X11 Will Not Start

Question

Level 1

11 points

X11 Will Not Start

I've been using a couple of X11 apps, one being OpenOffice 2, but whenever X11 launches, it runs and shows in the Dock for about 10 seconds, then disappears, and then so does the X11 app.

This mystifies me, as as little as one month ago it worked fine. Only difference between then and now is that I moved up to OS 10.4.6. Is it possible for this update to have "broken" X11? If so, is there a fix or workaround I can use?

iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Posted on May 15, 2006 4:47 PM

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Answer 1

Rich JG

Level 5

4,445 points

May 15, 2006 7:50 PM in response to djhalnon

One thing that you could try is to delete the preference file:

/Users/username/Library/Preferences/com.apple.x11.plist .

When you say that you updated to OS 10.4.6, were you upgrading from another version of Tiger?

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Answer 2

djhalnon Author

Level 1

11 points

May 15, 2006 8:30 PM in response to Rich JG

Didn't work, I got a popup saying "Command timed out", when I clicked OK it vanished. Which is more than I got before, but it doesn't help.

I upgraded it to .6 via System Update just a little while ago, I'm not sure which Tiger revision it was originally (10.4.4?), but it did ship with Tiger.

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Answer 3

Rich JG

Level 5

4,445 points

May 15, 2006 10:27 PM in response to djhalnon

Okay. I don't have any great ideas - the one thing that comes to mind is that you try to start X11 in the Terminal app. Perhaps you will get a better error message than what you have seen so far. To do that, start the Terminal app from the Utilities menu and then enter the following command, followed by a return:

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

Regarding your upgrade path, that sounds fine to me. I have done the various Tiger upgrades and not had to do anything to make X11 work. So, I don't think the installation is the issue.

EMAC G4 1.0 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.6)

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Answer 4

djhalnon Author

Level 1

11 points

May 16, 2006 5:56 AM in response to Rich JG

Launching X11 from Terminal did give me some more information. Here's what it said:

<pre>Fatal server error:

Could not create lock file in /tmp/.tX0-lock

OsVendorFatalError

AbortDDX

Quitting XDarwin...</pre>

Now, since I'm new to OS X, I'm not sure what that means, but it would seem to be more meaningful.

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Answer 5

Rich JG

Level 5

4,445 points

May 16, 2006 8:23 AM in response to djhalnon

Perhaps the error about not being able to create the lock file is the source of the problem - I am not sure. I do know that the /tmp file is a logical link to /private/tmp and that sometimes that gets messed up. Then, some things do not work properly.

There are some things that can be done to check this and they involve a few more commands in the Terminal app. If you would just copy and paste the following commands (followed by a return) and then copy and paste the response back into another post, one of us can take a look to see if we spot any problem. If so, it should be fixable.

ls -lao /tmp
ls -lao /private
ls -lao /private/tmp | grep X

Rich

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Answer 6

djhalnon Author

Level 1

11 points

May 16, 2006 8:41 AM in response to Rich JG

OK, here goes, in order:
-->ls -lao /tmp

<pre>total 80
drwxr-xr-x 17 root wheel - 578 May 16 09:03 .

drwxrwxr-t 33 root admin - 1224 May 15 23:00 ..

-rw-r--r-- 1 dennis staff - 6148 May 16 09:05 .DS_Store

drwxrwxrwt 2 dennis staff - 68 Nov 7 2005 .X11-unix

-rw-r--r-- 1 root staff - 0 Nov 8 2005 .com.adobe.ami.installer.lock

drwx------ 4 dennis staff - 136 Nov 7 2005 .wine-dennis

drwxr-xr-x 3 dennis staff - 102 Nov 8 2005 159

-rw-r--r-- 1 root staff - 2202 Nov 8 2005 CDO_PERM

-rw------- 1 root wheel - 471 Nov 8 2005 com.adobe.ami.plist

-rw------- 1 root wheel - 66 Nov 8 2005 com.adobe.supplementalInstall.plist

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel - 0 Nov 23 13:01 com.apple.iokit.kextcache.mkext.9P

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel - 533 Nov 8 2005 golive_activation.plist

drwxr-xr-x 4 dennis staff - 136 May 16 09:05 hsperfdata_dennis

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel - 533 Nov 8 2005 illustrator_activation.plist

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel - 533 Nov 8 2005 indesign_activation.plist

-rw------- 1 dennis staff - 444 May 16 11:29 objc sharing_ppc501

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel - 533 Nov 8 2005 photoshop_activation.plist
dennis-halnons-ibook-g4:~ dennis$</pre>

Then -->ls -tao /private

<pre>total 0

drwxr-xr-x 6 root wheel - 204 May 15 23:00 .

drwxrwxr-t 33 root admin - 1224 May 15 23:00 ..

drwxr-xr-x 85 root wheel - 2890 May 14 20:42 etc

drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel - 102 Jul 10 2005 tftpboot

drwxrwxrwt 2 root wheel - 68 May 15 23:00 tmp

drwxr-xr-x 23 root wheel - 782 May 15 23:00 var

dennis-halnons-ibook-g4:~ dennis$</pre>

And from -->ls -lao /private/tmp | grep X — nothing, just the terminal prompt

Wow, this recalls the stuff I used to do with Unix/Linux a long time ago (c. 10 years). Having been mired in the Wintel world (professional reasons) most of the time since, I find myself out of my element. So please forgive any apparent ignorance.

