nm-applet permissions problem?

[LinuxJim]

Hi all,

I recently switched a laptop over from Debian to Linux Mint 17.3 KDE Edition. After one too many glitches (for me) in the KDE environment, I decided to try Cinnamon by installing the mint-meta-cinnamon package and switching to it. A couple of problems showed up - for one, my ~/.dbus/ directory suddenly became owned by root, throwing lots of errors in the logs. Fixed that and eliminated the errors. Now, the only error left (in ~/.xsession-errors) is:

Code: Select all

** (nm-applet:3667): WARNING **: Could not create object for /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Settings/1: uid 1000 has no permission to perform this operation
** (nm-applet:3667): WARNING **: handle_property_changed: failed to update property 'available-connections' of object type NMDeviceWifi.
nm-applet-Message: using fallback from indicator to GtkStatusIcon

These same errors are repeated a dozen or so times. My WiFi connection appears to be working properly, as well as the nm-applet.

I have done the usual due diligence in searching for a solution, but have not yet found the necessary lead. Even reading the systemd and NetworkManager docs have not helped. Another clue - running nm-tool from the command line (as normal user) produces the same errors, while running as root produces no errors (as expected).

Perhaps another clue - my Dropbox daemon is running but I have no Dropbox icon in the system tray. This was working under KDE.

[Cosmo.]

Permission problems are a necessary consequence of wrong ownership (which you reported for ~/.dbus); wrong ownership is near to always the result of wrong usage of the sudo command.

Open a terminal and enter (or copy it from here and paste it into the terminal by pressing ctrl-shift-V):

Code: Select all

find $HOME ! -user $USER -type f

Mark the complete result inclusive the command and copy it into the clipboard by pressing ctrl-shift-C
In the forum click the Code-button above the text box, than press ctrl-V.

Further more create a new user account and check the problem there.

[LinuxJim]

Permission problems are a necessary consequence of wrong ownership (which you reported for ~/.dbus); wrong ownership is near to always the result of wrong usage of the sudo command.

Open a terminal and enter (or copy it from here and paste it into the terminal by pressing ctrl-shift-V):

Code: Select all

find $HOME ! -user $USER -type f

Mark the complete result inclusive the command and copy it into the clipboard by pressing ctrl-shift-C
In the forum click the Code-button above the text box, than press ctrl-V.

I tried that - there is no output, i.e. all files in my home directory are owned by me.

Further more create a new user account and check the problem there.

Good point - I should have thought of that. In any case, the error persists with a new user account. Again, all files in the (new) user's home belong to that user.

[Cosmo.]

A shot in the dark: To which groups do the user accounts belong to. The terminal command

Code: Select all

groups

will tell you.

[LinuxJim]

A shot in the dark: To which groups do the user accounts belong to. The terminal command

Code: Select all

groups

will tell you.

Code: Select all

jlee@karen:~ > groups
jlee adm dialout cdrom sudo dip plugdev netdev lpadmin sambashare

[LinuxJim]

I switched my desktop session back to KDE (by the way, the display-manager method of switching sessions is broken - endless login loop - I had to edit my ~/.dmrc file to make it switch cleanly).

Now all the errors in ~/.xsession-errors are gone. So, I don't believe it is a permissions problem - rather it is an error in the Mint-specific Cinnamon config scripts.

After digging around in Mint for a couple of days, I'm finding too much old and crufty stuff, not to mention all the Python scripts that are continually 'resetting' the system in the background and constantly overwriting files with 'Mint-branded' defaults. Fine for newbies I guess, but a real hindrance for someone who knows how things SHOULD work.

Anyway, thank you for the help, but I don't think I'll pursue this any further. I'm more at home in a distro with newer packages, and one that doesn't silently overwrite any modifications I choose to make. I should have gone straight to Arch, but I thought Mint would save me a day or two in setup & config time. I was wrong.