Terminal applications no longer working

hello, i just started my computer and now when i try to start gnome-terminal i get this error.

There was an error creating the child process for this terminal
Failed to open PTY: Permission denied

other terminal applications also dont work, the tty windows do work and the rest of the os works fine too

edit: just minutes before it stopped working i installed intel-media-driver with dnf but removing it also doenst seem to fix the issue

If you can enter a different tty (ctrl + alt + f3), a few logs may help diagnose the issue:

  • System logs from the current boot containing the string “pty”: journalctl -b 0 | grep -i pty
  • Recent dnf operations: dnf history | head -10
  • Various non-sensitive system information: inxi -Fz

Edit: You could write the output of these commands to a file which you can then access via your graphical Gnome session for easy copy-pasting to this forum:

echo "`journalctl -b 0 | grep -i pty; dnf history | head -10; inxi -Fz`" > forum_logs.txt
1 Like

sorry for my late reply

System:
  Kernel: 6.0.15-300.fc37.x86_64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 Console: tty 4 Distro: Fedora release 37
    (Thirty Seven)
Machine:
  Type: Convertible System: HP product: HP Spectre x360 Convertible 13-aw2xxx v: N/A
    serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: HP model: 8709 v: 31.32 serial: <superuser required> UEFI: AMI v: F.17 date: 07/25/2022
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 55.9 Wh (100.0%) condition: 55.9/60.8 Wh (92.1%)
CPU:
  Info: quad core model: 11th Gen Intel Core i7-1165G7 bits: 64 type: MT MCP cache: L2: 5 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1898 min/max: 400/4700 cores: 1: 2800 2: 1200 3: 2800 4: 1079 5: 2800
    6: 1140 7: 569 8: 2800
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel TigerLake-LP GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] driver: i915 v: kernel
  Device-2: Chicony HP True Vision HD Camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo
  Device-3: Logitech Webcam C270 type: USB driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo
  Display: server: X.org v: 1.20.14 with: Xwayland v: 22.1.7 driver: X: loaded: modesetting
    unloaded: fbdev,vesa dri: iris gpu: i915 tty: 240x67 resolution: 1: 1024x768 2: 2560x1440
    3: 1920x1080
  API: OpenGL Message: GL data unavailable in console. Try -G --display
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Tiger Lake-LP Smart Sound Audio driver: sof-audio-pci-intel-tgl
  Device-2: Corsair HS70 Pro Wireless Gaming Headset type: USB
    driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid
  Device-3: Logitech Webcam C270 type: USB driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo
  Device-4: HP USB Audio type: USB driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid
  Sound API: ALSA v: k6.0.15-300.fc37.x86_64 running: yes
  Sound Server-1: PipeWire v: 0.3.63 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 driver: iwlwifi
  IF: wlo1 state: up mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Realtek RTL8153 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter type: USB driver: r8152
  IF: enp46s0u1u3u3 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel AX201 Bluetooth type: USB driver: btusb
  Report: rfkill ID: hci0 state: up address: see --recommends
RAID:
  Hardware-1: Intel Volume Management Device NVMe RAID Controller driver: vmd
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 983.59 GiB used: 497.48 GiB (50.6%)
  ID-1: /dev/mmcblk0 vendor: SanDisk model: SC32G size: 29.72 GiB
  ID-2: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: KIOXIA model: N/A size: 953.87 GiB
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 952.28 GiB used: 497.2 GiB (52.2%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3
  ID-2: /boot size: 973.4 MiB used: 275.5 MiB (28.3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2
  ID-3: /boot/efi size: 598.8 MiB used: 17.4 MiB (2.9%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1
  ID-4: /home size: 952.28 GiB used: 497.2 GiB (52.2%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) dev: /dev/zram0
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 44.0 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 0 fan-2: 0
Info:
  Processes: 348 Uptime: 9m Memory: 15.27 GiB used: 4.33 GiB (28.3%) Init: systemd
  target: graphical (5) Shell: fish inxi: 3.3.24
  
  
  
