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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:Error creating the child process for this terminal

  1. Switch to a terminal that works by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1 twice. (press Ctrl+Alt+F7 to restore desktop)
  2. Login to Ubuntu (type in your username followed by your password).
  3. 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).
  4. Enter “sudo cp /etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh.dpkg-dist /etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh” to restore the dpkg backup.
  5. Shutdown and restart the computer by typing “sudo shutdown now -r“.
  6. (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 | 51 Comments »

51 Responses to “Fixing “There was an error creating a child process for this terminal””

  1. Veneer Pattaya Says:
    August 6th, 2026 at 22:12

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