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Fixing “There was an error creating a child process for this terminal”
By admin | May 12, 2009
Update (2009-08-27): If you are missing mountdevsubfs.sh.dpkg-dist, you can download it here.
After a recent upgrade to Ubuntu 9.04 on a computer, GNOME Terminal and xterm stopped working suddenly by displaying an error message that read “There was an error creating a child process for this terminal.” This is caused by a bug resulting from the unauthorized changes to mountdevsubfs.sh. To fix it, take the following steps:
- Switch to a terminal that works by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1 twice. (press Ctrl+Alt+F7 to restore desktop)
- Login to Ubuntu (type in your username followed by your password).
- Enter “sudo mv /etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh /etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh.old“to move the old mountdevsubfs.sh out. (Type in your password, again).
- Enter “sudo cp /etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh.dpkg-dist /etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh” to restore the dpkg backup.
- Shutdown and restart the computer by typing “sudo shutdown now -r“.
- (OR) Press Ctrl+Alt+F7 and shutdown through the GUI.
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If you found this article helpful or interesting, please help Compdigitec spread the word. Don’t forget to subscribe to Compdigitec Labs for more useful and interesting articles!
Topics: Linux | 30 Comments »
June 15th, 2009 at 14:55
Thank you very much! That’s problem number 1 solved… How did they release an upgrade where the terminal doesn’t work?!
June 18th, 2009 at 14:39
Really, they must be following windows’ marketing strategies. We break, you buy!
June 19th, 2009 at 23:27
Thanks your solution work for me perfectly well.
July 21st, 2009 at 05:50
Thanks a lot for your help!
Jvonne
August 26th, 2009 at 16:44
Hi,
This file is not on my computer…mountdevsubfs.sh.dpkg-dist .
Any suggestions where I might find it?
…on the internet?
…can you send it?
Thanks.
Don Green
August 27th, 2009 at 08:53
@Don Green:
The post has been updated with the file. Thanks for the suggestion!
October 29th, 2009 at 20:31
I tried to make the change you’ve suggested but I got another error: “mountdevsubfs.sh.dpkg-dist” which is not found on my PC (Ubuntu 9.04) Does anybody knows where I can find that file? It is downloadable?
Any suggestions are welcome !!!
December 9th, 2009 at 12:05
I was also missing the file. Thanks to you, I can use Gnome terminal once again.
October 28th, 2010 at 12:18
Thanks !!!!!! for all !!!
June 25th, 2011 at 11:37
Hello,
I was trying to solve this issue as you propose here but the problem still isn’t solved.
So it doesn’t seam to help in any case 🙁
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