Programs shut down immediately after opening

Question

I am having a problem where some programs, including Software Center, Update Manager, and Synaptic all close down immediately after opening. The window comes up, but disappears before i have a chance to do anything. People with similar problems have submitted bug reports with similar errors, but none seem to apply directly to my situation. When I run the Software Center from a terminal, I get the following script. I appreciate any help. Weston

[sudo] password for wes: 
2011-08-07 10:41:38,788 - softwarecenter.fixme - WARNING - logs to the root logger: '('/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/database.py', 154, 'open')'
2011-08-07 10:41:38,788 - root - WARNING - failed to add sca db Couldn't stat '/root/.cache/software-center/software-center-agent.db' (No such file or directory)
/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/app.py:1192: Warning: g_object_set_qdata: assertion `G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
  self.window_main.show_all()
2011-08-07 10:41:39,873 - softwarecenter.fixme - WARNING - logs to the root logger: '('/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.7/zeitgeist/client.py', 367, 'reconnect_monitors')'
2011-08-07 10:41:39,872 - zeitgeist.client - INFO - Reconnected to Zeitgeist engine...
/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/SimpleGtkbuilderApp.py:50: Warning: g_object_set_qdata: assertion `G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
  gtk.main()
2011-08-07 10:41:44,253 - softwarecenter.backend.scagent - WARNING - error in query_info 'Operation not supported'
2011-08-07 10:41:44,254 - softwarecenter.db.update - WARNING - error: Operation not supported

Answer 1

From the error report it looks like you have, at some time, run sudo software-center and the root user has claimed the ownership of the software-center cache.

Try

sudo chown -R wes:wes ~/.cache/software-center

As to the others - it is worth launching synaptic and update-manager from the terminal to see if you get similar error.

Its perhaps work checking that you haven't accidentally changed the ownership of .cache and some/all subfolders to root.

i.e.

ls -ld .cache

and

ls -ld .cache/*