Xterm Display issue

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Level 1

9 points

Xterm Display issue

Hello and thanks for your time.

I am having an issue using xterm, it seems it has trouble accessing my display. I am using a bash shell on my macbook running Yosemite 10.10.1. I have installed XQuartz, and the DISPLAY variable is set and the path is valid. The error I am getting is:

bash-3.2$ xterm

xterm: Xt error: Can't open display: /private/tmp/com.apple.launchd.vIXw1YlUUE/org.macosforge.xquartz:0

I have also tried not using the one under /private and instead go to /tmp directly and I get the same error.

I have searched around to try to find a remedy for this but all issues are usually in reference to ssh, so I hope someone here can give me some help.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)

Posted on Jan 7, 2015 1:33 PM

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Answer 1

MrBobHarris Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 7, 2015 1:56 PM in response to MrBobHarris

One small update:

I was able to open a terminal through X11 and found that DISPLAY was set to 0 (can't put the colon since it will make a smiley). If I then set DISPLAY in a terminal by hand it works... Is this an issue with Yosemite? Would be curious to understand why this helps/fixes the problem.

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Answer 2

Jan 7, 2015 2:45 PM in response to MrBobHarris

Using Xquartz here since SL and have not experienced your problem. Is this a new install or was it working and stopped working?

If new install did you log out and back in after installing. This will update the Display variable. For what it is worth if I start Quartz and run an xterm my Display is set to

DISPLAY=/private/tmp/com.apple.launchd.wvesBRK4Xq/org.macosforge.xquartz:0

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Answer 3

BobHarris

Level 9

55,265 points

Jan 7, 2015 4:43 PM in response to MrBobHarris

I'm with Frank Caggiano on this. I've been using X11 or the XQuartz package for years.

my DISPLAY is set to

DISPLAY=/tmp/launch-CmrU4n/org.macosforge.xquartz:0

However, I do not use xterm, rather I use X Windows to display gvimdiff output from remote systems, VNC sessions originating on remote systems, and occasionally, when I refresh a software development view, I may have to resolve some merge conflicts for the files I am currently working on, and the merge utility uses X Windows to resolve those conflicts.

For terminal sessions, I prefer using iTerm locally, and then ssh into the remote systems. It is more bandwidth efficient, especially considering most of my systems of 1000's of miles away, and X Windows can be a bit chatty.

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Answer 4

MrBobHarris Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 15, 2015 4:35 PM in response to Frank Caggiano

Hi Frank,

Sorry for the delayed reply. I was on a business trip with not so great a connection.

So this is not a new install of Xquartz. I had installed it after purchasing my new mac in January 2014. So I don't think that is the issue. This started happening when I moved from Mavericks to Yosemite. I noticed when I tried to do some plotting using python (and ROOT, which is some open source software for physics), and then I also found that xterm didn't work.

I am able to get xterm and python to work by manually setting the display to ":0", however ROOT is still having issues that I need to figure out.

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Answer 5

MrBobHarris Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 15, 2015 4:38 PM in response to BobHarris

Hi BobHarris,

Thanks for your reply. I don't really use xterm either (just iTerm) but it was helpful in illustrating my problem. As I mentioned just a few moments ago to Frank, this is not a new install of XQuartz, but rather a move from Mavericks --> Yosemite that caused things to stop working.

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Answer 6

MrBobHarris Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 15, 2015 4:57 PM in response to MrBobHarris

Hello All,

I just tried uninstalling and reinstalling xquartz and that did the trick. Should have tried that first. Thank you for the responses!

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Answer 7

BobHarris

Level 9

55,265 points

Jan 15, 2015 5:37 PM in response to MrBobHarris

I was just about to suggest a re-install.

And I didn't even notice that your name is also Bob Harris.

I keep running into Bob Harris' in the past few companies I've worked at. In the mid-80's the compan phone book had 10 Bob or Robert Harris'. I think my current company only has 4 or 5. It is sometimes fun getting email sent to the wrong Bob Harris. Every few months I forward email to a Bob Harris in Europe and then catch up on what he's up to 🙂

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