Marcus Naeher has the solution in #17 above For LXDE it is true as well that the PolicyKit Autostart has been unchecked by default in the latest version of Ubuntu/Lubuntu If you check this box and restart, Synaptic package manager will start from the launchpad menu and will ask for Authentication and all is well. Here is his answer quoted below:
"I have found the solution by happenstance: (I am using XFCE in German, so maybe the wording I describe here is not 100% accurate) In the XFCE settings menu -> Session management -> Automatically started applications, there is an Item "Policykit Authentication Agent". This was unchecked. Re-check, reboot (probably logout and login is sufficient), and it is back working. But: I am absolutely sure I did not remove the check. On one of the affected computers, I have never been in this dialog before." -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to policykit-1 in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/976638 Title: pkexec does not find any authentication agent Status in PolicyKit: Unknown Status in policykit-1 package in Ubuntu: Triaged Bug description: I am using xubuntu, but I am pretty sure that other variants are affected too. My problem started with being unable to start synaptic from the menu. So far, I have found out that synaptic is started with pkexec. When I test starting pkexec /usr/sbin/synaptic in a terminal, it asks for the password in text mode. With another test pkexec --disable-internal-agent /usr/sbin/synaptic in the terminal, it says it has not found any authentication agent. I have two AMD64 PC's and a i386 laptop. The problem occurs on one of the PC's and the laptop. Comparing the /etc directory trees of the PC's showed many differences, but I could not find anything suspicious about the polycikit configuration. For the moment, using gksu instead of pkexec is a workaround. Thanks and Regards, Markus ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04 Package: policykit-1 0.104-1 ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-22.35-generic 3.2.14 Uname: Linux 3.2.0-22-generic x86_64 ApportVersion: 2.0-0ubuntu4 Architecture: amd64 Date: Sun Apr 8 17:05:34 2012 InstallationMedia: Xubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Beta amd64 (20120330) ProcEnviron: LANGUAGE=de_DE:en TERM=xterm PATH=(custom, no user) LANG=de_DE.UTF-8 SHELL=/bin/bash SourcePackage: policykit-1 UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install) To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/policykit-1/+bug/976638/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : desktop-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
