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Not until very recently you couldn't apt install atom unless you use an unoffical source webupd8team/atom. Now Atom officially supports apt install by packagecloud.io/AtomEditor/atom. But upgrading 1.26.1-1~webupd8~0 to 1.33.0 using the official source resulted in an Atom that can't open any windows on my machine. e.g. No Ctrl + Comma, no Welcome Guide, no About Atom.

After I re-installed the webupd8team version everything went back to normal. Then I tried everything. Before doing the following I sudo apt purge atom first.

  1. Install from software center.
  2. Install from .deb
  3. Install 1.32.2 from packagecloud.io/AtomEditor/atom
  4. Install 1.26.1 from packagecloud.io/AtomEditor/atom

4 worked!! Also the official 1.33.0 can be installed in my virtual machine which is running 18.04 and had a 1.26.1 webupd8team version installed before.

My best guess is it could be something in my system that is incompatible with 1.26+ (1.29.0 also presents the same symptom), and it's not on my virtual machine. What it could be?

Xiaohong Deng
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1 Answers1

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The answer is atom installed from sources other than webupd8team/atom does not have permission to access ~/.atom/compile-cache. sudo apt purge atom doesn't delete that folder. So atom gets denied when trying to access files in that folder.

By open the web console using Shift + Ctrl + i you can see what error is occurring behind the scene.

The solution is easy. First, delete ~/.atom/compile-cache. Then purge atom, fresh install atom from the source of your choice. Remember to remove the outdated ppa afterwards.

More info please refer to the thread Problem with starting up atom

Xiaohong Deng
  • 21