Debian Bug report logs - #918574
gnome-shell: loops with "failed to bind to /tmp/.X11-unix/X<number>: No such file or directory"

Package: gnome-shell; Maintainer for gnome-shell is Debian GNOME Maintainers <[email protected]>; Source for gnome-shell is src:gnome-shell (PTS, buildd, popcon).

Reported by: Robert Stone <[email protected]>

Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2019 13:57:06 UTC

Severity: normal

Reply or subscribe to this bug.

View this report as an mbox folder, status mbox, maintainer mbox


Report forwarded to [email protected], Debian GNOME Maintainers <[email protected]>:
Bug#918574; Package gnome-shell. (Mon, 07 Jan 2019 13:57:09 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Robert Stone <[email protected]>:
New Bug report received and forwarded. Copy sent to Debian GNOME Maintainers <[email protected]>. (Mon, 07 Jan 2019 13:57:09 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #5 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Robert Stone <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: FATAL gnome-shell loops on boot filling up syslog
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2019 13:56:05 +0000
[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]
Package: gnome-shell

Version: 3.30.1-2


Testing 4.19.0-1 (buster amd64)

Cannot boot my laptop. gnome-shell fills up syslog with these messages.

There may be some typo's as I had to write this down and go to the
local library.


gnome-shell[1458]: failed to bind to /tmp/.X11-unix/X1024: No such
file or directory

gnome-shell[1458]: failed to bind to /tmp/.X11-unix/X1025: No such
file or directory

These repeat with the X number increasing by one until I remove the
battery and then restart in recovery mode. The last lines are as
follows:-

gnome-shell[1458]: failed to bind to /tmp/.X11-unix/X120805: No such
file or directory

gnome-shell[1458]: failed to bind to /tmp/.X11-unix/X120806: No such
file or directory

kernel:[   134.986875] do.trap: 14 callbacks suppressed

kernel:[   134.986878] traps: gnome-shell[1458] trap int3
ip:7fe777dd4be5 sp:7ffdcca78120 error:0 in
libglib-2.0.so.5800.2[7fe777d9c000+7e00]

gnome-shell[1458]: failed to bind to /tmp/.X11-unix/X120807: No such
file or directory

gnome-shell[1458]: failed to bind to /tmp/.X11-unix/X120809: No such
file or directory

gnome-shell[1458]: failed to write pid to lock file /tmp/.X120810-lock

gnome-shell[1458]: Failed to create an X lock file

gnome-shell[1458]: Failed to start X Wayland


Please fix this ASAP. My laptop is dead in the water.


TIA,

Robert
[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Information forwarded to [email protected], Debian GNOME Maintainers <[email protected]>:
Bug#918574; Package gnome-shell. (Mon, 07 Jan 2019 15:15:07 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to [email protected]:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian GNOME Maintainers <[email protected]>. (Mon, 07 Jan 2019 15:15:07 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #10 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Jason Crain <[email protected]>
To: Robert Stone <[email protected]>, [email protected]
Subject: Re: Bug#918574: FATAL gnome-shell loops on boot filling up syslog
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2019 08:05:18 -0700
On Mon, Jan 07, 2019 at 01:56:05PM +0000, Robert Stone wrote:
> Cannot boot my laptop. gnome-shell fills up syslog with these messages.
> 
> There may be some typo's as I had to write this down and go to the
> local library.
> 
> 
> gnome-shell[1458]: failed to bind to /tmp/.X11-unix/X1024: No such
> file or directory
> 
> gnome-shell[1458]: failed to bind to /tmp/.X11-unix/X1025: No such
> file or directory

The first question that comes to my mind is whether there is something
that prevents access to /tmp. Whether the filesystem is mounted readonly
or perhaps something else is preventing write access to /tmp.



