FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Can not login (trough X) or (Web)mail does not work

This often happens if your disk space is full and the requiered files can not be written. You can fix this with login in through a text console (Strg-Alt-F1) or ssh and deleting some files. If you constantly run in to low disk space, ask the administrator to increase the disk space. For temporary data the global scratch directories are recommended. Check your free disk space regularly with the command 'df'.

Webmail does not work

The correct function of the Webmail interface depends on two files in your public_html directory. These are public_html/cgi-bin/php and public_html/webmail. If one of this is missing you will get some error messages. To fix this problem do a ssh login or open a terminal from your desktop and execute the command webmail-enable. This should fix the problem.

I cannot see my quota

There is no quota system any more. You have your own volume on the nfs server. You can check this with 'df'. The free space in your home, is your personal free space.

Where is pine on the new Ubuntu installations ?

The short version: Pine development has stopped, the successor is now called alpine. They have to change the name because pine is a registered trademark and the associated license does not permit distribution of binary packages. If you want more information, have a look on their homepage [1]

Wrong colors on the white Fujitsu Siemens Machines

On this machines it happens that the colors get wrong, e.g. black instead of white. This issue can be fixed with restarting the X-Server. Log out, to get your session closed properly, and press Ctrl-Alt-Backspace (<-). After that your colors should be ok.

On this machines we switched from the closed source Nvidia driver, which has severe performance problems, to the open source driver. The newer machines are fast enough, so that this problem does not lead to a noticeable difference.

Firefox and Thunderbird complain about running elsewhere

This is not a bug, this is a feature. This prevents running Firefox and Thunderbird with the the same profile on different hosts. If your computer crashes or the power fails these programs are not closed cleanly, the lock files remain and prevents firefox/thunderbird from starting.

This can simply fixed by deleting the lock files. For security reason these programs use a random directory name for the profile.

The files are:

 ~/.mozilla/firefox/<RANDOM_CHARS>.default/.parentlock
 ~/.mozilla/firefox/<RANDOM_CHARS>.default/lock
 ~/.mozilla-thunderbird/<RANDOM_CHARS>.default/.parentlock
 ~/.mozilla-thunderbird/<RANDOM_CHARS>.default/lock

The RANDOM_CHARS subdirectory is easy to find, because unter normal circumstances there is only a single subdirectory.

Note: To read this instruction you can use a different browser installed on our system, e.g. konqueror or epiphany, even the text mode browser lynx works fine.

Toolbars, navigation, history or forms are not working in Firefox

This problem can occur after a crash. It can easily be solved by deleting two files:

  ~/.mozilla/firefox/<RANDOM_CHARS>.default/places.sqlite
  ~/.mozilla/firefox/<RANDOM_CHARS>.default/places.sqlite.journal

The database is reconstructed from the latest bookmarks backup. Detailed information can be found here:

kb.mozillazine.org/Bookmarks_history_and_toolbar_buttons_not_working_-_Firefox

You may also encounter problems with forms and the search field. Then the following files are corrupted:

  ~/.mozilla/firefox/<RANDOM_CHARS>.default/formhistory.sqlite
  ~/.mozilla/firefox/<RANDOM_CHARS>.default/formhistory.dat

Please delete them. You will loose the history information but get a working browser.