cygin 3.6.2-1 under Win11 24H2: Cannot launch: no available terminals

[Robert Fensterman]

/etc/shells:

/bin/sh
/bin/ash
/bin/bash
/bin/dash
/bin/mksh
/bin/pdksh
/bin/posh
/bin/tcsh
/bin/zsh
/usr/bin/sh
/usr/bin/ash
/usr/bin/bash
/usr/bin/dash
/usr/bin/mksh
/usr/bin/pdksh
/usr/bin/posh
/usr/bin/tcsh
/usr/bin/zsh

getent passwd %USERNAME%
is blank

With cygwin 3.6.2-1, I can start bash directly from a CMD window (though it
can't find programs, just built-ins).
Interestingly: after that test, that and reverting back to .1, my
.bash_history permissions seem to be wrong: instead of my AzureAD user as
the owner, Windows sees some other SID as owning the file and bash (in
cygwin) can't read it (eg., up-arrow doesn't go up past the start of the
instance of the shell, where it normally goes quite a bit further back in
time). As a workaround, I've given "everyone" rwx permissions, and it seems
to be working fine.

On Wed, May 28, 2025 at 5:50 AM Andrey Repin <anrdaemon@yandex.ru> wrote:

> Greetings, Robert Fensterman!
>
> > When I try to launch Cygwin 3.6.2-1 - be it from the taskbar shortcut,
> > double-clicking on mintty.exe, or running mintty.exe from CMD - I get an
> > error message:
>
> >> Error: Could not fork child process: There are no available terminals
> (-1)
>
> > The resulting window is titled "-nologin".
>
> What's your /etc/shells and what is the output of `getent passwd
> %USERNAME%` ?
> Can you start bash.exe directly?
>
> > The taskbar shortcut is:
> >> C:\cygwin64\bin\mintty.exe -i /Cygwin-Terminal.ico -
>
> > I ran setup this morning to update whatever had updates; this included
> the
> > base cygwin package. As last week, it warned me that there was a point
> > update; I've since downloaded that and re-run setup (without reverting
> > anything; just letting it do its normal cleanup) to no avail. I've
> attached
> > the portion of setup.log with those two runs.
>
> > I did also update several other Windows apps Windows first thing this
> > morning, before I'd tried to open a Cygwin terminal; I don't recall that
> > list including anything that should have affected terminals, but I
> suppose
> > it's possible.
>
> > Google searches suggest killing several programs (ssh, ssh-agent, bash,
> sh,
> > git, node etc.); none are running. I have tried rebooting a couple of
> > times, launching Cygwin (from the taskbar shortcut) as soon as I can
> after
> > reboot, and I still get the error.
>
> > Other terminal-ey apps work: git-bash launches and appears to work
> > normally; similarly, CMD and PowerShell both seem to be just fine.
>
> > Reverting to v 3.6.1-1 seems to work: Cygwin launches and is acting
> > normally. Updating cygwin through the current version of setup results in
> > the same error condition (and, reverting a second time is still working).
>
> > Running on Win11 24H2 (OS Build 26100.4061).
>
>
>
> --
> With best regards,
> Andrey Repin
> Wednesday, May 28, 2025 13:20:56
>
> Sorry for my terrible english...
>
>

-- 
Robert F.