Suspected permssions problem on FC17 new installation - need help

[William W. Austin]

I have just done an installation of fc17 on a machine which was previously
running 16 with no problems.

I actually replaced the disk on which the root file system was installed,
so I still have the fc16 root system installed and am able to boot from it
to make comparisons, etc.  I have tried rebooting to the fc16 release, and all 
of the problems go away when I do that, so I don't suspect a hardware problem.

The machine is current on ALL rpm updates as of this morning.

I recently did a clean install (new hd) of fc17, and I suspect I have a memory 
problem, but I can't find it.

On fc16 I had/have NO problems with the X server (after the first few rounds of
patching, anyway), however, on fc17 I am seeing a pair of problems which may be 
related.  They cannot be duplicated on fc16.

If I log in as root, no problems crop up and everything works the way it's 
expected to. (for instance xmms and xine run just fine, differing from their 
behavior for a non-privileged user).

To me it sounds like a permissions problem, but after spending days trying
to track it down, I've run out of ideas - any suggestions will be greatly
appreciated.

I normally run the system in multiuser mode (via the symlink to
/etc/systemd/system/default.target from the multi-user target).

The machine is fairly fast with a 6-cpu phenom2, 8GB of ram, and 5.75 GB of
sata3 disks (and a high-end GeForce nvidia video card).

1)  Root can easily & quickly start the xserver using startx.  However for any
    NON-privileged user there is a problem.

    xauth times out multiple times first failing to open the .serverauth
    file and then the .Xauthority file.  The time between typing startx and
    getting the initial X window is typically 6-10 minutes  (permissions
    on the directory and all directories above it in the tree are 755, and
    the file is readable by everyone).

    After that point, some things which ran/run smoothly under fc16 (i.e.,
    without the problem) are also impacted - see next item.

2)  Some programs, such as xmms 'run' but do not function.  For instance
    running xmms, I get an error message box saying (quoting):

	Please check that:

	Your soundcard is configured properly You have the correct output
	plugin selected No other program is blocking the soundcard.

   The weird thing about this particular message is that there is ONE
   particular file (a ".wmv" copy of the audio tracks from the movie "The
   Blues Brothers" in which Cab Calloway & his band do "Minnie the Moocher").
   It plays properly every time, and NO OTHER .wav or .mp3 file will play
   at all (root can play all of them, and yes I have the mp3 extension
   loaded from rpmfusion).  All of them play with the alsaplayer (I built
   the package from the .srpm file).

   As I said before, this works perfectly under fc16.

   Several other programs (particlarly xine) also refuse to run or will work
   on some files of a given type but not all.  (For instance I have several
   ".flv" files which I made with the same camera to film a training course
   I created.  Each is just under 5 minutes long and there are 6 of them. While
   all 6 of them play perfectly with xine under fc16, only 2 of them do under 
   fc17.   And no, they aren't that large, running 25-30M each.)  All of the 
   "affected" files play perfectly with xmovie or dragon.

Any suggestions as to a likely cause here will be greatly appreciated.


-- 
william w. austin                                     airedad at att.net
"life is just another phase i'm going through. this time, anyway ..."