X11 will not start

Question

Level 1

75 points

X11 will not start

Hi,

I have a PowerMac G5 (quad processor). When I double-click on /Applications/Utilities/X11.app, nothing happens. I checked the activity monitor and there is nothing for X11.

It has worked in the past. I tried deleting the files: .xinitrc, .xsession and .xtermrc and it doesn't help.

Thanks,
SyB

G5 Quad and MacBook (late 2008), Mac OS X (10.5.8), 4GB memory

Posted on Dec 16, 2010 3:50 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 17, 2010 2:33 AM in response to Sy B

Hi SyB,

Open a Finder window. Select your Home folder in the Sidebar on the left. It has a small house icon. Now open the Library folder then the Preferences folder.

Move the com.apple.Xcode.plist file from the Preferences folder to the Trash.

Now try launching Xcode.

Carolyn 🙂

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Answer 2

Sy B Author

Level 1

75 points

Dec 17, 2010 1:16 PM in response to Carolyn Samit

Hi Carolyn,

I deleted ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Xcode.plist and X11 still won't start.

Thanks for the help.
SyB

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Answer 3

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Dec 17, 2010 11:46 PM in response to Sy B

Try removing the com.apple.x11.plist. Methinks Carolyn mistyped.

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Answer 4

Sy B Author

Level 1

75 points

Dec 18, 2010 9:40 AM in response to baltwo

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

I tried deleting both preferences (Xcode and X11). X11.app still would not start. I came across something to the effect that X11 must be reinstalled if there is an operating system upgrade or Xcode upgrade. I downloaded and installed X11-2.5.3.dmg. X11 still won't start.

Thanks again,

SyB

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Answer 5

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Dec 18, 2010 11:19 AM in response to Sy B

Create a new admin user account, log into it, and see if the issue persists.

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Answer 6

Sy B Author

Level 1

75 points

Dec 19, 2010 6:45 PM in response to baltwo

Hi,

I couldn't get X11 to start using

/Applications/Utilities/X11.app

I right-clicked on X11.app and selected "Show Package Contents."

I tried the following and it works:

From an OSX Terminal:

/Applications/Utilities/X11.app/Contents/MacOS/X11.bin &

X11 starts and runs fine.

I don't think that this is the correct way, however it seems to work.

Thanks to everyone for their help.

SyB

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Answer 7

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Dec 19, 2010 7:10 PM in response to Sy B

Something's amiss with your installation. Boot with your Leopard install disc, launch DIsk Utility from the Utilities menu after selecting your language, select the disk, and repair it. When no errors show up, quit DU, and reinstall the OS, selecting the Archive & Install, saving user and network settings option. After restarting, ensure that X11 can start normally. If so, run Software Update and bring everything up to the latest version.

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Answer 8

Dec 20, 2010 9:34 AM in response to Sy B

The "correct" way is to simply run a program that needs X11. You shouldn't be launching X11 manually at all. It is supposed to open automatically on demand. (This is new in Leopard -- previous versions did not launch automatically.)

That said, opening X11.app should cause X11 to launch. As baltwo said, something is screwy on your system.

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Answer 9

Feb 3, 2011 10:16 AM in response to Jeffrey Jones2

I have been having the same problem as described above, but the solutions presented have not fixed the problem. I have three problems, all of which give the "/usr/x11/bin/xterm Xt error: Can't open display: 0.0" error:
1) I have to manually launch X11 (using the version from the Snow Leopard disk, or XQuartz) from the dock. Otherwise, I get the display error.
2) If an X11 program crashes (which happens regularly) I receive the "display 0.0" error and can't launch X11 again without logging out/in. This is unacceptable to me.
3) After my computer awakens from hibernation or sleep, X11 will launch from the dock, but will not give the display error if invoked.

Is there something terribly wrong in my system?
Thanks in advance.

Message was edited by: schrodingers_dog

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Answer 10

BobHarris

Level 9

57,149 points

Feb 3, 2011 11:43 AM in response to schrodingers_dog

Terminal, Unix, X11, and command line command questions are best asked in the Mac OS X Technologies > Unix Forum
<http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=735>

This sounds very much like you have a hard coded DISPLAY environment variable. You DISPLAY environment variable should look more along the lines of:


/tmp/launch-iEh81s/org.x:0

which is created as your Mac OS X GUI session is started, and will be automatically inherited by any processes you start during your Mac OS X GUI session.

But you are reporting 0.0, which has NOT been the case since the days of Tiger 10.4.

I would suggest looking in your shell initialize files to make sure you DO NOT define your own DISPLAY environment variable.

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Answer 11

Feb 4, 2011 1:21 PM in response to BobHarris

Thank you very much. X11 is behaving now.
I'm not sure why it works, considering that I had manually unset the DISPLAY variable from the terminal in other attempts to get X11 working. However, DISPLAY=0:0 was in my .bashrc file. But you're right, about the Tiger legacy. My .bashrc was migrated from 10.4->10.5->10.6 as I upgraded.

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