Synaptic only opens in root konsole? [solved]

[shimonl]

Hi,
Today, synaptic stopped opening from the desktop. It no longer asks for a root password.
When I check ps, I see:
shimon   20462  0.0  0.4  82500 17788 pts/1    S+   15:56   0:00 /usr/lib/kde4/libexec/kdesu -u root -c synaptic

If I open konsole and su to root, running synaptic works perfectly.
but from my own user, running "/usr/lib/kde4/libexec/kdesu -u root -c synaptic"
just silently hangs forever.

Any idea why? and what to do to fix it?

Thanks!
Shimon

[agmg]

Why don't you try to run it from terminal with the "synaptic" command and see what error it gives?

[shimonl]

'synaptic' runs perfectly from a konsole logged in as root (s I wrote above).

If the konsole is my own user, I get a popup that says
'you must run this program from root' (as expected).

As you see, the actual shortcut to synaptic is to 'kdesu'.
Maybe my problem is really with it and not with synaptic?

[agmg]

Try running another program with "kdesu" like Dolphin or Kwrite... Also try "kdesu synaptic"...

[shimonl]

OK, I tried both:
$ /usr/lib/kde4/libexec/kdesu -u root -c kwrite
and
$ kdesu synaptic

Both simply sat there with no response at all. (I haven't killed them yet, so they are still sitting....)

[snoz]

Have you tried rebooting?
Try creating a new user, login as that user and try from there. This will show if it is a problem with the HOME folder or a system issue.

[shimonl]

In principle, as a former MS user, I will not reboot unless really *forced* too.
Isn't linux smarter than that???

I logged in to a different user, but forgot to close the open session of synaptic
(which I had started from root konsole).

The other user got a root password prompt, and then nothing else happened.
I logged it out.

Back in my own desktop, I saw that synaptic was active
so I closed it, and went to try again.

Now the other user has the same problem as mine - I click synaptic and NOTHING happens. ((

[pinoc]

reboot and test if you still have this issue. Or at least logout all users.
-p.

[pags]

If you don't want to reboot, log out all users, as suggested, and then try CTRL-ALT-BKSPC a couple times.  This forces a reset of X (and, hopefully, any dependent processes spawned from it).

[Just17]

try launching System Activity  (Ctrl Esc) and type in   kdesu

kill all kdesu/kdesud  processes

then try launching Synaptic from the menu launcher

Doing so should generate a new kdesud and one instance of kdesu

[DeBaas]

I found this behaviour sometimes with Synaptic.
My workaround is instead of kdesu synaptic the use of gksu synaptic

[shimonl]

Just17 - right!!
I killed all of the kdesu processes, and now everything is back to normal.
I have started and stopped synaptic from the desktop,
as well as the other suggested commands:
/usr/lib/kde4/libexec/kdesu -u root -c kwrite   
and
kdesu synaptic

Everything works perfectly.

Thanks very much,
Shimon