Ubuntu
nautilus package

not working correctly when not run using sudo

Asked by Stephen Glunt

Binary package hint: nautilus

Nautilus was working fine until I ran it as root so that I could easily move some files around without changing the permissions (I'm new to linux). However after running it as root, whenever I don't run it as root it does not display any of the contents of drives or folders nor does it switch between drives and folders and frequently the buttons betwixt the display window and the menus do not render. It still works perfectly when run as root though.

I am using ubuntu 9.04 with the latest version of nautilus.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/nautilus
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: nautilus 1:2.26.2-0ubuntu2
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: nautilus
Uname: Linux 2.6.28-13-generic x86_64

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Ubuntu nautilus Edit question
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Stephen Glunt
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This question was originally filed as bug #399479.

Revision history for this message
Stephen Glunt (saglunt) said : 		#1
Revision history for this message
Stephen Glunt (saglunt) said : 		#2

Here is a screenshot of the window that opened automatically when I put a data DVD into the drive.

Revision history for this message
Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson) said : 		#3

Nautilus is not designed to be ran with sudo. That's not a bug, so I'm converting this in to a user question in the support tracker.

Revision history for this message
Steven Danna (ssd7) said : 		#4

What happens when you launch nautilus using gksudo using the command:

gksudo nautilus

Although, I often find it easier to move files around from the command line when root privileges are needed:

To move:
sudo mv /source_file /destination_file

To copy:

sudo cp /source_file /destination_file

Revision history for this message
Stephen Glunt (saglunt) said : 		#5

It works fine when I launch nautilus with the command:

 gksudo nautilus

Is there any way to get it to work regularly?

Revision history for this message
Steven Danna (ssd7) said : 		#6

What do you mean "work regularly?" You can think of gksudo as "sudo for gtk apps." While many graphical apps will work fine with sudo, it is often better to use gksudo.

Revision history for this message
Stephen Glunt (saglunt) said : 		#7

By "work regularly" I mean "without root privileges." If you notice from the screenshots that I have posted no files display. It looks like it is continuously busy (from the little loading graphic that is displayed near the upper right hand corner). My problem is that I cannot get it to work, at all, without root privileges.

Revision history for this message
Steven Danna (ssd7) said : 		#8

Sorry. I completely misread this question. Can you do the following:

1) Open a terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal)
2) Run the following command

ls -l ~/.nautilus

(The "-l" is the lowercase of "-L")

3) Copy the output here.

Revision history for this message
Stephen Glunt (saglunt) said : 		#9

This is what it says right now when I run the command (I haven't rebooted the computer in a while):

total 4
drwx------ 2 glunt glunt 4096 2009-07-15 20:14 metafiles

What does this tell you?

Revision history for this message
Steven Danna (ssd7) said : 		#10

I was trying to determine if for some reason your .nautilus folder was owned by root rather than by your user. It seems that the folder ownership is fine.

Try launching nautilus from the command line (as a normal user). Copy and paste any error messages that are echoed to the terminal.

Revision history for this message
Stephen Glunt (saglunt) said : 		#11

Okay, how's this for weird:

I tried launching nautilus from the command line just as you said. It showed up just like the first screenshot that I posted showed it. I checked for any error messages and couldn't find any. I went back to nautilus to see it one more time and I decided to resize it. When I resized it and it was redrawn it started working just as it should. I even tried opening it from the places button at the top of the screen and it worked.

Should I try reproducing this problem?