Re: both X11 and XQuartz encounter similar error
Re: both X11 and XQuartz encounter similar error
- Subject: Re: both X11 and XQuartz encounter similar error
- From: Ken Thomases <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2010 03:59:32 -0500
On Sep 10, 2010, at 7:33 PM, Jeremy Huddleston wrote:
> On Sep 10, 2010, at 16:14, Michael Lachman wrote:
>
>> Sep 10 22:42:54 Ball-of-Confusion org.x.startx[85398]: Couldn't create cookie
>> Sep 10 22:42:54 Ball-of-Confusion com.apple.launchd.peruser.502[123] (org.x.startx[85398]): Exited with exit code: 1
>> Sep 10 22:42:54 Ball-of-Confusion com.apple.launchd.peruser.502[123] (org.x.startx): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
>
> The others are all expected. This one is certainly unexpected. Looking at startx, we see this error coming from:
>
> if [ -r /dev/urandom ]; then
> mcookie=`dd if=/dev/urandom bs=16 count=1 2>/dev/null | hexdump -e \\"x\\"`
> else
> mcookie=`dd if=/dev/random bs=16 count=1 2>/dev/null | hexdump -e \\"x\\"`
> fi
>
> if test x"$mcookie" = x; then
> echo "Couldn't create cookie"
> exit 1
> fi
>
>> After reading through the forum at some length, it looks like several users have had similar issues,
>
> Similar in that X11 doesn't start, but this is the first time I've seen something like this one.
>
>
> What is output if you run:
>
> dd if=/dev/urandom bs=16 count=1 2> /dev/null | hexdump -e \"x\"
A test in Terminal can be misleading if the problem is the environment given to apps launched from the Finder or Dock. My guess is that something has mangled the PATH via ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist. I've seen it often enough in support tickets at CodeWeavers. There's some lame third-party installer out there which tries to set PATH="/whatever/whatever:$PATH" via environment.plist, but environment.plist doesn't support that sort of substitution. Thus, the PATH ends up being _literally_ that string, and none of the standard tools can be found.
Launching a shell in Terminal completely rebuilds the environment, including the PATH, from scratch. So, the problem can go undetected for some time.
Cheers,
Ken
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