gksu: Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: :0

Question

All of the sudden gksu stopped working for me:

~$ gksu gparted

(gpartedbin:24252): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: :0

The same happens with gparted-pkexec:

~$ gparted-pkexec 
No protocol specified

(gpartedbin:25454): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: :0

What could possibly be causing this?

I am not running this through SSH or VNC. This is localhost in a normal terminal window.

You do not work in a graphical user interface or trying to run a program on a system (eg. via ssh) that no graphical interface provides. — A.B., Apr 26 '15 at 16:50
@A.B. I should clarify that this is not via ssh. It's on local host in a very normal terminal window. Infact opening gparted from the application menu has the same result. — d_inevitable, Apr 26 '15 at 16:53
You shouldn't have to use gksu to run GParted. gparted uses polkit to get elevated privileges. — muru, Apr 26 '15 at 16:59
@muru when I run gparted without gksu I get Root privileges are required for running gparted. — d_inevitable, Apr 26 '15 at 17:17
Ok, try gparted-pkexec (without gksu) or gksu gpartedbin. — muru, Apr 26 '15 at 17:39
@muru both of them give me the same Gtk-Warning as above. Same for gksu gedit. I have already formatted my disk through the command line. So it is not specifically gparted that I am concerned about. — d_inevitable, Apr 26 '15 at 17:42

score 89 · Answer 1 · edited Feb 21 '18 at 00:19

89

If running Ubuntu 17.10 or newer, this issue can arise when an application has not been updated with full support for Wayland. As a workaround until the application is updated, you can run

xhost +SI:localuser:root

which will allow the root user to display applications on your desktop. Also see this Q&A for other possible workarounds: Why don't gksu/gksudo or launching a graphical application with sudo work with Wayland?

source

edited Feb 21 '18 at 00:19

pomsky

68,507

answered Nov 29 '17 at 15:59

Cutton Eye

1,211

@MDMower Thx for editing, learned something new =)! – Cutton Eye Dec 15 '17 at 07:46
1

@pomsky Thx for adding the link ;)! – Cutton Eye Feb 26 '18 at 10:49
In 18.04 X-Org will be used again as default. So this problem should vanis then. see – Cutton Eye Mar 07 '18 at 13:25
Same problem occurred with Ubuntu 20 and this solved it. – Mecanik Sep 05 '20 at 07:16

score 13 · Answer 2 · edited Feb 19 '17 at 04:26

13

Try running xhost +localhost in your terminal, and then running the command again. This lets all users on your system (i.e. root) open windows on your screen. Make sure to use +localhost and not simply +, as it's more secure to allow connections from only localhost than from anywhere.

To make this permanent, edit the ~/.xinitrc file like this:

Run gedit ~/.xinitrc

Edit the file to look like this (it should be empty at the start):

#! /bin/bash
xhost +localhost &

Now save the file, log out and log in. Now everything should run just fine with sudo.

I can't reproduce your problem on 14.04, but this has worked for me in the past when sudo / gksu threw this error.

Sources:

edited Feb 19 '17 at 04:26

wjandrea

14,236
4
48
98

answered Apr 26 '15 at 23:08

Mark Paskal

2,900

1

This does work indeed. So does that mean its an access control restriction? Any ideas what the cause of this could be? – d_inevitable Apr 27 '15 at 22:21
Yes, it's a security feature of X. It allows only connections from your user to the xserver until told otherwise, I think. I'm not super sure why it's required for some apps and not others, and I don't have a clue why it would be doing it for gparted of all things. Perhaps you were tinkering and tightened security somewhere? – Mark Paskal May 04 '15 at 00:16
Well its happening with all apps, even gedit. Also I have noticed that it is only happening for one of my two users on the system, not the other. I've been tinkering with a lot of things, but not recently. A list of possible things that could cause this behaviour could help a lot. – d_inevitable May 04 '15 at 14:45
OK, not sure the cause, but I do have a fix. You need to add the xhost command to the .xinitrc file for the user so it runs when you start the session. – Mark Paskal May 04 '15 at 22:50
Thanks it worked! Desperate was I but you saved my day!!! – reexmonkey Sep 17 '16 at 09:29
This did not work for me... Any other idea? – Steven Roose Oct 19 '16 at 17:28
2

This yields an error: xhost: unable to open display "" – IgorGanapolsky Jan 30 '17 at 18:33
5

On redis, it was suggested to use xhost +local:. After that I was able to launch gparted from the terminal, but using xhost +localhost didn't work. – rmin Sep 06 '17 at 01:40
1

Indeed! xhost +local: fixed mine! It yields non-network local connections being added to access control list which is what is needed. – lobner Nov 10 '17 at 08:16
1

I get xhost: unable to open display "" – Nathan B May 06 '18 at 16:55

score 8 · Answer 3 · edited Aug 26 '18 at 08:00

8

Execute the following in your terminal:

nano /home/user/.bashrc # user = name of your user

Add the following line at the end.

export XAUTHORITY=$HOME/.Xauthority

edited Aug 26 '18 at 08:00

Ben Creasy

236

answered Apr 23 '18 at 02:05

Wilder Hernández García

81

5

Would be useful if you could add some explanation of how this solves the problem, and whether it has any adverse side effects? – Geoff Jan 01 '19 at 23:25

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 12 '20 at 10:22

2

xhost + fixed my problem

but Be aware that xhost + completely deactivates authentication and allows everyone to access all application on your screen...

xhost +si:localuser:root seems to work similar with proper authentication

answered Apr 12 '20 at 10:22

Bercove

411

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered May 14 '21 at 16:57

0

I solve it by simply running in the terminal ,

sudo gparted

Looks like GTK+ root password dialog confused with x server settings

answered May 14 '21 at 16:57

Salem F

133
8

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Jun 20 '23 at 13:52

Just to add to possible issues that results in "Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: :0".

I got it after deleting /tmp/.X11-unix/X0. Solution I know of as of now: restart, creating socket by python -c "import socket as s; sock = s.socket(s.AF_UNIX); sock.bind('/tmp/.X11-unix/X0')" from https://serverfault.com/questions/358866/create-unix-named-socket-from-the-command-line did not help to resolve the error.

gksu: Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: :0

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