[SOLVED] Authenticate dialog box not appearing in Fluxbox

[Patb]

Hi. When I try to open network-admin, and click on the "Unlock" button, nothing happens. I do not get the "Authenticate" dialog box as I should so I cannot make any settings. I've done a fair quota of reading, searching and googling on this :).

I am running Fluxbox window manager on a full Gnome installation. In Fluxbox, the "gnome-keyring-daemon" is running in the background and I have tried turning it off, to no avail.

If I log in on a default Gnome desktop, the problem does not happen - clicking on "Unlock" brings up the normal "Authenticate" dialog box.

I do not understand this behaviour, nor where it might be coming from but I suspect it is fairly simple. Any guidance would be appreciated. Below is a threaded list of all running processes.

Cheers, Pat

pat@laptop:~$ ps -ejH
PID PGID SID TTY TIME CMD
2 0 0 ? 00:00:00 kthreadd
3 0 0 ? 00:00:00 migration/0
4 0 0 ? 00:00:00 ksoftirqd/0
5 0 0 ? 00:00:00 watchdog/0
6 0 0 ? 00:00:00 migration/1
7 0 0 ? 00:00:00 ksoftirqd/1
8 0 0 ? 00:00:00 watchdog/1
9 0 0 ? 00:00:00 events/0
10 0 0 ? 00:00:00 events/1
11 0 0 ? 00:00:00 khelper
46 0 0 ? 00:00:00 kblockd/0
47 0 0 ? 00:00:00 kblockd/1
50 0 0 ? 00:00:00 kacpid
51 0 0 ? 00:00:00 kacpi_notify
133 0 0 ? 00:00:00 kseriod
175 0 0 ? 00:00:00 pdflush
176 0 0 ? 00:00:00 pdflush
177 0 0 ? 00:00:00 kswapd0
218 0 0 ? 00:00:00 aio/0
219 0 0 ? 00:00:00 aio/1
1411 0 0 ? 00:00:00 ksuspend_usbd
1417 0 0 ? 00:00:00 khubd
1597 0 0 ? 00:00:00 ata/0
1601 0 0 ? 00:00:00 ata/1
1603 0 0 ? 00:00:00 ata_aux
1611 0 0 ? 00:00:00 scsi_eh_0
1613 0 0 ? 00:00:00 scsi_eh_1
2374 0 0 ? 00:00:00 scsi_eh_2
2375 0 0 ? 00:00:00 usb-storage
2966 0 0 ? 00:00:00 kpsmoused
3031 0 0 ? 00:00:00 kmmcd
3860 0 0 ? 00:00:00 mmcqd
4848 0 0 ? 00:00:00 kondemand/0
4849 0 0 ? 00:00:00 kondemand/1
1 1 1 ? 00:00:01 init
2680 2680 2680 ? 00:00:00 udevd
4621 4621 4621 tty4 00:00:00 getty
4622 4622 4622 tty5 00:00:00 getty
4627 4627 4627 tty2 00:00:00 getty
4628 4628 4628 tty3 00:00:00 getty
4633 4633 4633 tty6 00:00:00 getty
4814 4814 4814 ? 00:00:00 acpid
4934 4934 4934 ? 00:00:00 syslogd
4986 4985 4985 ? 00:00:00 dd
4988 4988 4988 ? 00:00:00 klogd
5010 5010 5010 ? 00:00:00 dbus-daemon
5026 5026 5026 ? 00:00:00 NetworkManager
5040 5040 5040 ? 00:00:00 NetworkManagerD
5053 5053 5053 ? 00:00:00 system-tools-ba
5073 5073 5073 ? 00:00:00 avahi-daemon
5074 5074 5074 ? 00:00:00 avahi-daemon
5116 5116 5116 ? 00:00:00 cupsd
5169 5169 5169 ? 00:00:00 winbindd
5184 5169 5169 ? 00:00:00 winbindd
5208 5208 5208 ? 00:00:00 dhcdbd
5559 5208 5208 ? 00:00:00 dhclient
5227 5227 5227 ? 00:00:00 hald
5231 5227 5227 ? 00:00:00 hald-runner
5304 5227 5227 ? 00:00:00 hald-addon-inpu
5310 5227 5227 ? 00:00:00 hald-addon-cpuf
5311 5227 5227 ? 00:00:00 hald-addon-acpi
5230 5230 5230 ? 00:00:00 console-kit-dae
5381 5381 5381 ? 00:00:00 gdm
5383 5383 5381 ? 00:00:00 gdm
5394 5394 5394 tty7 00:00:07 Xorg
5655 5655 5655 ? 00:00:00 fluxbox
5734 5734 5734 ? 00:00:00 ssh-agent
5743 5743 5743 ? 00:00:00 seahorse-agent
5763 5655 5655 ? 00:00:00 conky
5765 5655 5655 ? 00:00:00 evolution-alarm
5801 5801 5801 ? 00:00:05 firefox
5826 5826 5826 ? 00:00:00 xterm
5827 5827 5827 pts/0 00:00:00 bash
5892 5892 5827 pts/0 00:00:00 ps
5423 5423 5423 ? 00:00:00 atd
5440 5440 5440 ? 00:00:00 cron
5541 5541 5541 tty1 00:00:00 getty
5736 5655 5655 ? 00:00:00 gconfd-2
5782 5782 5782 ? 00:00:00 bonobo-activati