ID     | Command line                                                                                                                                                                              | Date and time    | Action(s)      | Altered
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   104 | install intel-media-driver                                                                                                                                                                | 2023-01-01 22:10 | Install        |    2   
   103 | remove intel-media-driver                                                                                                                                                                 | 2023-01-01 22:04 | Removed        |    2   
   102 |                                                                                                                                                                                           | 2023-01-01 21:46 | I, U           |   88   
   101 | install intel-media-driver                                                                                                                                                                | 2023-01-01 21:37 | Install        |    2   
   100 |                                                                                                                                                                                           | 2023-01-01 21:25 | Install        |    2   
    99 | install timeshift                                                                                                                                                                         | 2022-12-23 11:32 | Install        |    1   
    98 | install snapper                                                                                                                                                                           | 2022-12-23 11:16 | Install        |    2  <
    97 |                                                                                                                                                                                           | 2022-12-23 11:06 | I, U           |   65 > 
    96 |                                                                                                                                                                                           | 2022-12-21 23:41 | Upgrade        |   42   
    95 |                                                                                                                                                                                           | 2022-12-20 21:56 | Install        |    3   
    94 | install google-noto-emoji-color-fonts                                                                                                                                                     | 2022-12-20 21:55 | Install        |    1   
    93 |                                                                                                                                                                                           | 2022-12-20 09:33 | Removed        |    3   
    92 |                                                                                                                                                                                           | 2022-12-20 09:32 | Install        |    3   
    91 | install webapp-manager                                                                                                                                                                    | 2022-12-19 21:31 | Install        |   26 E<
    90 |                                                                                                                                                                                           | 2022-12-19 16:58 | I, U           |   51 > 
    89 | install waydroid                                                                                                                                                                          | 2022-12-19 16:51 | Install        |    9 EE
    88 | remove waydroid                                                                                                                                                                           | 2022-12-19 16:51 | Removed        |    9 EE
    87 | install waydroid                                                                                                                                                                          | 2022-12-16 21:44 | Install        |    9 E<
Jan 03 16:39:37 fedora systemd[1]: iscsi-onboot.service - Special handling of early boot iSCSI sessions was skipped because of a failed condition check (ConditionDirectoryNotEmpty=/sys/class/iscsi_session).
Jan 03 16:39:38 fedora systemd[1]: iscsi-onboot.service - Special handling of early boot iSCSI sessions was skipped because of a failed condition check (ConditionDirectoryNotEmpty=/sys/class/iscsi_session).
Jan 03 16:39:38 fedora systemd[1]: iscsi-onboot.service - Special handling of early boot iSCSI sessions was skipped because of a failed condition check (ConditionDirectoryNotEmpty=/sys/class/iscsi_session).
Jan 03 16:39:38 fedora systemd[1]: iscsi-onboot.service - Special handling of early boot iSCSI sessions was skipped because of a failed condition check (ConditionDirectoryNotEmpty=/sys/class/iscsi_session).
Jan 03 16:39:38 fedora systemd[1]: iscsi-onboot.service - Special handling of early boot iSCSI sessions was skipped because of a failed condition check (ConditionDirectoryNotEmpty=/sys/class/iscsi_session).
Jan 03 16:39:38 fedora systemd[1]: abrt-vmcore.service - Harvest vmcores for ABRT was skipped because of a failed condition check (ConditionDirectoryNotEmpty=/var/crash).
Jan 03 16:39:43 fedora systemd[1]: iscsi.service - Login and scanning of iSCSI devices was skipped because of a failed condition check (ConditionDirectoryNotEmpty=/var/lib/iscsi/nodes).
Jan 03 16:39:54 fedora onedrive[1844]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:39:54 fedora onedrive[1844]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:39:58 fedora onedrive[2800]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:39:58 fedora onedrive[2800]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:40:02 fedora onedrive[3286]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:40:02 fedora onedrive[3286]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:40:05 fedora gnome-software[2496]: ignoring unknown or empty provided item type: font
Jan 03 16:40:05 fedora gnome-software[2496]: ignoring unknown or empty provided item type: font
Jan 03 16:40:05 fedora gnome-software[2496]: ignoring unknown or empty provided item type: font
Jan 03 16:40:05 fedora onedrive[3380]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:40:05 fedora onedrive[3380]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:40:09 fedora onedrive[3477]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:40:09 fedora onedrive[3477]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:40:13 fedora onedrive[3530]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:40:13 fedora onedrive[3530]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:40:16 fedora gnome-software[2496]: ignoring unknown or empty provided item type: font
Jan 03 16:40:17 fedora onedrive[3947]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:40:17 fedora onedrive[3947]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:40:17 fedora gnome-software[2496]: ignoring unknown or empty provided item type: font
Jan 03 16:40:17 fedora gnome-software[2496]: ignoring unknown or empty provided item type: font
Jan 03 16:40:20 fedora onedrive[4251]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:40:20 fedora onedrive[4251]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:40:24 fedora onedrive[4280]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:40:24 fedora onedrive[4280]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:40:28 fedora onedrive[4389]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:40:28 fedora onedrive[4389]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:40:32 fedora onedrive[4399]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:40:32 fedora onedrive[4399]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:40:36 fedora onedrive[4422]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:40:36 fedora onedrive[4422]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:40:39 fedora onedrive[4485]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:40:39 fedora onedrive[4485]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:40:40 fedora gnome-software[2496]: ignoring unknown or empty provided item type: font
Jan 03 16:40:41 fedora gnome-software[2496]: ignoring unknown or empty provided item type: font
Jan 03 16:40:41 fedora gnome-software[2496]: ignoring unknown or empty provided item type: font
Jan 03 16:40:43 fedora onedrive[4512]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:40:43 fedora onedrive[4512]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:40:47 fedora onedrive[4517]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:40:47 fedora onedrive[4517]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:40:51 fedora onedrive[4532]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:40:51 fedora onedrive[4532]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:40:54 fedora onedrive[4560]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:40:54 fedora onedrive[4560]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:40:58 fedora onedrive[4578]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:40:58 fedora onedrive[4578]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:41:02 fedora onedrive[4591]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:41:02 fedora onedrive[4591]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:41:06 fedora onedrive[4684]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:41:06 fedora onedrive[4684]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:41:09 fedora onedrive[4700]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:41:09 fedora onedrive[4700]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:41:10 fedora gnome-software[2496]: ignoring unknown or empty provided item type: font
Jan 03 16:41:11 fedora gnome-software[2496]: ignoring unknown or empty provided item type: font
Jan 03 16:41:11 fedora gnome-software[2496]: ignoring unknown or empty provided item type: font
Jan 03 16:41:13 fedora onedrive[4810]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:41:13 fedora onedrive[4810]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:41:17 fedora onedrive[4974]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:41:17 fedora onedrive[4974]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:41:21 fedora onedrive[4991]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:41:21 fedora onedrive[4991]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:41:25 fedora onedrive[5013]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:41:25 fedora onedrive[5013]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:41:28 fedora onedrive[5057]:   Error Reason:     Access token is empty.
Jan 03 16:41:28 fedora onedrive[5057]: ERROR: Check your configuration as your refresh_token may be empty or invalid. You may need to issue a --reauth and re-authorise this client.
Jan 03 16:41:32 fedora org.gnome.Terminal.desktop[5170]: # Error: Failed to open PTY: Permission denied

