# error in locking authority file



## hoobastank69 (Jul 26, 2020)

So out of the blue today I have begun to experience an odd issue when running startx. when running startx, it seems to get hung up...


```
error in locking authority file /home/hoobstank/.xserverauth.87863
error in locking authorty file /home/hoobstank/.Xauthority

timeout in locking authoirty file /home/hoobstank/.Xauthority
```
The last one repeats itself until I hit ctrl+c, which gets me into my openbox session. 
I tried removing serverauth and xatuhority to see if it made any difference, and it did not (i restored them after) 
I am not sure why this has happened, I have made no changes to my system today, other than lowering my fortuna pool size.. 

I have a feeling making another user would correct the issue, at least for now. Would like avoid that if possible


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## zirias@ (Jul 26, 2020)

Is /home on NFS (or some other network fs)?


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## hoobastank69 (Jul 27, 2020)

Nope. No network shares of any kind anywhere on the system, has never even been connected to one.

This has happened to me before when trying to set up VNC or XDM, i've always had to just undo my changes or make another user. It's really annoying, and I am not sure why it happens. When I google it and see someone with a similar issue the cause is alaways different
I hate X


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## VladiBG (Jul 27, 2020)

Check the file permissions, it must be owned by your username hoobstank:hoobstank


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## hoobastank69 (Jul 30, 2020)

VladiBG said:


> Check the file permissions, it must be owned by your username hoobstank:hoobstank



I own them all.


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## VladiBG (Jul 30, 2020)

Do you see the same error if you run `xauth list`
Before starting Xorg do you have one empty .Xauthority file inside your home dir `ls -la /home/hoobstank/`
You can try to trace the xauth(1) using truss(1) and see where it fail to create / access the file and if there's some left over file you can use `xauth -b` to break the locking (read the manual for xauth first)


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## Deleted member 63539 (Jul 30, 2020)

Remove all of those files as root and `startx` again.


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## hoobastank69 (Aug 6, 2020)

gh_origin said:


> Remove all of those files as root and `startx` again.



Hey. Sorry for the delay, I have not had electricity in my area following a storm 
I have tried this already, they are created again and start causing problems again afterwards.
I am starting to think that they are not the problem but rather a side effect of the actual problem.. it is such a strange issue


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