[dustigroove]

Unfortunately no solution for you on my end... but sitting there with ya in the same boat.

This occurs under Openbox as well. So far I've not had much luck finding a solution to get PolicyKit and ConsoleKit to play nice when not under Gnome.

[Patb]

Thanks Dusti. It is probably something fairly simple. I should have mentioned that I have a virtually identical setup on my desktop. On the desktop, the dialog box comes up as it should, whether I'm in a Gnome or Fluxbox desktop. It is only on my laptop that it plays up.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Cheers, Pat

[dustigroove]

A couple of questions...

Q1) Are you using Gnome with Fluxbox as the WM or straight Fluxbox (Fluxbox as the session versus Gnome/Fluxbox at login)?

Q2) Did you upgrade up to Hardy or do a fresh install?

[p_quarles]

I would suggest you create a launcher in ~/.fluxbox/menu that runs the network manager in superuser mode, using gksu. This will get around the need to "authenticate."

Fluxbox doesn't handle any background processes, so at a certain point getting GNOME stuff to work in Fluxbox essentially means reconstructing GNOME with Fluxbox as the window manager. More work than it's worth, imo.

[Patb]

Thanks again Dusti. I am using Gnome with Fluxbox as the WM. I use GDM and can log in on a standard Gnome desktop, in which case this problem doesn't occur. And this is a very recent fresh install - with no "dead wood" to speak of.

P_quarles, thank you too for the suggestion. I can of course launch network-admin from a terminal using gksu but in that case, the unlock button and everything else is greyed out. Launching it without administrative privileges from a terminal behaves identically as starting it from the menu. But I do get the following errors in the console:

pat@laptop:~$ network-admin
** (network-admin:8200): CRITICAL **: Cannot create session bus: Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-OolW7iPVIw: Connection refused
(network-admin:8200): Gtk-WARNING **: Unknown property: GtkComboBox.items
I think this problem has something to do with polkit which for some reason is not able to invoke the authenticate process. If I have gnome system monitor running in the (literal) background as I click on the "Unlock" button, polkit does not appear on the processes list. If I am in Gnome WM, it does, and the "Authenticate" dialog comes up.

Getting GNOME stuff to work in Fluxbox essentially means reconstructing GNOME with Fluxbox as the window manager. More work than it's worth, imo
I tend to agree. That is why I simply add Fluxbox as an alternative WM on top of a standard Gnome installation. Almost everything does work in Fluxbox if you use the CLI commands. But I think that is unrelated to this problem - my desktop computer has an identical Fluxbox setup and this problem does not occur on it.

Are there any suggestions on how to coax polkit to throw up the "Authenticate" dialog when I click the network-admin "Unlock" button?

Cheers, Pat.

[Patb]

Found a solution - probably a bit rough but it seems to have worked. I renamed the folder ~/.dbus (from recovery mode in case the system recreated an exact copy) then rebooted. A "clean" ~/.dbus directory was then created automatically. The unruly "Authenticate" dialog now comes up as expected!

I don't understand dbus or polkit so I'm not exactly sure why this worked but it seems one couldn't call the other in some way, presumably because the settings under that ~/.dbus directory were not correct. The hint came from the error message I quoted.

Dusti, if this works for you, you might post. I'll mark this solved.

Cheers, Pat

[dustigroove]

Still no joy for me, but glad you got yours fixed!

Mine is most likely due to the fact that I've taken the hard road and am not using Fluxbox as the WM for Gnome... I guess I'm just fond of re-creating the wheel sometimes! ;-)

(I'll post a new thread if I don't get it sorted out on my own, thanks!)

Cheers

[Buce]

dustigroove, if you found a workaround for this, could you post it? I've got the same problem. :/