Information forwarded to [email protected], Debian GNOME Maintainers <[email protected]>:
Bug#918574; Package gnome-shell. (Sun, 13 Jan 2019 00:03:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to [email protected]:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian GNOME Maintainers <[email protected]>. (Sun, 13 Jan 2019 00:03:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #15 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Simon McVittie <[email protected]>
To: Robert Stone <[email protected]>, [email protected]
Subject: Re: Bug 918574: gnome-shell: loops with "failed to bind to /tmp/.X11-unix/X<number>: No such file or directory"
Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2019 00:01:24 +0000
Control: retitle -1 gnome-shell: loops with "failed to bind to /tmp/.X11-unix/X<number>: No such file or directory"

On Sat, 12 Jan 2019 at 13:51:11 +0000, Robert Stone wrote:
> I'd appreciate somebody looking at this problem as I cannot use my laptop.

Sorry, I don't have any special insight into this problem or why it has
happened to you. It's often not possible for developers to solve a bug
that can't be reproduced on a system under their control.

Yours is the only report I've seen of a similar situation, so this is
probably something specific to your particular system configuration.
I'll try to give some hints about how to narrow this down to something
actionable (either fixing local misconfiguration or finding a bug that can
be fixed), but the Debian bug tracking system is not really a technical
support helpline.

Jason Crain left a message on the bug that might provide some clues:
> The first question that comes to my mind is whether there is something
> that prevents access to /tmp. Whether the filesystem is mounted readonly
> or perhaps something else is preventing write access to /tmp.

Booting the system into a mode that does not attempt to start GNOME might
provide useful information. To do that, select

    Advanced options for Debian GNU/Linux
        -> Debian GNU/Linux, with Linux [some version] (recovery mode)

from the boot menu, or edit the kernel command line in the boot menu
and add "systemd.unit=multi-user.target" (without the quotes) for a
relatively fully-featured text mode, or "single" (single-user mode)
for the same thing as the "recovery mode" in the menu.

Another way to get a basic command prompt is to tell systemd to boot
in rescue mode or in emergency mode, as described here:
https://www.linuxtechi.com/boot-ubuntu-18-04-debian-9-rescue-emergency-mode/

After you are able to get to a command prompt, you could try installing a
different graphical environment like XFCE, or a different display manager
like xdm, to see whether that one worked any better. However, if there
is something wrong with /tmp on your system then I would expect that all
graphical environments would fail similarly (they all use /tmp/.X11-unix
in the same way).

If /tmp isn't read-only, another possibility is that /tmp/.X11-unix is
a symbolic link to somewhere that doesn't exist. If that's the problem,
deleting it should resolve the situation.

Good luck,
    smcv



Changed Bug title to 'gnome-shell: loops with "failed to bind to /tmp/.X11-unix/X<number>: No such file or directory"' from 'FATAL gnome-shell loops on boot filling up syslog'. Request was from Simon McVittie <[email protected]> to [email protected]. (Sun, 13 Jan 2019 00:03:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Information forwarded to [email protected], Debian GNOME Maintainers <[email protected]>:
Bug#918574; Package gnome-shell. (Mon, 14 Jan 2019 15:39:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Michael Biebl <[email protected]>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian GNOME Maintainers <[email protected]>. (Mon, 14 Jan 2019 15:39:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


Message #22 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Michael Biebl <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Bug 918574: gnome-shell: loops with "failed to bind to /tmp/.X11-unix/X<number>: No such file or directory"
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2019 16:37:37 +0100
[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]
This is most likely https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/11282

[signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, attachment)]

Send a report that this bug log contains spam.


Debian bug tracking system administrator <[email protected]>. Last modified: Tue May 13 08:47:18 2025; Machine Name: buxtehude

Debian Bug tracking system

Debbugs is free software and licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2. The current version can be obtained from https://bugs.debian.org/debbugs-source/.

Copyright © 1999 Darren O. Benham, 1997,2003 nCipher Corporation Ltd, 1994-97 Ian Jackson, 2005-2017 Don Armstrong, and many other contributors.