Yast won't start.

11.1 installed, Kernel is 11.1-2.6.27.29.0.1, Gnome desktop. Unable to get Yast to start. Asks for root password and after entering password nothing happens. I was able to start Yast in Gnome Terminal but I think that I’m not up to the task yet. Have made some rather telling mistakes while having fun with 11.1. Tried to install and then remove KDE. Tried to remove Pulse Audio (that was not a lot of fun … seems Gnome is rather attached to it). It appears that I have damaged many little things while playing around. Sound, scanner, printer all need work to get functional again. Messed up the bootloader (fixed). Yast started giving some error messages in seperate window but seemed to still be working okay until reboot. Now no response when implementing an instance. Reinstall it? If so best way? Looking forward to the 11.2 final BTW.

Try typing yast2 in a su terminal
Report error that log there

Useful information methinks.

Yast2 command in terminal generated many copies of this error:

** (y2controlcenter-gnome:6568): WARNING **: error accessing /desktop/gnome/applications/main-menu/upgrade_package_command [Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See GConf configuration system for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)]

In a su terminal do this:

zypper ref

then

zypper up

Does it update anything? Reboot and try yast again.

Command : gconftool-2 -R /desktop/gnome returns the same error message. Related to bootloader? Boot from root, mbr, extended partition, etc. maybe?

zypper ref
Retrieving repository ‘Packman Repository’ metadata [done]
Building repository ‘Packman Repository’ cache [done]
Repository ‘openSUSE-11.1-Non-Oss’ is up to date.
Repository ‘openSUSE-11.1-Oss’ is up to date.
Repository ‘openSUSE-11.1-Update’ is up to date.
All repositories have been refreshed.

zypper up
gstreamer-0_10-plugins-good gstreamer-0_10-plugins-good-doc
gstreamer-0_10-plugins-good-extra gstreamer-0_10-plugins-good-lang
gstreamer-0_10-plugins-ugly gstreamer-0_10-plugins-ugly-lang gstreamer-0_10-utils
gstreamer-utils gtkhtml2-devel gtkhtml2-lang hplip hplip-hpcups kernel-pae
kernel-pae-base kernel-pae-extra ladspa libavcodec52 libavdevice52 libavformat52
libavutil50 libfaad2 libfarsight2_0 libffmpeg0 libggi2 libgstbasevideo-0_10-0
libgstinterfaces-0_10-0 libgstphotography-0_10-0 libgstreamer-0_10-0
libktoblzcheck1 libmp4v2 libmtp8 libmtp-hal libofx4 libpostproc51 libswscale0 libucil1
libunicap1 libvlc2 libvlccore2 libxine1 libxine1-aa libxine1-arts libxine1-codecs
libxine1-directfb libxine1-esd libxine1-gnome-vfs libxine1-jack libxine1-pulse
libxine1-sdl MPlayer ogmrip python-gstreamer-0_10 timezone timezone-java transcode vlc
vlc-gnome vlc-noX vlc-qt

The following NEW packages are going to be installed:
libgstsignalprocessor-0_10-0 liblash1 libogmrip1 libslv2-9 libx264-72 libx264-78

The following package is going to be REMOVED:
lash-libs

Overall download size: 79.6 M. After the operation, additional 4.9 M will be used.
Continue? [YES/no]:

Type Yes and after it finishes, reboot

Losts of package updates including Kernel. Yast still won’t start in gui at all. In terminal as su yast2 opens window after root password entered but this error message appears:

An error occurred while loading or saving configuration information for GNOME SuperUser. Some of your configuration settings may not work properly.

details: Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See GConf configuration system for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)
Same message in terminal.

Please post result of this (be patient, I’m hitting the sack now, so will be away for some hours I hope!)

zypper lr -d

Other may offer advice between now and then.

" K " . Thanks for the help here.

Allow me to get on my soap box briefly.
This is why I like having more than one package manager. In my case, I use smart.

OK. to the issue at hand. We still need to see the repositories that you have.

zypper lr -d

Something you installed broke YaST, which is why we need to see what repositories you have.

One way to fix this is to uninstall YaST completely, then reinstall it. Something like

zypper rem yast*

and then

zypper in yast*

Sounds like orbit maybe broke.

Do you have NFS set up?
Take a look at the logs you pasted here. Notice it tells you about your home directory

error accessing /desktop/gnome/applications/main-menu/upgrade_package_command

You might want to check out this rcapache2 start -fail - LinuxQuestions.org
You also might want to visit #yast in irc on irc.freenode.net

Results of zypper lr -d
I clipped url’s. Only have four repos enabled.

| Alias |Name |Enab |Ref |Pri| Type ±--------------------------------------------------------------

1 |GNOME:Factory |GNOME:Factory |No |No | 99 |rpm-md
2 |Packman Repo |Packman Repository |Yes |Yes | 99 rpm-md
3 |Videolan |Videolan |No |No | 95 |rpm-md
4 |openSUSE 11.1-0 |openSUSE 11.1-0 |No No | 95 |yast2
5 |repo-non-oss |openSUSE-11.1-Non-Oss|Yes |Yes |100 |yast2
6 |repo-oss |openSUSE-11.1-Oss |Yes |Yes |100 |yast2
7 |repo-source |openSUSE-11.1-Source |No |No |100 |NONE
8 |repo-update |openSUSE-11.1-Update |Yes |Yes | 20 |pm-md

Actually those look OK.
I see that at some point you had gnome Factory, so I am wondering if you have a mix of packages. Please do this.

  • First go to Repository Management and change the priority of Packman to 10
  • Next open su terminal and do zypper ref
    then zypper dup

You may need to answer some questions, if you can’t, just copy it and post here.

When we are done, reboot.

Results of zypper lr -d (url’s clipped off)

| Alias |Name | Enabled |Refresh | Priority | Type |

-±------------------------------------------------------------------------±-------
1 | GNOME:Factory | GNOME:Factory | No | No | 99 | rpm-md
2 | Packman Repository | Packman Repository | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md
3 | Videolan | Videolan | No | No | 95 | rpm-md
4 | openSUSE 11.1-0 | openSUSE 11.1-0 | No | No | 95 | yast2
5 | repo-non-oss | openSUSE-11.1-Non-Oss | Yes | Yes | 100 | yast2
6 | repo-oss | openSUSE-11.1-Oss | Yes | Yes | 100 | yast2
7 | repo-source | openSUSE-11.1-Source | No | No | 100 | NONE
8 | repo-update | openSUSE-11.1-Update | Yes | Yes | 20 | rpm-md

Have you looked in the Yast2 log to see if there are any indications of conflicts, failures, or any messages that might indicate why it’s failing?

Yast2 logs are located:

/var/log/YaST2

The “y2log” file is the log your looking for, cat the file and see if there are any errors. I would probably recreate the error first, then head directly over to the log file and look at the last entries.

Did you do this:
Yast won’t start. - Page 2 - openSUSE Forums

Still digging around. Thanks for all the suggestions you guys are great! I can figure this out. I can…I can… I can!