[gentoo-user] SDDM tmp file goes missing?

[Spackman, Chris]

Good evening,

I few times (like maybe 3 or 4) over the last 4 or 5 months or so, I've
woken up to a slightly broken X11 session. Nothing GUI has permission to

Authorization required, but no authorization protocol specified

I originally thought it was caused by an xscreensaver crash, but I've
not been using it, and still woke up to this problem this morning. I've
no idea the cause, and I'm sure everything was okay when I went to bed
last night.

The biggest hint came from rkhunter and anacron - rkhunter runs during
the night, and when this issue happens, I get an email that includes

run-parts: /etc/cron.daily/rkhunter exited with return code 1
Opening file "/tmp/keepassxc-chris.socket" failed, ignoring: No such device or address
Opening file "/tmp/sddm-:0-NpHoUj" failed, ignoring: No such device or address

I've not checked keepassxc (running, in the system tray) after this, but
everything GUI (that I have tried) that was already running continues to
run okay, but nothing new can start. Not sure if SDDM is a cause or a

chris:~$ ll /tmp/ | grep sddm
srwxrwxrwx 1 sddm sddm 0 Jan 4 06:56 dbus-blahblah
srwx------ 1 sddm sddm 0 Jan 4 06:56 sddm-:0-blahblah
srwxr-xr-x 1 root root 0 Dec 24 13:15 sddm-auth-blah-blah-blah

Best guess, this seems to happen after 10 days to 3 weeks of uptime, but
only recently. In the past, I've had as much as a month or so of uptime
(usually logged into Fluxbox on X11) without issues.

When this happens, I log out of Fluxbox, log back in, and all is well
again.

I've not updated in the last few days, so that doesn't seem likely as a
cause for the most recent occurrence.

Any thoughts on possible causes or fixes?

Thanks.

[Arve Barsnes]

Post by Spackman, Chris
Any thoughts on possible causes or fixes?

I've also had this happen a few times over the last months, with error
mails about SDDM tmp files from cron. Just wanted to pipe in and say
that I don't have either rkhunter or keepassxc, so they must be
unrelated. Running on openbox.

I also have the 'unable to open new GUI apps' problem on a Plasma
machine now and then. I had not connected the two, but maybe the same
root cause.

Regards,
Arve

[Andreas Fink]

On Fri, 5 Jan 2024 08:04:49 +0100

Post by Arve Barsnes

Post by Spackman, Chris
Any thoughts on possible causes or fixes?

I've also had this happen a few times over the last months, with error
mails about SDDM tmp files from cron. Just wanted to pipe in and say
that I don't have either rkhunter or keepassxc, so they must be
unrelated. Running on openbox.
I also have the 'unable to open new GUI apps' problem on a Plasma
machine now and then. I had not connected the two, but maybe the same
root cause.
Regards,
Arve

It's the anacron job in /etc/cron.daily/systemd-tmpfiles-clean that
cleans files in the tmp folder.
There has also been a news item about the change on November 21st 2022.

You might have to adapt the files that should not be cleaned by the
automatic cleanup (or disable automatic cleanup).

Cheers
Andreas

[Arve Barsnes]

Post by Andreas Fink
It's the anacron job in /etc/cron.daily/systemd-tmpfiles-clean that
cleans files in the tmp folder.
There has also been a news item about the change on November 21st 2022.
You might have to adapt the files that should not be cleaned by the
automatic cleanup (or disable automatic cleanup).

Good shout. Upstream has created a fix, but it is not in a release (yet).

https://github.com/sddm/sddm/commit/b002d02bbe9281b8362fa549991b7581b7758668

I'll try that and see if my version of the problem appears again.

Cheers,
Arve

[Spackman, Chris]

Post by Arve Barsnes

Post by Andreas Fink
It's the anacron job in /etc/cron.daily/systemd-tmpfiles-clean that
cleans files in the tmp folder.
There has also been a news item about the change on November 21st 2022.
You might have to adapt the files that should not be cleaned by the
automatic cleanup (or disable automatic cleanup).

Good shout. Upstream has created a fix, but it is not in a release (yet).
https://github.com/sddm/sddm/commit/b002d02bbe9281b8362fa549991b7581b7758668
I'll try that and see if my version of the problem appears again.

Thanks for finding that. I love patches that I can actually
understand. I've also applied the fix.

[Spackman, Chris]

Post by Andreas Fink
On Fri, 5 Jan 2024 08:04:49 +0100

Post by Arve Barsnes

Post by Spackman, Chris
Any thoughts on possible causes or fixes?

I've also had this happen a few times over the last months, with error
mails about SDDM tmp files from cron. Just wanted to pipe in and say
that I don't have either rkhunter or keepassxc, so they must be
unrelated. Running on openbox.
I also have the 'unable to open new GUI apps' problem on a Plasma
machine now and then. I had not connected the two, but maybe the same
root cause.
Regards,
Arve

It's the anacron job in /etc/cron.daily/systemd-tmpfiles-clean that
cleans files in the tmp folder.
There has also been a news item about the change on November 21st 2022.
You might have to adapt the files that should not be cleaned by the
automatic cleanup (or disable automatic cleanup).

Thanks! That must be the issue. Applying the config files that Arve
suggested now.