X: Authorization required, but no authorization protocol specified

[Ken Brown]

On 8/12/2015 2:22 AM, Markus Hoenicka wrote:
> At 2015-08-07 11:26, Jon TURNEY was heard to say:
>> On 06/08/2015 17:56, Markus Hoenicka wrote:
>>> I've upgraded my setup yesterday and ran into a problem running the X
>>> server. X ran just fine before the upgrade, just like any X client I
>>> threw at it. I'm aware that some defaults have changed in the couple of
>>> months since I upgraded, and I hope I've done everything the FAQ
>>> recommends to accommodate these changes. However, no joy.
>>>
>>> Starting the X server now is noticeably slower, regardless of how I
>>> start it (Windows start menu, startx, or my hitherto preferred method
>>> startxwin). Biggest problem though is that local X clients cannot
>>> connect. The server output is like this:
>>>
>>> $ startxwin /usr/bin/xterm
>>> xauth:  file /home/markus.hoenicka/.Xauthority does not exist
>>> xauth:  file /home/markus.hoenicka/.Xauthority does not exist
>>> xauth:  file /home/markus.hoenicka/.Xauthority does not exist
>>> xauth:  file /home/markus.hoenicka/.Xauthority does not exist
>>
>> startxwin is just a shell script (based on the standard startx), which
>> invokes xauth to add an authorization cookie to ~/Xauthority (which is
>> also passed to the server using the -auth option)
>>
>>> The file ~/.Xauthority is created during startup, and it is empty
>>> after the server shuts down. It does not make any difference if I
>>> remove the empty file before restarting the X server.
>>
>> It should have some (binary) content while the server is running, but
>> that seems to be failing to happen, for some reason.
>>
>>> As a workaround I can start XWin manually like this:
>>> /usr/bin/XWin :0 -multiwindow
>>
>> This works, of course, because this doesn't use -auth.
>>
>>> However, I suppose the default behaviour of startx and startxwin was not
>>> intended to perform like this. Did I miss something obvious?
>>
>> Indeed.
>>
>> Is there anything unusual about your home directory?
>>
>> You might try modifying startxwin to remove the -q from xauth -q to
>> see if that reveals a bit more information.
>
> I finally got round to run this suggested test too. The first time I try
> to start X I get the following output:
>
> $ XAUTHORITY="" startxwin /usr/bin/emacs
> Using authority file /home/<username>/.serverauth.1076
> Writing authority file /home/<username>/.serverauth.1076
> Using authority file /home/<username>/.Xauthority
> Writing authority file /home/<username>/.Xauthority
> xauth:  file /home/<username>/.Xauthority does not exist
> xauth:  file /home/<username>/.Xauthority does not exist
> Using authority file /home/<username>/.Xauthority
> Writing authority file /home/<username>/.Xauthority
>
> Welcome to the XWin X Server
> Vendor: The Cygwin/X Project
> Release: 1.17.2.0
> OS: CYGWIN_NT-6.1 SBHC123 2.2.0(0.289/5/3) 2015-08-03 12:51 x86_64
> OS: Windows 7 Service Pack 1 [Windows NT 6.1 build 7601] (Win64)
> Package: version 1.17.2-1 built 2015-07-09
>
> XWin was started with the following command line:
>
> /usr/bin/XWin :0 -multiwindow -auth
>   /home/<username>/.serverauth.1076
>
> [...nothing interesting here...]
>
> cat: /home/<username>/.serverauth.1076: No such file or directory
> winProcEstablishConnection - winInitClipboard returned.
> winClipboardThreadProc - DISPLAY=:0.0
> OS maintains clipboard viewer chain: yes
> winInitMultiWindowWM - XOpenDisplay () returned and successfully opened
> the display.
> winMultiWindowXMsgProc - XOpenDisplay () returned and successfully
> opened the display.
> winClipboardProc - XOpenDisplay () returned and successfully opened the
> display.
> winMultiWindowXMsgProcErrorHandler - ERROR: BadMatch (invalid parameter
> attributes)
>
> ** (emacs:2996): WARNING **: Error retrieving accessibility bus address:
> org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ChildExited: Process org.a11y.Bus
> exited with status 1
> Authorization required, but no authorization protocol specified
> Unable to init server: Could not connect: Abstract UNIX domain socket
> addresses not supported on this system
>
> (emacs:2996): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: :0
> xinit: connection to X server lost
>
> [...normal shutdown sequence...]
>
> Emacs does not manage to open an X window during this process. I tried
> to spot .server* in a second MinTTY console during startup, but no such
> file would show up although xauth claims to have written the
> .serverauth.XXXX file.
>
> Now if I run exactly the same startxwin command a second time, Emacs
> *does* start up in an X window, although the startxwin output also
> claims this:
>
> cat: /home/<username>/.serverauth.2212: No such file or directory
>
> This time, the second MinTTY console confirms the presence of that file:
> $ ls -al .server*
> -rw-rwx---+ 1 <username> <group> 52 Aug 12 08:03 .serverauth.2212

Could the problem be related to the group permissions, possibly due to 
the ACL on your home directory?  Here's what I see on my system:

$ ll .serverauth.*
-rw------- 1 <username> <group> 156 2015-08-10 15:44 .serverauth.5968

Ken

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