In case it matters, here's what I've installed on it since I took it out of the box: Adobe CS 2 suite, M$ Office 2004 (which has some ancillary stuff like MSN Messenger), Camino (which I'm about to uninstall since Safari seems sufficient for my needs), a Logitech trackball which came with some software, and M$ Media Player with some added codecs, and Taco HTML Edit. That's all I know of (there might be something I don't, esp. with those suite installations).

iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

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Answer 7

Rich JG

Level 5

4,445 points

May 16, 2006 9:09 PM in response to djhalnon

Sorry I have not replied to your message until now. I am looking at the output from your commands and am scratching my head a little bit. The output for the ls -lao /tmp does not look like what I expected. When I perform that command, I get

ls -lao /tmp
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin - 11 Dec 26 11:47 /tmp -> private/tmp

i am thinking that your /tmp might be a directory rather than a logical link. But, I don't fully understand what I am seeing, so let me study this a bit.

You are doing fine with the unix commands. I know that many people are reluctant to do these things, but these commands return so much information in a compact form, that I prefer them to the GUI for some of these debugging purposes.

By the way, the output from your other two commands looks okay to me. I now know that the .X0_lock file is only in /private/tmp when X11 is actually running. That is why you did not find it with the grep command.

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Answer 8

Rich JG

Level 5

4,445 points

May 16, 2006 9:49 PM in response to djhalnon

Okay, I think we are on the right path. If I rename the /tmp directory to something else and then run X11, X11 starts but then quits after a few seconds. I get this message in the Console.log file (accessible via the Console app in the Utilities menu).

Fatal server error:
Could not create lock file in /tmp/.tX0-lock

OsVendorFatalError
AbortDDX
Quitting XDarwin...
bash: no job control in this shell

This is what you were seeing.

However, I am mystified by one thing. I think that you have a /tmp file which is a directory. If I make a /tmp file as a directory, then X11 does work for me. So, this does not seem to totally square with what you are seeing. However, it seems to me that we are poking in the right area, so I will suggest that you take the standard action to create the /tmp logical file. This will be a sequence of two commands. The first command will rename the /tmp to a /tmp_old. I recommend against deleting it just in case it contains something important (which I don't think is the case). The second command will make a /tmp file which is a logical link pointing to /private/tmp. This is how it is supposed to be.

In the terminal app, issue this command:

sudo mv /tmp /tmp_old

You will be prompted for you password. Enter your password and be aware that it will not be echoed in any way.

Then, issue the command:

sudo ln -s /private/tmp /tmp

Then, see if X11 works okay.

EMAC G4 1.0 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.6)

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Answer 9

djhalnon Author

Level 1

11 points

May 19, 2006 7:55 AM in response to Rich JG

BINGO! That was the ticket! Muchas gracias!

BTW I appreciate the help, it was exactly the level I needed, not over my head and not condescending.

One last thing, is there a reference to OS X terminal commands? I recognize some but not all. Does it use a "conventional" command set like bash? Terminal comes with help but I don't think it's comprehensive enough for me to really learn it.

iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

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Answer 10

Rich JG

Level 5

4,445 points

May 19, 2006 8:32 AM in response to djhalnon

Good! I am glad to hear that this worked and I appreciate your feedback.

When you start up a Terminal window, you are actually in a bash shell. This shell will recognize all of the standard unix commands. In addition, Apple has added in a bunch of its own commands (such as softwareupdate at the command line). Off hand, I do not have reference for Terminal commands at my fingertips. But, I will have some references lying around and will hunt them up and reply later today or tomorrow.

EMAC G4 1.0 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.6)

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Answer 11

Rich JG

Level 5

4,445 points

May 19, 2006 10:08 PM in response to djhalnon

Some good references to using the unix shell available via the Terminal app are the following:

http://www.osxfaq.com/ - This site has lots of great information.

http://www.osxfaq.com/Tutorials/LearningCenter/ - In particular, the tutorials here might be a good place to start.

http://magicpubs.com/mac/unix.html - Several good links, including some back to www.osxfaq.com

I am sure there are several other good sites. In addition, there is a forum devoted to unix. You can ask unix-related questions there and probably get other good references for using the Terminal app.

Good luck and enjoy!

EMAC G4 1.0 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.6)

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Answer 12

May 22, 2006 5:21 AM in response to djhalnon

I am also unable to start the X11 environment, after upgrading to 10.4.6. I removed the preferences file and I corrected permissions, but I got nowhere. When I try to launch X11 from the Terminal console, I get the following message:

dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/X11R6/lib/libfreetype.6.dylib
Referenced from: /usr/X11R6/bin/Xquartz
Reason: Incompatible library version: Xquartz requires version 6.3.0 or later, but libfreetype.6.dylib provides version 6.2.0

Any ideas how I can proceed?

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Answer 13

Rich JG

Level 5

4,445 points

May 22, 2006 7:48 AM in response to George the Mac addict

It sounds like one of the libraries needed by X11 is not up to date. Had X11 been working with your previous version of OS X? And if so, what version was it? (Some version of 10.4?)

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Answer 14

Rich JG

Level 5

4,445 points

May 22, 2006 8:42 PM in response to George the Mac addict

Also, I think it would be worthwhile for you to see what libraries you have. To do this, you can start the Terminal app from the Utilities menu. Then, copy and paste the following command into the Terminal window:

ls -l /usr/X11R6/lib/ free

Then, please copy the response that you get and paste it into another post. I am looking to see if you actually have the 6.3.0 version of this library and if the logical links are set up properly to point to it.

Rich

EMAC G4 1.0 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.6)

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Answer 15

djhalnon Author

Level 1

11 points

May 23, 2006 5:52 AM in response to Rich JG

Great! This is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

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