this is the output of this command, the only thing i can find in the logs is this

Jan 03 16:41:32 fedora org.gnome.Terminal.desktop[5170]: # Error: Failed to open PTY: Permission denied

and that really doesnt tell me anything i didnt already know

“permission denied” is usually a file permissions problem of some sort. You might want to check the security settings on the files in question. Below is what mine look like for reference (glb is my current username).

$ ls -lZ /dev/pts
total 0
crw--w----. 1 glb  tty  unconfined_u:object_r:user_devpts_t:s0 136, 0 Jan  3 15:54 0
crw--w----. 1 glb  tty  unconfined_u:object_r:user_devpts_t:s0 136, 1 Jan  3 16:01 1
c---------. 1 root root system_u:object_r:devpts_t:s0            5, 2 Dec  8 18:28 ptmx

If yours look right, the next thing to check would be the uid and gid of the process trying to access the files in question. Here is what mine looks like for reference.

$ ps -eo user,group,pid,ppid,tty,cmd | grep "CMD\|terminal\|bash"
USER     GROUP        PID    PPID TT       CMD
glb      glb      2684825 2684648 ?        /usr/bin/ssh-agent /bin/sh -c exec -l bash -c "startlxde"
glb      glb      2685085 2890006 ?        /usr/libexec/gnome-terminal-server
glb      glb      2685381 2685085 pts/0    bash
glb      glb      2755557 2685085 pts/1    bash
glb      glb      2785979 2685085 pts/2    bash
glb      glb      2791701 2755557 pts/1    grep --color=auto CMD\|terminal\|bash
1 Like

so i ran the commands you ran but my output looks completely different
the first one outputs

total 0
c---------. 1 root root system_u:object_r:devpts_t:s0 5, 2 Jan  3 16:39 ptmx

and the second one

USER     GROUP        PID    PPID TT       CMD
youpie   youpie     38184    1982 ?        bash /home/youpie/.local/share/Steam/steam.sh
youpie   youpie     56531    4616 tty4     grep --color=auto CMD\|terminal\|bash

i really cant figure out what any of this means because i’m still quite a noob haha

Yeah, unfortunately, there is a bit of a catch-22 if you cannot start gnome-terminal. Does it work if you press Alt+F2 and enter gnome-terminal --no-environment -- /usr/bin/bash --noprofile?

