive=yes
ResultActive=yes
What the above is for is more for remote connections but worht a shot. Reboot and test- if they do not work, remove the above two files.
Dang - that didn’t work. After rebooting, I went back into that folder to make sure they were there, and they were. So… all instructions followed, still didn’t work. And strangely, the keyring prompt returned. So I fixed that again, still didn’t work.
I do wonder if this other variable (of mine) is contributing to this issue: I use auto-login. Not because I need to, but it seemed convenient so I enabled it when I first installed Zorin. Now… I cannot seem to undo that setting, as in, I’m locked out of making changes to Users (me), and the Unlock button has no affect / does nothing. The UI shows that I clicked it, but nothing happens. I suspect it’s because the entire Settings app/utility is launching with insufficient permissions (like all other things for me now), so I’m barred from doing elevated-permission actions, like changing my own user settings. It wasn’t like this before all this started, say ~3 weeks ago.
Do you know the Terminal-based name for the Settings utility? Better yet - how do I find that myself for any installed app? I’d like to try running that utility from Terminal as sudo, turn off that Automatic login, then reboot and see if that fixes things. Hypotheis: I’m getting logged on with sub-admin / sub-sudo permissions because of auto-login, and it’s wreaking havoc behind the scenes.
Here’s the screen I’m talking about:
I’m happy to do a (clean) post once this is figured out, so others can undo it, and so Zorin can put a fix in on a future update. I can’t imagine I’m the only one going through this… I’m just determined now (with your generous help) to get it resolved. Thanks again, for all your help.
The terminal command to open that settings window is
gnome-control-center
I do not know if pkexec will work on that- you may need to
sudo -i
Then enter it after entering your PW.
Um… Yeah, I agree with your hypothesis. Wish I had known you had auto-login enabled sooner. The thing is a Menace.
As far as finding the command name for installed apps, I do not know of some Easy and Fast way. I have my terminal scrollback set to 5000 and I usually do
apt list --installed
to look at all software names that are installed and just figure it out…
Sorry I didn’t mention that auto-login earlier, piecing it all together.
When I use sudo gnome-control-center it shows up with just Devices at the top, empty window/contents, and a left arrow next to Devices (the go back one level arrow) that goes back to… the empty Devices window.
So I’m stuck in auto-login purgatory, until I find a chisel to chip my way out.
And agreed, I happily would’ve foregone the auto-login option to not have these issues. Hopefully in v16 / vNext, they don’t offer that option. If nothing else, it’s good to use your pw occasionally so you don’t forget it.
And based on that reddit, it’s not just a Zorin thing.
app list --installed is indeed handy, thanks for the tip.
The setting for auto login is in
/etc/gdm3/custom.conf
…I think.
I am using lightdm, so I cannot check it. But… You should see that file with something like the following within it:
autologinenable=true
You can comment that line out with a hashtag at the front or maybe you can set it to false- but editing that in your terminal text editor nano may be the route to disabling autologin.
sudo nano /etc/gdm3/custom.conf
FYI. in Core, this is what you should see listed in etc/gd03/custom.conf with autologin NOT enabled (i.e. commented out by # character)
# Enabling automatic login # AutomaticLoginEnable = true # AutomaticLogin = user1
Thanks for this - I found that in another online link, and it worked perfectly - no more auto-login. It didn’t fix my underlying Software app permissions issues, but at least it’s another variable off the list. Thanks!
…Another variable… From what I can tell, we have covered all of the variables.
The only thing I can think of that may possibly be related at this point is an issue with Snap or Snapd.
Other than that, tanks outta gas. I mean, realistically speaking, replacing policykit and gnome-software and the chown command…
Honestly, I would suggest backing up your data and reinstalling the OS. I know it is not what you prefer, but sometimes, it is just like the dentist. You can delay it and hope for an alternative but in the end, always have to get it over with, anyway.
If this is not readily solved by any of the above- then there may be a corrupted file that can affect other things that you just have not noticed yet.
I do not believe that using 'Sudo" to open a GUI application is a viable workaround, nor healthy long term for the system.
Thanks for this - and yes, I suspect you’re right. And you certainly did spend a full tank of gas trying to help me figure this out, so thanks! It’ll take a bit, but I’ll start working on making my setup re-installable with as little grief as possible.
And now that you mention it, the timing was right around when I installed Snap. I may try to eradicate Snap from my system and see if that helps. Of course, even if Snap is/was the culprit, it could’ve been a one-way change (as in, installing Snap caused it, uninstalling Snap doesn’t fix it).
But if nothing else, I’ve learned a bunch about Zorin, so maybe it’s all been worth it. Thanks again!
Wise words. I view many problems and problem solving as a means of learning the system. And learning IS Good.
But… sometimes it stings, too.
Removing snap is pretty easy- just use
snap remove ______
where the _____ is a Software Name to remove any snap packages currently installed. Then run the following to remove snapd
sudo apt remove --purge snapd
Thanks @carmar - that’s a good link. Just searched and I have a handful of (well, er, 17) almost daily driver apps I’ve installed with Snap, so I have to figure out how to undo the Snap installs, hopefully find them somewhere else, reinstall them, and then root out Snap. Not impossible (I hope - as in, hopefully I can find the apps elsewhere) but it’ll take some time. That link is very helpful!
Update: completely removing Snap and purging it (as described earlier in this thread), then removing/reinstalling gnome-software got things one step closer - launching gnome-software (the Software app) no longer defaulted to the “Amazon EKS” screen (as in, it loaded the most recent splash screen).
BUT… the “you don’t have permissions to install software” issue does not go away, unfortunately. And interestingly, when I reinstall gnome-software it also (re)installs Snap, which is a bit disappointing since I was trying to eradicate it. So somewhere in the bowels of my Zorin install, Snap has its tendrils in the permissions infrastructure and latches on whenever I try to use the gnome-software (reinstalled or not), and prevents it. Sigh.
Anyway, wanted to provide some incremental non-progress. I’ve purged Snap and am now using Terminal to install the non-Snap version of the apps I was using before. I do hope that Zorin 16 prevents this [whatever this is - this can’t use the Software store any more business] from happening. I’ll keep at it, but at this point, I’m just getting better at Terminal installs.
From what i have read, this seems to be a bug in 18.04 that was fixed in Ubuntu 20.04. Zorin 16 is based on Ubuntu 20.04.
