10.04 - Can't open Synaptics

[michael91]

About a week ago, I installed 10.04 onto my shared computer from an ordered disc and starting from two or three days ago, a bunch of problems have arisen in regards to Administrative programs not opening. I decided to check if my brother had changed my account from being an Administrator to being a General user (I don't know if that's the correct name), but when I click on Users and Groups, an error box pops up saying that "The configuration could not be loaded" and "An unknown error occurred". As the topic title says, the Synaptics doesn't open either. I've tried installing things from the Ubuntu Software Centre, but that doesn't work. I can open the Update Manager, but clicking on "Install Updates" doesn't do anything except pretty much refresh the Manager. My brother says that the same things are happening to him and his account was created as an Administrator as well. Also, when Shut Down is clicked, the computer simply logs off, then it has to be manually turned off, and my external hard drive isn't being detected. Finally, I've been considering just reinstalling from the disc if none of this gets fixed. Does anyone know how to solve these problems, or should I just reinstall?

[mikewhatever]

Try launching Synaptic from a terminal window and post the output:

gksudo synaptic

[drs305]

If you type "groups" in a terminal, does it show you are a member of "admin"?

If not, boot into the recovery mode, and run this command to become a member of the admin group (using your username of course).

adduser username admin

If you are a member of "admin", try running a command from the terminal using "sudo" (e.g. "sudo apt-get update") and tell us what error messages are generated.

[michael91]

@mikewhatever: It starts to load the Synaptics (says Starting Administrative Application in the taskbar), but then it just stops.

#drs305: The output says "michael adm dialout fax cdrom floppy tape audio dip video plugdev fuse lpadmin netdev admin sambashare". I don't exactly know what that means. I decided to enter "sudo apt-get update" into the Terminal and the output given was "sudo: must be setuid root". Not sure what that means either, but I'm guessing something to do with the group "root" or something like that.

[drs305]

The output of the command you ran shows that you belong to the "admin group:

michael adm dialout fax cdrom floppy tape audio dip video plugdev fuse lpadmin netdev admin sambashare

You have a permission problem that can be solved via the recovery mode. Reboot to the recovery mode and then run the following commands:

chown root:root /usr/bin/sudo
chmod 4111 /usr/bin/sudo
chmod 0440 /etc/sudoers

This should reset the permissions to the default settings and restore your ability to use sudo.

[michael91]

Newbie question, but how do I reboot into recovery mode? I rebooted, but other than showing the computer model screen (I've got a Dell, so it showed the Dell logo screen), it just went straight to the login screen. I noticed something about the Session currently being GNOME, and that there was an option for Failsafe GNOME. Is that it?

[dino99]

at end of bios process, hold "shift" key down to see the grub menu, then select the 2d line (recovery) to boot

[michael91]

After choosing the second line, a "Recovery mode" box appears with a list of options. The one saying "failsafe graphics mode" looks like the one that I would choose. Am I right?

[drs305]

Choose the option to drop to the root shell, which will take you to a command prompt (terminal) where you can run the commands.

[michael91]

After running each of the commands (the chown and 2 chmod ones), it said that changing permissions was not permitted.