Comment 26 for bug 295405

Revision history for this message
Dennis Sledge (dennis-sledge) wrote : Re: fails to run lib/dbus-1.0/dbus-daemon-launch-helper

First, let me thank everyone across the web that has been posting information about this bug. It gave me a serious headache for a couple days until I finally figured out a fix that worked. Here is what I did to permanently alleviate the problem:
Delete (or comment) the messagebus line from /etc/group.
Delete (or comment) the messagebus line from /etc/passwd.
Reinstall the dbus package: sudo apt-get install --reinstall dbus
Reboot

/etc/passwd should have a something similar to:
messagebus:x:105:105::/var/run/dbus:/bin/false

and /etc/group should have something similar to:
messagebus:x:105:

The main idea is that the user/group id need to be the same and cannot exist as the same number for another group/user.

See https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/consolekit/+bug/475503 for another discussion about this bug.