[Xquartz-dev] launchd problem affecting DISPLAY setting

[John Hanks]

Thanks, this is extremely helpful. First, my overrides.plist. I am indeed
uid 501, and:

wlan-clients-1816:com.apple.launchd.peruser.501 griznog$ pwd
/var/db/launchd.db/com.apple.launchd.peruser.501
wlan-clients-1816:com.apple.launchd.peruser.501 griznog$ ls -al
total 4
drwx------  3 griznog wheel  102 Nov 12 11:37 .
drwxr-xr-x 15 root    wheel  510 Oct  5 19:09 ..
-rw-------  1 griznog wheel 2200 Nov 12 10:59 overrides.plist

The XQuartz sections there appear ok to me:

<key>org.macosforge.xquartz.privileged_startx</key>
 <dict>
<key>Disabled</key>
<false/>
 </dict>
<key>org.macosforge.xquartz.startx</key>
<dict>
 <key>Disabled</key>
<false/>
</dict>

I enabled debugging and lo and behold:

11/12/12 11:44:59.427 AM launchctl[313]: launchctl: Dubious permissions on
file (skipping): /Library/LaunchAgents

Turns out the entire /Library was owned by my user account. I have to
assume this was self-inflicted, although nowhere in the history for root or
me can I find a chown that would have done this. In addition, while file
permissions on files were correct, the /Library/LaunchAgents directory had
managed to become group writeable.

Thanks for your help. This also fixed a google drive problem and citrix
receiver problem which I hadn't noticed until they started working
correctly once this was addressed.

Thanks,

griznog



On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 11:27 AM, Jeremy Huddleston Sequoia <
jeremyhu at apple.com> wrote:

> That's odd.  I wonder if you've got some permissions mucked up.  Take a
> look at your overrides.plist:
> /var/db/launchd.db/com.apple.launchd.peruser.<your uid>/overrides.plist
>
> The default user is uid 501, so that would be
> /var/db/launchd.db/com.apple.launchd.peruser.501/overrides.plist
>
> Does it have org.macosforge.xquartz.startx disabled?  Is it writable by
> your user?  What is logged to syslog when you load the plist with -w (ie,
> what's in /var/log/system.log)?
>
> If you want to debug laucnhd, you can create this file:
> /private/var/db/.launchd_log_debug on Mountain Lion or
> /var/db/.debug_launchd on Lion
>
> Its existence will trigger launchd to start in debug mode.  This will have
> detrimental impact on your system's performance, so make sure you remove
> that file when you're done debugging...
>
> --Jeremy
>
> On Nov 12, 2012, at 10:06 AM, John Hanks <john.hanks at usu.edu> wrote:
>
> > I've tried this several times, but repeating and verifying was worth a
> try:
> >
> > wlan-clients-1816:~ griznog$ launchctl load -w
> /Library/LaunchAgents/org.macosforge.xquartz.startx.plist
> > wlan-clients-1816:~ griznog$ launchctl list | grep quartz
> > -     0       org.macosforge.xquartz.startx
> > wlan-clients-1816:~ griznog$
> >
> > [log off and back on]
> >
> > wlan-clients-1816:~ griznog$ launchctl list | grep quartz
> > wlan-clients-1816:~ griznog$ echo $DISPLAY
> >
> > wlan-clients-1816:~ griznog$
> >
> > So this smells like a problem with launchd/launchctl, but I can't find
> any hooks that allow me to figure out where and as I mentioned before, the
> .plist files for XQuartz are identical (as far as I can tell) on both the
> broken and working systems.
> >
> > If this request follows the path of others I've googled up like it, this
> is the point after which I get no more responses :/
> >
> > griznog
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 10:55 AM, Jeremy Huddleston Sequoia <
> jeremyhu at apple.com> wrote:
> > Use 'launchctl load -w
> /Library/LaunchAgents/org.macosforge.xquartz.startx.plist' to load the
> agent (and have it loaded later, that's what -w does).
> >
> > Logout and log back in, and you should have $DISPLAY
> >
> > You should be able to run 'launchctl getenv DISPLAY' to verify that
> launchd is providing $DISPLAY.  It's possible that something else (startup
> script) is unsetting it.
> >
> >
> > On Nov 12, 2012, at 8:25 AM, John Hanks <john.hanks at usu.edu> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I have two systems running Mountain Lion, on one (iMac) XQuartz works
> fine and as expected. On the other (Macbook Pro) the DISPLAY environment
> variable never gets set. After troubleshooting this off and on for a month
> or more, I'm here to beg for some help or insight. What I've tried:
> > >
> > >  - Reinstalling and/or upgrading XQuartz numerous times
> > >  - using launchctl to load the LaunchAgent and/or LaunchDaemon with
> and without -w.
> > >
> > > I can start XQuartz manually and it works fine, e.g. I can display a
> terminal from it and then ssh to another host and remote display an X app.
> But, the OS X terminal doesn't have DISPLAY set and thus I can't ssh to
> hosts with working XForwarding or start X apps locally from the OS X
> Terminal.
> > >
> > > After comparing the two systems, I can't find any obvious difference
> between the files or permissions in the install.
> > >
> > > On the broken system, I can "launchctl load ..." the LaunchAgent and
> LaunchDaemon plist files, but if I log out and log back in they are no
> longer loaded. They get loaded automatically on the working system and set
> DISPLAY appropriately.
> > >
> > > I've tried using a $HOME/.launchd.conf file to load these, but it gets
> ignored. When I add them to /etc/launchd.conf the system never completes
> booting. I tried this approach out of desperation, note that the working
> system has neither of these files present.
> > >
> > > If someone can point out to me what I might be doing wrong here I'd
> greatly appreciate it.
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > >
> > > griznog
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Xquartz-dev mailing list
> > > Xquartz-dev at lists.macosforge.org
> > > http://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo/xquartz-dev
> >
> >
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> >
> >
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>
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