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Eeqmcsq

Member

Registered: 2017-09-19

Posts: 88  

Excalibur + Xfce + Fresh install: Authentication agent already exists

* Problem

After a fresh Excalibur + Xfce install, when you log into Xfce, you see an error message box:

  Title: "XFCE PolicyKit Agent"
  Message: "GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.PolicyKit1.Error.Failed: An authentication agent already exists for the given subject"

* Cause

The application auto start list contains both "PolicyKit Authentication Agent for the MATE Desktop" and "XFCE Polkit".

  Applications -> Settings -> Session and Startup -> Application Autostart tab

During Excalibur RC1, I ran several Xfce installations and didn't see any PolicyKit errors on startup. I assume some changes were picked up from Debian since RC1 that caused multiple polkit agents to be installed.

* Workaround

Uncheck one of them. Since this is the Xfce environment, I think unchecking the MATE polkit agent would be better, but otherwise, I don't have any other suggestion for choosing which one to uncheck.

Make sure that you check at least one of them. The polkit agent provides a GUI dialog box for entering your password for running an administrative app. Example: Synaptic Package Manager from the menu, or "pkexec" from the cmd line. If you uncheck both, the default is to request your password from the console output. So if you're starting Synaptic from the menu, nothing will appear to have happened.

* More info

- This problem is already reported in bugs.debian.org.

  #1115933: Error on login: XFCE PolicyKit Agent ... authentication agent already exists

rbit

Member

Registered: 2018-06-12

Posts: 94  

Re: Excalibur + Xfce + Fresh install: Authentication agent already exists

Thank you for the report.  This is a known issue.  After some deliberation, it was decided for the installer iso to keep mate-polkit and remove xfce-polkit in the upcoming 6.1.0 set.  The desktop-live also uses mate-polkit, as does debian trixie (or so I've been told).