Xfce Forum

xDev64

Member

Registered: 2019-05-11

Posts: 2

thunar only starts with sudo

Problem:

If I run from xfce-terminal, $sudo thunar it opens and works OK.
Calling without sudo runs the process but the window does not appear.
Any of the default icons on the desktop (File System, Home, and File Manager icon) just show an error "Input/Output error."
The default application is set to thunar.

Configuration:

(yes I know this is a stretch!)
XFCE v4.12 running in X410 on Windows, launched from Pengwin running Windows Subsystem for Linux.

Other apps seem to work fine, e.g. Terminal, Visual Studio Code, ...

This seems to be related to thunar and some permissions but I'm perplexed as to why to try next.

Update: I installed worker file manager and changed the File manager app preference to use worker and now all appears to work correctly (albeit the File Manager is worker not thunar).

Thanks for any clues to help fix the thunar problem.

Last edited by xDev64 (2019-05-11 17:27:15)

MrEen

Member

Registered: 2019-04-19

Posts: 295

Re: thunar only starts with sudo

Hi xDev64 and welcome.

I'm betting you've messed up your permissions for Thunar. Open a terminal and paste this in:

sudo chown -Rc $USER:$USER $HOME

You will probably be able to open Thunar properly after that.

xDev64

Member

Registered: 2019-05-11

Posts: 2

Re: thunar only starts with sudo

Thanks for the welcome and the suggestion MrEen.
I executed chown but still no joy without sudo.

MrEen

Member

Registered: 2019-04-19

Posts: 295

Re: thunar only starts with sudo

We should probably wait for someone with more knowledge rather than have me throw out a bunch more guesses.

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,486

Re: thunar only starts with sudo

Not sure if any of this is relevant when running on a Windows subsystem, but...

Is the thunar demon running as root?

ps -ef | grep -i thunar

Also try:

sudo killall thunar && thunar

...and see if anything displays in the terminal window.

Otherwise, you might need to strace it to see where the hang up is.

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