I deleted my .ICEauthority and it won't come back.

[comp666]

In an attempt to fix the "Could not update ICEauthority file /home/kevin/.ICEauthority" error, I sudo rm my ICEauthority because someone said it would be created when I login again. Well, I've restarted and logged in but .ICEauthority hasn't been recreated and I'm still getting the "Could not update ICEauthority" error. Any ideas? I'm running ubuntu version 11.04 and gnome version 2.32.1.

[prshah]

In an attempt to fix the "Could not update ICEauthority file /home/kevin/.ICEauthority" error, I sudo rm my ICEauthority because someone said it would be created when I login again. Well, I've restarted and logged in but .ICEauthority hasn't been recreated and I'm still getting the "Could not update ICEauthority" error. Any ideas? I'm running ubuntu version 11.04 and gnome version 2.32.1.

It is not enough to just delete the .ICEauthority file. You also need to create a new blank file, and set the correct permissions. For example

cd /home/kevin
sudo touch .ICEauthority # creates blank file with name .ICEauthority
sudo chown kevin:kevin .ICEauthority # makes "kevin" owner of the file
sudo chmod 600 .ICEauthority # sets permissions to "-rw-------" (read/write access to owner only)


You don't need to use sudo if you are in the recovery console or if you are logged in as kevin on a virtual terminal (Eg Ctrl+Alt+F1..F3).

Please post back with results.

[comp666]

I just did exactly what you said but unfortunately my new .ICEauthority file isn't being populated after rebooting.

-rw------- 1 kevin kevin 0 2012-01-09 21:59 .ICEauthority

[typhoon_tip]

I just did exactly what you said but unfortunately my new .ICEauthority file isn't being populated after rebooting.

-rw------- 1 kevin kevin 0 2012-01-09 21:59 .ICEauthority

Urgh, try changing "kevin" in the above series of commands to your real username pal, it will work.

[comp666]

I did use my real username, it's the name before the "@" right?

kevin@Dice:~$ cd ~
kevin@Dice:~$ pwd
/home/kevin
kevin@Dice:~$ sudo touch .ICEauthority
kevin@Dice:~$ sudo chown kevin:kevin .ICEauthority
kevin@Dice:~$ sudo chmod 600 .ICEauthority
kevin@Dice:~$ ls -la | grep .ICEauthority
-rw------- 1 kevin kevin 0 2012-01-10 09:20 .ICEauthority

I also tried giving Group and Others read and write access as well but no luck.

[prshah]

I also tried giving Group and Others read and write access as well but no luck.

Changing permissions on .ICEauthority only exacerbate the problem. 600 is correct permissions, and the output you have shown looks correct.

Please also check your home directory permissions/ownership; it should be as:

ls -ld ../kevin /home
drwxr-xr-x 35 kevin kevin 12288 2012-01-10 19:36 ../kevin
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 2011-01-14 23:01 /home


Sharing a common home folder between various distros is an absolute no-no; are you doing this?

[comp666]

omg tytytyty so much. My ../kevin belonged to 1016:1016 for some reason. I chowned it and now it works!

[prshah]

My ../kevin belonged to 1016:1016 for some reason. I chowned it and now it works!

Good to know it's solved. However, a note for others who may find this solution useful: do not RECURSIVELY chown or chmod your home directory!

Eg, in this example, this would be fine
sudo chown kevin:kevin /home/kevin but this will lead to TERRIBLE DISASTER:
sudo chown -R kevin:kevin /home/kevin

Same applies to permissions.

[mlupton]

Wow, I had no idea fixing that issue was that simple. I had been trying for the longest time to use chown on the .ICEauthority file itself to no avail. Also I wonder what the "1016" ownership represents, I had the same issue on my machine. This certainly taught me never to use sudo for graphical applications ever again, gksudo could have prevented me from having this problem in the first place. Thanks for all the help.

[ethanjyx]

sudo chown kevin:kevin /home/kevin: This works for me!!!