Xfce Forum

desipher

Member

Registered: 2021-05-10

Posts: 26

Mousepad does not prompt for password anymore when editing and saving

This is what used to happed.
I'd open mousepad and select a file. For example,

 /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

and mousepad would prompt me for a password in order for me to be able to write to the file. But no I just get an error that I do not have the permission. I can only view that file and not edit it. If I want to edit that file, I'll have to open the teminal and go

 sudo vim /etc/whatever 

I used to be able to just do a quick

 sudo mousepad /etc/yo-why-stuff-always-broken :( 

and this workaround worked for a while but then I started getting this error

 
[privileged@arched ~]$ sudo mousepad
(mousepad:981): Mousepad-CRITICAL **: 14:12:48.549: Failed to initialize xfconf: Error spawning command line “dbus-launch --autolaunch=91073612dabc1ec21befa5a96098e9f6 --binary-syntax --close-stderr”: Child process exited with code 1

Is password prompt gone because it has something to do with the polocy-kit of xfce?

stuff-->

• xfce 4.16

• arch-linux 64-bit

• kernal 5.10.35-1-lts

Last edited by desipher (2021-05-12 15:46:15)

Tamaranch

Member

Registered: 2020-12-31

Posts: 321

Re: Mousepad does not prompt for password anymore when editing and saving

The change comes more from Xfconf than from Mousepad actually, see https://gitlab.xfce.org/apps/mousepad/-/issues/122.

Anyway, it's fixed and will soon be released in Mousepad 0.5.5 (which just doesn't depend on Xfconf anymore).

desipher

Member

Registered: 2021-05-10

Posts: 26

Re: Mousepad does not prompt for password anymore when editing and saving

The change comes more from Xfconf than from Mousepad actually, see https://gitlab.xfce.org/apps/mousepad/-/issues/122.

Anyway, it's fixed and will soon be released in Mousepad 0.5.5 (which just doesn't depend on Xfconf anymore).

Great! Thanks for letting me know. I hate how something is always broken. One after another. But I guess that's open-source software for ya.

desipher

Member

Registered: 2021-05-10

Posts: 26

Re: Mousepad does not prompt for password anymore when editing and saving

The change comes more from Xfconf than from Mousepad actually, see https://gitlab.xfce.org/apps/mousepad/-/issues/122.

Anyway, it's fixed and will soon be released in Mousepad 0.5.5 (which just doesn't depend on Xfconf anymore).

Ey man they just dropped the 5.5 update but it still doesn't ask me for a password when I try to edit and save a file that's in the system root. The problem is still there. It only askes me if I want to save as or quit without saving. To reiterate, at this point the system will just ask me for my password when I press ctrl+s to save a file that I do not have permission to edit.

Last edited by desipher (2021-05-12 15:49:58)

Tamaranch

Member

Registered: 2020-12-31

Posts: 321

Re: Mousepad does not prompt for password anymore when editing and saving

I don't think Mousepad ever allowed this (elevation of privileges at runtime), but if you do

pkexec mousepad file

now, it should work again (with warnings, but that's life ).

desipher

Member

Registered: 2021-05-10

Posts: 26

Re: Mousepad does not prompt for password anymore when editing and saving

I don't think Mousepad ever allowed this (elevation of privileges at runtime), but if you do

pkexec mousepad file

now, it should work again (with warnings, but that's life ).

I am certain that I used to get prompted for it. I ran the command you suggested and that is exaclty that I used to get just automatically without prefixing it with pkexec it manually in the teminal. Even now visual studio code gives me the prompt when I require it automatically.

I think I'll try to find a way to automate it. Since I open and close a lot of files. I think I'll read the polkit wiki maybe there's something there.

Thank you for you help.I Appreciate it.

Tamaranch

Member

Registered: 2020-12-31

Posts: 321

Re: Mousepad does not prompt for password anymore when editing and saving

You're welcome

You probably had a pkexec or similar somewhere, depending on how Xfce is arranged on your distribution (Xubuntu for example does things like that), but it was certainly external to Mousepad (and will remain so).