Hal etc problems, k3b

When I try to use hal explicitly, eg by issuing lshal, I get this:

stephen@home:~> lshal
Could not initialise connection to hald.
Normally this means the HAL daemon (hald) is not running or not ready.

This also causes problems with k3b, which complains about hal when I start it.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p145/wakou/Sept/hal.png

I tried these:

stephen@home:~> /etc/init.d/haldaemon stop
Shutting down HAL daemon   
stephen@home:~> su -c 'pkill hald'
Password: 

and then:

stephen@home:~> hald --daemon=no --verbose=yes
11:39:31.997 * hald.c:680: hal 0.5.13
11:39:31.997 * hald.c:681: using child timeout 250s
11:39:31.997 * hald.c:746: Will not daemonize
11:39:31.997 * hald_dbus.c:5421: local server is listening at unix:abstract=/var/run/hald/dbus-CrJEl5wbYN,guid=15b1cb5b4d7704d06432964d000011ee
11:39:32.005 * ck-tracker.c:391: got seat '/org/freedesktop/ConsoleKit/Seat1'
11:39:32.006 * ck-tracker.c:321: got session '/org/freedesktop/ConsoleKit/Session1' for seat '/org/freedesktop/ConsoleKit/Seat1'
11:39:32.010 * ck-tracker.c:274: Got active state (ACTIVE) and uid 1000 on session '/org/freedesktop/ConsoleKit/Session1'
11:39:32.010 * ck-tracker.c:342: Got all sessions on seat '/org/freedesktop/ConsoleKit/Seat1'
11:39:32.010 * ck-tracker.c:418: Got seats
11:39:32.010 * ck-tracker.c:816: Got seats and sessions
Runner started - allowed paths are '/usr/lib/hal:/usr/lib/hal/scripts:/usr/bin'
11:39:32.017 * hald_runner.c:301: Runner has pid 7476
11:39:32.018 * hald_runner.c:182: runner connection is 0x80af1a0
11:39:32.019 [D] util_helper.c:126: drop_privileges: could not set group id


The man page says I can do a debug, but I know I would not understand it!!!************

I found a web page that has the debug command shown here:

hald(8): HAL daemon - Linux man page

When you put say a movie DVD in, does it not show up in the Device notifier? What you need to determine is this a system wide problem or just a problem with k3b.

To see if Haldaemon is being started automatically I would open YaST / System / System Services (Runlevel) and check if Haldaemon is running and auto started for you.

Thank You,

@wakou: is this from a default, clean install? Udev is clearly not finding the device. Weird thing is, I’ve seen exactly the same on kUbuntu 10.04 lately. That still is not working well. Does your machine “see” the driver after a reboot? Does it lose the device? That’s what I saw. With the same compaint about the hal daemon.

Knurpht, it is not at all a clean. default install… it is an install about to be tipped into the bin… 11.2, with a GRUB > another GRUB> back to the first boot etc (ie A MESS) I have had to move drives around preparing to up to 11.3, and this is how the problem arose… You have seen my other thread(s)?.
It is bloody annoying that I don’t know enough “pure” linux to be able to do this relatively simple thing…
Luckily, there is nothing “crucial” anywhere. I could post fdisk, df dh ls etc etc…
I might just delete the whole thing (I have backed up /home) and hope that 11.3 is better but that would mean I had no more understanding than I have now.

hal should be run by root with the script “rchal”. Please try

rchal restart

and check again.

Cyberiad, ty that seems to do it!
I wonder what stops it running at boot?

I wonder too. Check boot.msg and dmesg

Oh ****.
It (rchal restart) worked that one time, but after a reboot… nada…

home:/home/stephen # rchal restart
Shutting down HAL daemon                                                                                                                    done
Loading CPUFreq modules                                                                                                                     done
Starting HAL daemon                                                                                                                         done
home:/home/stephen # lshal
Could not initialise connection to hald.
Normally this means the HAL daemon (hald) is not running or not ready.
home:/home/stephen # rchal restart
Shutting down HAL daemon                                                                                                                    done
Loading CPUFreq modules                                                                                                                     done
Starting HAL daemon                                                                                                                         done
home:/home/stephen # lshal
Could not initialise connection to hald.
Normally this means the HAL daemon (hald) is not running or not ready.
home:/home/stephen # rchal restart
Shutting down HAL daemon                                                                                                                    done
Loading CPUFreq modules                                                                                                                     done
Starting HAL daemon                                                                                                                         done
home:/home/stephen # hald --verbose=yes daemon=no
10:45:11.533 * hald.c:680: hal 0.5.13
10:45:11.534 * hald.c:681: using child timeout 250s
10:45:11.534 * hald.c:690: Will daemonize
10:45:11.534 * hald.c:691: Becoming a daemon
home:/home/stephen # lshal
Could not initialise connection to hald.
Normally this means the HAL daemon (hald) is not running or not ready.
home:/home/stephen # rchal restart
Shutting down HAL daemon                                                                                                                    done
Loading CPUFreq modules                                                                                                                     done
Starting HAL daemon                                                                                                                         done
home:/home/stephen # lshal
Could not initialise connection to hald.
Normally this means the HAL daemon (hald) is not running or not ready.

There is no mention of hal in boot.msg, or in dmesg****

I can sometimes (?) get hal running by issuing sudo rchal force-reload. Where can I find logs to investigate why the service does not run by default?

wakou I can sometimes (?) get hal running by issuing sudo rchal force-reload. Where can I find logs to investigate why the service does not run by default?
wakou, I have a bash script that at least makes it easy to look at nine of your logs. The script and instructions can be found at:

S.L.A.V.E. - SuSE Logfile Automated Viewer Engine - Version 2.00

Good luck and let us know what you found.

Thank You,

Ok, So I used your script, and have found at first glance lots of “worrying” problems… But I am not sure if any are to do with hal…

Except this:
This from option 9) View ~/.xsession-errors file - Messages from the desktop applications. for instance:

QStringList Solid::Backends::Hal::HalManager::findDeviceByDeviceInterface(Solid::DeviceInterface::Type)  error:  "org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown"

Lots of times…
Also loads of stuff about nepomuck, surprise surprise…

So I took your error message trying to find what it might mean and I found some other distros that had a problem as well. They point to issues with the dbus version and PolicyKit and even to look at the /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-cd.rules text file is correct. This rules text file specifies which optical drive is /dev/dvd, /dev/cdrom, /dev/dvdrw and so forth. You had mentioned you have been moving drives around. If that includes moving, removing, changing or adding in different optical drives, you can possible mess up this text file. I even have a thread on how to setup this text file located here:

Multimedia Optical Drive Naming (ie /dev/dvd & /dev/cdrom) Howto in opneSUSE

I am not sure, but you may even be able to just remove this file to somewhere else and reboot, allowing openSUSE to remake and presumably fix the file if it was bad. I found some info that suggested it might be a permissions problem and so I might go into YaST / Security and Users / User and Group Management and edit your self. Go to the Details Tab / Additional groups and check cdrom, disk, floppy and anything else that looks like it might help if my first suggestion does not help.

Thank You,

Thank You,

Thanks Jim, for looking into this, I have other more pressing issues ATM. I have removed the DVD drive for now, I still have to stop/kill and force restart hal manually.
The rules.d file did not exist on my machine…

stephen@home:~> ls -a /dev/.udev/rules.d/
.  ..  10-root-symlink.rules

I will see about creating one when I re-attach the optical drive.