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Gnome Authentication dialogue doesn't appear

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Snake
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Gnome Authentication dialogue doesn't appear

#1 Post by Snake »

Hi everyone,

I'm running Debian 9.4 fully updated and I'm having a small issue with the Authentication dialogue box in GNOME3. It just doesn't want to appear at all for me to type in the root password.

When I start a program that requires the root password via the icons, like Synaptic for example, it's supposed to pop up a "Authentication Required" dialogue box for me to type in the root password but that dialogue box never appears for some reason. I can temporarily "fix" it by logging out and back in or restarting my desktop or whatever but after a little while the issue returns until I log out or restart again.

I checked the system processes in System Monitor and it shows "synaptic-pkexec" and it just stays there until I kill it. The dialogue box for the root password just never appears. I also checked dmesg but didn't see anything relevant but maybe someone with a more trained eye could spot something so if you want to look at dmesg or some other log let me know and I'll post it on pastebin.

What would I need to do to fix this because I'm lost and Google isn't showing me anything relevant? I don't even know if it's a bug or if it's a issue on my end.

NOTE: I can still start Synaptic via terminal using "sudo synaptic" without issue, it's just when I try to open it via it's icon in Gnome. Also this happens with ANY program that I try to open with it's icon that requires root authentication, not just Synaptic.

EDIT: I just tried launching "synaptic-pkexec" from terminal but it just hangs.

Thanks.
Last edited by Snake on 2018-04-25 22:47, edited 1 time in total.

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sunrat
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Re: Gnome Authentication dialogue doesn't appear

#2 Post by sunrat »

“ computer users can be divided into 2 categories:
Those who have lost data
...and those who have not lost data YET ”
Remember to BACKUP!

Snake
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Location: Virginia US

Re: Gnome Authentication dialogue doesn't appear

#3 Post by Snake »

sunrat wrote:Maybe related to this thread:
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=137240
Might be. I honestly have no clue because it just doesn't do it with Synaptic, it does it with everything that requires the root password. Synaptic, gparted, when I change a setting in the Software & Updates program to change a repository or when I try to install or uninstall a program from the Software Center. It does it with everything that requires authentication to open or continue. It's odd.

I'll look through that thread.

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pylkko
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Re: Gnome Authentication dialogue doesn't appear

#4 Post by pylkko »

When you say it hangs, what error message do you get from the terminal? Please copy paste the exact output here.

Are you on Wayland or using X?

Snake
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Re: Gnome Authentication dialogue doesn't appear

#5 Post by Snake »

pylkko wrote:When you say it hangs, what error message do you get from the terminal? Please copy paste the exact output here.

Are you on Wayland or using X?
I ran "synaptic-pkexec" in the terminal and it just hanged as expected:

Image

That all it does, it just hangs until I kill it with ctrl-c. No errors whatsoever. It's not just Synaptic, it's the same with everything that requires the root password via Gnomes "Authentication Required" dialogue box. I'm just using Synaptic as an example.

The dialogue box will work after a reboot or a log out and log in but after the computer has been idle for a little while the dialogue box stops appearing when I open a program or do something that requires authentication.

I'm on X. As far as I know.

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Re: Gnome Authentication dialogue doesn't appear

#6 Post by bw123 »

The thing is called policykit, or polkit, etc.. I don't use a lot of these things, preferring the cli tools which all do the thing right, with no problems. Using gui things with su or sudo is just too prone to causing permissions errors, IME. The good news is, until you get it straightened out, there are command line substitutes.

You can use pkexec command to do anythihg 'authorized' as another user, sort of like sudo.

What happens when you do something simple, AS Normal User, like this?

Code: Select all

$ pkexec ls /root
If this doesn't pop up some kind of dialog, either graphical or text, then your polkit installation is screwed up. Check out the policykit* pkgs and dependencies. Aptitude is good for this. Everything needs to be from stretch, if you've installed some other stuff from somewhere else it's just a mess. I don;t know how to straighten that out.

I guess it's possible something with that specific user is messed up, does it happen with a completely new user?
resigned by AI ChatGPT

Snake
Posts: 38
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Location: Virginia US

Re: Gnome Authentication dialogue doesn't appear

#7 Post by Snake »

bw123 wrote:The thing is called policykit, or polkit, etc.. I don't use a lot of these things, preferring the cli tools which all do the thing right, with no problems. Using gui things with su or sudo is just too prone to causing permissions errors, IME. The good news is, until you get it straightened out, there are command line substitutes.

You can use pkexec command to do anythihg 'authorized' as another user, sort of like sudo.

What happens when you do something simple, AS Normal User, like this?

Code: Select all

$ pkexec ls /root
If this doesn't pop up some kind of dialog, either graphical or text, then your polkit installation is screwed up. Check out the policykit* pkgs and dependencies. Aptitude is good for this. Everything needs to be from stretch, if you've installed some other stuff from somewhere else it's just a mess. I don;t know how to straighten that out.

I guess it's possible something with that specific user is messed up, does it happen with a completely new user?
I created a new test account and logged into it and let my desktop set idle for about an hour, two separate times, and I didn't get that issue. It's possible too that I didn't let it set long enough, but I didn't get that issue.

Then I logged out of the test account and logged back into my main user account and waited for the issue to return, this time the issue returned while I was playing ATS on Steam so now I know it doesn't need to be idle for the issue to show itself.

After the issue returned I opened the terminal and typed in "pkexec ls /root" and nothing happened. It just hung like earlier when I tried running "synaptic-pkexec", no dialogue box popped up at all.

The only repositories I have enabled are just the stretch repositories for main, contrib, and non-free and the updates. I do have three other repositories enabled, which are the official Oracle VM VirtualBox repository, the Spotify repository and the MEGAsync repository for the MEGA cloud storage. The issue was happening before I installed the MEGAsync program and enabled it's repository so that can't be what's causing it.

Since the issue doesn't show itself on the new test account and just shows itself on my main account, do you think the policykit on my main account is somehow screwed up? I don't see how it could though as 85% of the time I'm on Steam playing games.

I'll check out the policykit packages and dependencies in the morning.

EDIT: I forgot to add that I'm using themes in Gnome along with a few extensions. I'm using the Numix GTK+ theme and Arc-Dark shell theme. Could a theme or a Gnome extension cause it?

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