I have just finished update my fedora 43, after rebooting and trying to RDP as usual, I started getting the following error
can’t create session for user X server could not be started
as you can notice in the snapshot
whats might happened during the update process as it finished succesfully? Thanks in advance
What desktop are you using?
For me it looks like that the x support is not available anymore. Has been removed in between F42 + F43
XFCE 4
Hi Vladislav, as I said, xrdp has been installed since long time and I use it to access the VM, I was in RDP session when I issued a dnf update
I ran getenforce and, it seems , update has changed it to enforcing. I updated selinux/config to permissive, rebooted but getting the same exact error.
I also checked the var/log/sesman.log, I found the following messages:
/home/user/.vnc/sesman_passwd-salam@fedora.salam.net:10 -bs -nolisten tcp -rfbport -1 -dpi 96
[2026-07-12T20:29:07.576+0200] [ERROR] waitforx: Unable to open display :10
[2026-07-12T20:29:07.627+0200] [ERROR] X server failed to start
[2026-07-12T20:29:07.678+0200] [INFO ] Session on display 10 has finished.
[2026-07-13T10:23:36.477+0200] [INFO ] Socket 13: connection accepted from AF_UNIX
[2026-07-13T10:23:36.639+0200] [INFO ] Received system login request from xrdp for user: salam IP: ::ffff:192.168.1.3
[2026-07-13T10:23:36.711+0200] [INFO ] starting xrdp-sesexec with pid 25236
[2026-07-13T10:23:37.228+0200] [INFO ] TerminalServerUsers group tsusers doesn’t exist. Access granted for salam
[2026-07-13T10:23:37.894+0200] [INFO ] Access permitted for user: salam
[2026-07-13T10:23:37.164+0200] [INFO ] Received sys login status for salam : logged in
[2026-07-13T10:23:37.364+0200] [INFO ] Received request from xrdp to create a session for user salam
[2026-07-13T10:23:37.995+0200] [INFO ] Starting X server on display 10: Xvnc :10 -auth .Xauthority -geometry 2220x1210 -depth 16 -rfbauth /home/salam/.vnc/sesman_passwd-salam@fedora.user.net:10 -bs -nolisten tcp -rfbport -1 -dpi 96
[2026-07-13T10:23:47.999+0200] [ERROR] waitforx: Unable to open display :10
[2026-07-13T10:23:48.524+0200] [ERROR] X server failed to start
[2026-07-13T10:23:48.111+0200] [INFO ] Session on display 10 has finished.
What DE does the system you want to connect have ? There the x-server is not running.
I do have doubts that for xfce we allready have removed the x-server? Otherwise you probably not would have this issues.
Not sure I understand what DE means. I run
ps -e | grep tty
I get
Some more details, when I run
systemctl status xrdp,
I get a red warning on the bolded text and a warning " Config parameter ‘use_vsock’ is obsolete. Use 'port=vsock://…"
xrdp.service - xrdp daemon
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/xrdp.service; enabled; preset: disabled)
Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/system/service.d
└─10-timeout-abort.conf
Active: active (running) since Mon 2026-07-13 13:14:24 CEST; 1min 9s ago
Invocation: 7341eeb49f1b495a8a16e29e4281a4aa
Docs: man:xrdp(8)
man:xrdp.ini(5)
Main PID: 118028 (xrdp)
Tasks: 1 (limit: 13940)
Memory: 1.4M (peak: 1.7M)
CPU: 36ms
CGroup: /system.slice/xrdp.service
└─118028 /usr/bin/xrdp --nodaemon
Jul 13 13:14:24 fedora.mydomain systemd[1]: Starting xrdp.service - xrdp daemon…
Jul 13 13:14:24 fedora.mydomain (xrdp)[118028]: xrdp.service: Referenced but unset environment variable evaluates to an empty string: XRDP_OPTIONS
Jul 13 13:14:24 fedora.mydomain systemd[1]: Started xrdp.service - xrdp daemon.
Jul 13 13:14:24 fedora.mydomain xrdp[118028]: [WARN ] Config parameter ‘use_vsock’ is obsolete. Use ‘port=vsock://…’ instead
Jul 13 13:14:24 fedora.mydomain xrdp[118028]: [INFO ] address [0.0.0.0] port [3389] mode 1
Jul 13 13:14:24 fedora.mydomain xrdp[118028]: [INFO ] listening to port 3389 on 0.0.0.0
Jul 13 13:14:24 fedora.mydomain xrdp[118028]: [INFO ] xrdp_listen_pp done
Jul 13 13:14:24 fedora.mydomain xrdp[118028]: [CORE ] You are running xrdp as uid=0 gid=0. This is not recommended.
Jul 13 13:14:24 fedora.mydomain xrdp[118028]: [INFO ] starting xrdp with pid 118028
Desktop Environment.
With RDP you are connecting to a remote system to login right?
If this system is Gnome or KDE you will not be able to connect without doing what has been told above.
Please read the change log to see what is going on withing fedora versions!!
As mentioned, XFCE 4
I installed icem but it did not help
If you’re trying to use an Xorg (as opposed to a VNC session) session with xrdp, you need to make sure that xorgxrdp is installed along with xrdp, and that Xorg sessions are enabled in /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini and that ~/startwm.sh exists with appropriate contents and permissions. See here for details.
The configuration that @vgaetera provides (and it does work) will work only for VNC connections and will fail if you try to use Xorg sessions. Again, see this link for details as to how to get Xorg xrdp sessions (and don’t forget to install xorgxrdp) working.
HTHAL
Dear Rectangular, before the last fedora 43 regular update, 2 days ago, xRDP was working fine so I presume that necessary components should be there. Anyway, I will check the 2 items you mentioned.
I am more than sure now that it is the update that has done something preventing xRDP from working correctly
Hi All, I am more than sure that the most recent update has something to do with xRDP not functioning.
I have a 2nd F43 VM, I ran “sudo dnf update -y”, finished, rebooted got the exact same issue as the 1st one. by adding
param=-localhost
in sesman.ini
and adding
code=1
in xrdp.ini
I was able to RDP again to this 2nd machine
