Message when starting emacs as root

Message when starting emacs as root

[Cecil Westerhof]

When I start Emacs as root –from the command line–, I get the
following message:
    (emacs:3279): GLib-WARNING **: In call to g_spawn_sync(), exit
    status of a child process was requested but SIGCHLD action was set
    to SIG_IGN and ECHILD was received by waitpid(), so exit status
    can't be returned. This is a bug in the program calling
    g_spawn_sync(); either don't request the exit status, or don't set
    the SIGCHLD action.

    GConf Error: Failed to contact configuration server; the most
    common cause is a missing or misconfigured D-Bus session bus
    daemon. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information.
    (Details -  1: Failed to get connection to session: Abnormal
    program termination spawning command line `dbus-launch
    --autolaunch=609bb989b7d80a921f5561274aef47bc --binary-syntax
    --close-stderr': )

As a non root user I do not get it. It happens since I updated to
openSUSE 10.4, which also update Emacs. I now use:
    GNU Emacs 23.2.1 (i586-suse-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.22.1) of 2011-02-22 on build27

-- 
Cecil Westerhof
Senior Software Engineer
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/cecilwesterhof

Re: Message when starting emacs as root

[Tim X]

Cecil Westerhof <Cecil@decebal.nl> writes:

> When I start Emacs as root –from the command line–, I get the
> following message:
>     (emacs:3279): GLib-WARNING **: In call to g_spawn_sync(), exit
>     status of a child process was requested but SIGCHLD action was set
>     to SIG_IGN and ECHILD was received by waitpid(), so exit status
>     can't be returned. This is a bug in the program calling
>     g_spawn_sync(); either don't request the exit status, or don't set
>     the SIGCHLD action.
>
>     GConf Error: Failed to contact configuration server; the most
>     common cause is a missing or misconfigured D-Bus session bus
>     daemon. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information.
>     (Details -  1: Failed to get connection to session: Abnormal
>     program termination spawning command line `dbus-launch
>     --autolaunch=609bb989b7d80a921f5561274aef47bc --binary-syntax
>     --close-stderr': )
>
> As a non root user I do not get it. It happens since I updated to
> openSUSE 10.4, which also update Emacs. I now use:
>     GNU Emacs 23.2.1 (i586-suse-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.22.1) of 2011-02-22 on build27

Are you trying to run emacs as root from within an X sessions which you
have started as a non-privileged user? If so, this is an error because
xauth cookies are not correctly setup. 

I sometimes see this error when I ssh to a remote system and try to run
some X applications immediately after logging in using XLL forwarding
over ssh. I find running the command a second time and it all works. 

What happens if you start emacs with the -nw switch. If that works, then
it is definitely an X authentication problem. If it still gives the
error, then it is likely a problem further down the chain (i.e. dbus,
gconf).

Tim

-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Re: Message when starting emacs as root

[Tim X]

Cecil Westerhof <Cecil@decebal.nl> writes:

> When I start Emacs as root –from the command line–, I get the
> following message:
>     (emacs:3279): GLib-WARNING **: In call to g_spawn_sync(), exit
>     status of a child process was requested but SIGCHLD action was set
>     to SIG_IGN and ECHILD was received by waitpid(), so exit status
>     can't be returned. This is a bug in the program calling
>     g_spawn_sync(); either don't request the exit status, or don't set
>     the SIGCHLD action.
>
>     GConf Error: Failed to contact configuration server; the most
>     common cause is a missing or misconfigured D-Bus session bus
>     daemon. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information.
>     (Details -  1: Failed to get connection to session: Abnormal
>     program termination spawning command line `dbus-launch
>     --autolaunch=609bb989b7d80a921f5561274aef47bc --binary-syntax
>     --close-stderr': )
>
> As a non root user I do not get it. It happens since I updated to
> openSUSE 10.4, which also update Emacs. I now use:
>     GNU Emacs 23.2.1 (i586-suse-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.22.1) of 2011-02-22 on build27

I forgot to ask, but why are you runing as root anyway? If you do this
on occasion just to edit some files owned by root, you don't need to do
this. YOu can edit files owned by root from witin your existing non-root
emacs instance using tramp. Much faster, preserves your emacs session
and I think safer/more secure. 

Tim

-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Re: Message when starting emacs as root

[Glenn Morris]

Cecil Westerhof wrote:

>     GConf Error: Failed to contact configuration server; the most
>     common cause is a missing or misconfigured D-Bus session bus
>     daemon. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information.
>     (Details -  1: Failed to get connection to session: Abnormal
>     program termination spawning command line `dbus-launch
>     --autolaunch=609bb989b7d80a921f5561274aef47bc --binary-syntax
>     --close-stderr': )

http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=7249#10

  "It is a GConf limitation/bug. su followed by for example gedit or
  gnome-help gives the same error."