You are not logged in.

#1 2010-10-08 21:39:50

lnx
Member
Registered: 2009-11-04
Posts: 101

SKype: Glib-GIO:error after upgrade

I upgraded my system this afternoon. Everything seems to work fine until I tried to start Skype. It resulted in the following error:
GLib-GIO:ERROR:gdbusconnection.c:2270:initable_init: assertion failed: (connection->initialization_error == NULL)
Aborted
I have no idea what went wrong.

Offline

#2 2010-10-08 22:14:49

agapito
Member
From: Who cares.
Registered: 2008-11-13
Posts: 641

Re: SKype: Glib-GIO:error after upgrade

Is working fine here (with testing repo enabled)


Excuse my poor English.

Offline

#3 2010-10-08 23:07:45

lnx
Member
Registered: 2009-11-04
Posts: 101

Re: SKype: Glib-GIO:error after upgrade

I installed Skype as explained in the Skype Archwiki. For security reasons it suggest to use Skype with a special user
" Use Skype with special user (for security reasons)

There are a couple of reasons you might want to restrict skype's access to your computer:

    * The skype binary is disguised against decompiling, so nobody is (still) able to reproduce what it really does
    * It produces encrypted traffic even when you are not actively using skype
    * ...

See [1] for more information.

Since the setup of Apparmor or Tomoyo seems to be quite a lot of work I decided to do a simplier approach, which is to add a special user which I only use for running skype within my normal environment. So skype is only able to read the data of this particular user. Since this user should not be used for any other things we should be fine. "
I just discovered that Skype works fine when I don't start it as that 'special user'. So Skype works, but I still like to know why I get that error message when I try to start it as that 'special user'. It worked fine before the last upgrade.

Offline

#4 2010-10-08 23:45:54

lnx
Member
Registered: 2009-11-04
Posts: 101

Re: SKype: Glib-GIO:error after upgrade

When I start Xfce4 as that 'special user', I can start Skype without any problem.  hmm

Offline

#5 2010-10-09 08:51:27

lnx
Member
Registered: 2009-11-04
Posts: 101

Re: SKype: Glib-GIO:error after upgrade

When I start firefox as that special user, it results in the following error:
"(firefox:1802): GnomeUI-WARNING **: While connecting to session manager:
Authentication Rejected, reason : None of the authentication protocols specified are supported and host-based authentication failed.
**
GLib-GIO:ERROR:gdbusconnection.c:2270:initable_init: assertion failed: (connection->initialization_error == NULL)
Aborted"
Sunbird results in a similar error.

Offline

#6 2010-10-09 09:12:03

Cotton
Member
From: Cornwall, UK
Registered: 2004-09-17
Posts: 568

Re: SKype: Glib-GIO:error after upgrade

Same here (with Firefox).

EDIT: This is with Firefox run as root.  Running as a standard user works fine.

A reply to a redhat bug report for the Glib-GIO error message (for a different application) suggested it isn't a bug, but when run as root, the application doesn't have access to the session bus, see: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=638415

Whilst this may be true now, it didn't behave like this a couple of days ago.

So what's the workaround?

Last edited by Cotton (2010-10-09 09:33:11)

Offline

#7 2010-10-09 10:41:19

R00KIE
Forum Fellow
From: Between a computer and a chair
Registered: 2008-09-14
Posts: 4,734

Re: SKype: Glib-GIO:error after upgrade

That works fine here.

On another note, if you don't trust skype you shouldn't use it, using skype as another user will not completely isolate it from your "normal" account, it will not be able to access the majority of your files but it will be able to read from /tmp where sensitive data may be temporarily stored and it will give you extra work if you want to send/receive files.

You will also have a bit of a trouble getting it to share the sound card if you are using pulse (unless you run pulse system-wide, which you shouldn't).


R00KIE
Tm90aGluZyB0byBzZWUgaGVyZSwgbW92ZSBhbG9uZy4K

Offline

#8 2010-10-09 12:28:34

lnx
Member
Registered: 2009-11-04
Posts: 101

Re: SKype: Glib-GIO:error after upgrade

Ok, I'll just use Skype from my regular user account.
But the question of the error message remains. I'd like to know why there is a problem. Before the update there were no error messages.

Offline

#9 2010-10-09 12:57:37

R00KIE
Forum Fellow
From: Between a computer and a chair
Registered: 2008-09-14
Posts: 4,734

Re: SKype: Glib-GIO:error after upgrade

Most probably the error is caused by the lack of a dbus session running for that user, however I have no idea why it stopped working (maybe security was increased).

Try with:

su username -c "dbus-launch --exit-with-session program"

Replace username and program with the username and program you wish to use, at least here I don't need to set anything else to make it work.


R00KIE
Tm90aGluZyB0byBzZWUgaGVyZSwgbW92ZSBhbG9uZy4K

Offline

#10 2010-10-09 14:22:04

Cotton
Member
From: Cornwall, UK
Registered: 2004-09-17
Posts: 568

Re: SKype: Glib-GIO:error after upgrade

I think security has probably been improved.  Similar symptoms reported elsewhere (eg https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=106098).

Solved my own problem by allowing root access to firefox using sudo.

Offline

#11 2010-10-09 14:45:20

R00KIE
Forum Fellow
From: Between a computer and a chair
Registered: 2008-09-14
Posts: 4,734

Re: SKype: Glib-GIO:error after upgrade

Cotton wrote:

Solved my own problem by allowing root access to firefox using sudo.

That defeats the point of running a program as another user, in fact it makes things worse because said program can now read and write system wide and do whatever it pleases.

Never ever run anything as root or using sudo unless you _really_ have to, *nix systems are more resilient to problems because users can run almost all program they need without elevated privileges and usually can't mess with important system files and other user's files, if running as root or if you use sudo you don't have that protection.

Always try to keep things simple, usually that means running things as the current unprivileged user.


R00KIE
Tm90aGluZyB0byBzZWUgaGVyZSwgbW92ZSBhbG9uZy4K

Offline

#12 2010-10-16 22:25:20

rchlnx
Member
Registered: 2010-10-16
Posts: 2

Re: SKype: Glib-GIO:error after upgrade

Thanks Rookie, worked! I run tons of stuff as other users and this was _not_ good ... . I concur for the benefit of Cotton et al. -> don't run programs as root as a workaround unless there _really_ is no other option.

Offline

Board footer

Powered by FluxBB