The .ICEauthority file is a configuration file used by the Gnome desktop in Linux.
Sometimes the file can become corrupted or otherwise stop functioning properly. If this occurs, then a message will appear before the desktop has completed loaded stating that the ICEauthority or .ICEauthority file cannot be updated. The most common symptom that I recognize when this occurs is that Gnome only allows me to have one accessible workspace on the desktop (I usually like to have six available).
In trying to resolve this problem, myself, I have often encountered blogs that tell the user not to log into the GUI (graphical user interface) as root and then the file won't get corrupted. However, I have never logged into the GUI as the root user, but my .ICEauthority file still stops functioning, at time. There is another cause for this corruption, but I don't know what it is; I only know how to fix it once it occurs.
Command Sequence:
First, I looked to see where the file was located on my system (I found three locations), by opening a terminal and switching to the root user (or super user) and using the 'find' command.
1. su -
2. Enter root password
3. find / -name .ICEauthority
4. cd [path to .ICEauthority]
5. rm .ICEauthority
6. reboot
Explanation:
1. 'su' stands for 'change user' and the hyphen means that i want to change to the root user, with both root permissions and environment variables, instead of my personal environment variables. Using the 'find' command as the root user will allow me to search through files that otherwise would not be accessible as a regular user.
2. This is the system or root password. Access to this password will be required to search through directories that only permit root access.
3. 'find' is a very useful utility. For additional information on 'find', check the Linux manual page with "man find".
The syntax is "find [target directory] -name [filename or pattern]. Therefore, by designating '/' (root directory) for the target directory, we are able to search the entire file system for the desired file. Following the target directory, '-name' is the option that tells 'find' we will be designating an exact file name for which it is to search, within the target directory (-iname makes the search case-insensitive). The file name that we want to find is the final element of the command. 'find' will then print a list of paths and file names, matching the given parameters, as standard output to the screen, before returning us to the command prompt.
4. 'cd' stands for 'change directory'. We need to access the directory that contains the .ICEauthority file, as shown in the results list from the 'find' command in the prior step.
5. 'rm' stands for 'remove' and is used to delete the file. The .ICEauthority file will be re-created when the system restarts, so there isn't any harm in deleting this file, especially if it is already corrupted.
6. 'reboot' is a command-line command that will safely shutdown the system and immediate restart it. This process will re-create the .ICEauthority file for each of the users and the graphical desktop will once again be available.