What’s the output of ls -ldZ /dev/pts/ and getfacl /dev/pts ? Does it look like this?

$ ls -ldZ /dev/pts/
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root system_u:object_r:devpts_t:s0 0 Dec 19 03:21 /dev/pts/

$ getfacl /dev/
getfacl: Removing leading '/' from absolute path names
# file: dev/
# owner: root
# group: root
user::rwx
group::r-x
other::r-x

This is the output when running those commands

drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root system_u:object_r:devpts_t:s0 0 Jan  4 09:59 /dev/pts/

# file: dev/
# owner: root
# group: root
user::rwx
group::r-x
other::r-x

it opens a gnome terminal and shows the same error, nothing changes :confused:

Can you manually mount it?

sudo mount -t devpts devpts /dev/pts -o rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,seclabel,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000

if i try to mount it with the command you gave i get the error Mount: /dev/pts: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on devpts, missing codepage or helper program, or other error. dmesg (1) may have more information after failed mount system call.

So what shows up at the end of dmesg after you run that command? (e.g. dmesg | tail)

Also, are you running in a container environment of some sort? (container sandboxes may block some system calls)

Also a long shot, but you don’t have a /dev/pts line in /etc/fstab do you? (a very long time ago Fedora Linux used to put such a line in that file, but it shouldn’t be there anymore)

1 Like
[  531.170274] rfkill: input handler enabled
[  535.951028] wlo1: Connection to AP e4:f4:c6:17:47:c5 lost
[  536.175745] wlo1: authenticate with e4:f4:c6:17:47:c9
[  536.191632] wlo1: Invalid HE elem, Disable HE
[  536.196778] wlo1: send auth to e4:f4:c6:17:47:c9 (try 1/3)
[  536.223419] wlo1: authenticated
[  536.241596] wlo1: associate with e4:f4:c6:17:47:c9 (try 1/3)
[  536.242493] wlo1: RX AssocResp from e4:f4:c6:17:47:c9 (capab=0x1011 status=0 aid=5)
[  536.248064] wlo1: associated
[  541.107160] devpts: called with bogus options

this is the output of dmesg | tail

i checked the fstab file and it doesnt appear to contain anything about /dev/pts

UUID=4f74147d-8d6d-4058-b2ea-e652ef28223f /                       btrfs   subvol=root,compress=zstd:1 0 0
UUID=7921d547-f7c8-4654-a783-8f400e59d83c /boot                   ext4    defaults        1 2
UUID=6F2B-43D3          /boot/efi               vfat    umask=0077,shortname=winnt 0 2
UUID=4f74147d-8d6d-4058-b2ea-e652ef28223f /home                   btrfs   subvol=home,compress=zstd:1 0 0

is it normal that my /dev/pts/ptmx looks like this? https://prnt.sc/xsa0rPMiJlK9

Note that I saved your small image directly to the post. It is preferred by many that with small images they be directly inserted instead of having to go to a different link to see them.

It is, however, much preferred that everything be text when possible.

For future reference please post that like this: (using the Preformatted text </> button)

# ls -l /dev/pts/*
crw--w----. 1 user tty  136, 0 Jan  5 09:42 /dev/pts/0
crw--w----. 1 user tty  136, 1 Jan  4 21:01 /dev/pts/1
crw--w----. 1 user tty  136, 2 Jan  2 17:22 /dev/pts/2
crw--w----. 1 user tty  136, 3 Jan  2 20:50 /dev/pts/3
c---------. 1 root  root   5, 2 Jan  1 19:50 /dev/pts/ptmx
1 Like

my apologies, i didnt know i could insert images

According to Documentation/filesystems/devpts.txt - kernel/common - Git at Google, the “bogus options” notice comes from having ptmxmode set while you are in legacy mode. But it looks like it should have worked despite that message. Is your /dev/pts a mountpoint? I.e., what is the out put of mount -l -t devpts?

$ mount -l -t devpts
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,seclabel,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)

With a little googling, I found that a tty won’t be allocated if your shell is invoked as a non-interactive shell (e.g. echo 'ls /dev/pts' | bash). When you start it from a terminal session though, it should be in interactive mode. Maybe there is something messed up in your ~/.bashrc file? The following command run from Gnome’s Alt+F2 prompt should bypass that file. Does the following work when you enter it in the prompt that pops up if you press Alt+F2?

gnome-terminal --no-environment -- /usr/bin/sh --noprofile

When the command was cut/paste was it all on one line?

when i use that command i just get the same error. other terminal applications wont work either