"Could not update ICEauthority file" after login (independent of gnome)

Question

I just installed Ubuntu 11.04 64bits in my new computer, and I got this two messages after login:

and

I've tried to login with classic gnome, and safe mode, but got the same messages.

Any easy/fast solution to this? (if not I can use Ubuntu 10.10 for while)

My computer is an HP Pavilion, intel i3, 4GM ram.

Answer 1

It's a simple permissions issue. One of two things will work:

First, try the following:

sudo chown username:username .ICEauthority

sudo chmod 0644 .ICEauthority

Change username to your own username (so in your situation it would be wellington).

If that didn't work, you'll need to (unfortunately) start with a new /home directory - however, BACK UP YOUR DATA before you do that. For more on backup solutions, see

• Comparison of backup tools.

Answer 2

I managed to fix the issue by changing ownership and permissons on the folder itself, I used this:

sudo chown username:username /home/username
sudo chmod 700 /home/username

This cleared the problem right away for me.

Answer 3

I had today the same problem, when I moved 'Home' users folders to a different partition. I solved it, not changing permissions in '.ICEauthority' file (in fact, I deleted it), but changing the owners of that folders to their users, recursively:

sudo su
chown -R user /home/user

To do that, in login window, ALT+CTRL+F1 changes to a console. After that, ALT+CTRL+F7 returns to GUI mode. No need to reboot.

P.S.: Having 'home' in a separate partition, is a good way to prevent system crashes, and to upgrade versions. See wiki. I used it to install Ubuntu 12.10 in one notebook, and just to separate partitions in another notebook with 12.04LTS.

Answer 4

nano /home/$USER/.xsession-errors

At the bottom of .xsessions-errors, it said permission denied to .ICEauthority (/home/$USER/.ICEauthority)

sudo chown $USER:$USER /home/$USER/.ICEauthority

The Above fixed the problem.

The Below messed it up again for me.

sudo chmod 0644 /home/$USER/.ICEauthority

Its the correct command, but when I rebooted I noticed the owner was changed to 0644 for some odd reason.

Answer 5

I recently had this problem.

It is a file permission problem but don't assume it is .ICEauthority only. In my case the home folder permissions had changed (how? I do not know)

Took me a while to figure it out because I never expected my home folder permissions to change.

So your home folders permissions should be 0755 or 0700 or whatever (7 must be a 7 though) and .ICEauthority should work with 0600 If you need to use 0644 something is probably wrong.

Answer 6

CTRL+ALT+F2 at the login window to switch to a vt command line and login there, Then type: sudo chown username:username ~/.IceAuthority

And then type: chmod 0600 ~/.IceAuthority

Hit ALT+F7 to get back to the graphical login window and try to login there

Answer 7

See this link.

Bug 13534 "Could not update ICEauthority file /.ICEauthority" on bootup build 130 and above

After the system boots, the following warning dialog boxes may be displayed:

Could not update ICEauthority file /.ICEauthority

There is a problem with the configuration server (/usr/lib/gconf-sanity-check-2 exited with status 256)

Work-around: Clicking on the "Close" button for each dialog box will permit one to login normally. Once logged in, enter the following command to correct the home directory for the "gdm" user

$ pfexec usermod -d /var/lib/gdm gdm

---

Edit: Ubuntu uses Lightdm in recent releases instead of GDM.

Answer 8

Try adding the user with the home directory addition switch ;) useradd -m blah blah blah Start right, end right.

Answer 9

@daedlanth

That was right. I created a user with useradd and then passwd, I got ICEAuthority error. Then, I deleted the account, followed all the right steps, logged in and there I got the desktop without any problems!

Steps for your reference (taken from http://www.blackmoreops.com/2014/03/03/20-things-installing-kali-linux/)

useradd -m user1
passwd user1
usermod -a -G sudo user1
chsh -s /bin/bash user1

Answer 10

i was facing the same problem and cannot login for my user. I tried theses two methods mentioned above 1- change the premissions 2- delete the iceAuthority file

but still i could not make it so i make a simple move by crating a new user

1. At the login screen, press Ctrl+Alt+F1 to get to the console.
2. Log in there.
3. create user by addser as describe in this link

here is thread to create user link for creating user by command line

and then login with that user.Remember to use adduser as "add useradd command wont create '/home/username' directory but adduser command will"

conculsion: This trick will get you your all your data in home/olduser/
P.S Need help can we copy new iceAuthority file (/.ICEauthority) from /home/newuser to home/olduser to access previous account

Answer 11

It's an old thread but I had a somehow related issue (on Debian 10.1), a quick Internet search led me here.

After I created a new user, the home directory had appropriate permissions, and did not contain any .ICEauthority file, which is OK so far. I thought it would be generated at first desktop login, but apparently, it's not.

I just created an empty file, as root (replace username with your actual username):

sudo touch ~username/.ICEauthority
sudo chown username:username ~username/.ICEauthority
sudo chmod 0600 ~username/.ICEauthority

It was then generated at first desktop session and everything is OK.

Answer 12

I also faced the same issue as my home directory was deleted. Just recreated the folder, added the default config files, and changed the owner to me:

sudo mkdir /home/user
cp -a /etc/skel/* /home/user
chown -R user:user /home/user

This is how, I resolved the issue.