amarokapp/amarok doesn't start up as a normal user, but works when started as root using sudo

[toke]

Binary package hint: amarok

Amarok version is 1.4.5
OS Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04

amarokapp/amarok doesn't start up as a normal user, but works when started as root using sudo

amarokapp gives this:
X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 167
  Major opcode: 144
  Minor opcode: 3
  Resource id: 0x0
Failed to open device
X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 167
  Major opcode: 144
  Minor opcode: 3
  Resource id: 0x0
Failed to open device
X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 167
  Major opcode: 144
  Minor opcode: 3
  Resource id: 0x0
Failed to open device
X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 167
  Major opcode: 144
  Minor opcode: 3
  Resource id: 0x0
Failed to open device

and amarok gives:
X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 167
  Major opcode: 144
  Minor opcode: 3
  Resource id: 0x0
Failed to open device
X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 167
  Major opcode: 144
  Minor opcode: 3
  Resource id: 0x0
Failed to open device
Amarok: [Loader] Starting amarokapp..
Amarok: [Loader] Don't run gdb, valgrind, etc. against this binary! Use amarokapp.
X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 167
  Major opcode: 144
  Minor opcode: 3
  Resource id: 0x0
Failed to open device
X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 167
  Major opcode: 144
  Minor opcode: 3
  Resource id: 0x0
Failed to open device
X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 167
  Major opcode: 144
  Minor opcode: 3
  Resource id: 0x0
Failed to open device
X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 167
  Major opcode: 144
  Minor opcode: 3
  Resource id: 0x0
Failed to open device

[Jeff Mitchell (jefferai)]

Don't know, the output isn't helpful (note to Ubuntu guys: why do all of the people posting console output on Launchpad have those X Errors?)

Make sure your normal user has permissions to access all required resources (for instance, the /dev nodes related to ALSA, etc.)

[Sarah Kowalik (hobbsee-deactivatedaccount)]

unsure. Sounds like a config problem. Does the problem still occur if you move ~/.kde/share/apps/amarok/ and ~/.kde/share/config/amarok* out of the way?

[Jeff Mitchell (jefferai)]

Also, do you get all those X Errors when starting Amarok as root?

[toke (touko-herranen)]

Sarah:
there is no directory amarok in ~/kde/share/apps/

And Jeff:
Yes, I do.

[Jeff Mitchell (jefferai)]

Is there a ~/.kde/share/config/amarokrc?

[toke (touko-herranen)]

Jeff, No there is not such a directory or any amarok* directory in .kde directory

[Daniel Hahler (blueyed)]

"X Error: BadDevice" can be ignored (bug 42553).
The error must be something different.

What does it do, if you try to start it? Just nothing?
Have you tried "strace amarokapp" to see what it tries to access?

[toke (touko-herranen)]

dAniel, i have tried strace amarokapp but it starts listing and won't stop until i close the console. It opens blue screen "amarok 1.4 rediscover your music fast forward" as it normally should but then it does nothing. It jams right there and does nothing.

There's a little cut of the strace amarokapp

.}) = 0
access("/home/toke/.kde/share/config/amarokrc", W_OK) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
access("/home/toke/.kde/share/config/amarokrc", F_OK) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
access("/home/toke/.kde/share/config", W_OK) = 0
lstat64("/home/toke/.kde/share/config/amarokrc", 0x80bb340) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat64("/home/toke/.kde/share/config/amarokrc", 0x80bb340) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
lstat64("/home/toke/.kde/share/config/amarokrc", 0x80bb340) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat64("/home/toke/.kde/share/config/amarokrc", 0x80bb340) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)

[Jeff Mitchell (jefferai)]

It looks like it may not be able to write its config file. Are you sure that permissions in ~/.kde are sane?

[toke (touko-herranen)]

Jeff, no I'm not sure because I don't know what you mean. (I'm new to ubuntu)

[Jeff Mitchell (jefferai)]

Are you the owner for every single file? Do you have read-only permissions where you should have write permissions?

Try:

chown -R <yourusername>:<yourdefaultgroup> ~/.kde

See if you get any errors.

Try:

chmod -R u+rw ~/.kde/share/config
chmod -R u+w ~/.kde/share/apps

See if that makes any difference.

[toke (touko-herranen)]

Many Many thanks to everyone but especially to Jeff. This solved the problem. Now it works as it should be working.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Thanks toke, closing as fixed.

Btw, those X BadDevice errors should also be gone now, as 42553 is fixed.