Something happened few days ago in my Xubuntu 14.04. None of applications which require admin password won't open. Apps like GParted, Update Manager, File Manager when trying to open a folder as root, etc...
No matter how I start them. From the menu, desktop or in terminal using gksudo. In every case after entering the (the correct) password, the password dialog hides away and then the indicator light of the hard disk starts to blink heavily. But app window won't show up. Task Manager shows that the app uses 25% of CPU-time. And this keeps going no matter how long I wait.
Updating and upgrading work fine when started in terminal using sudo. Nano, leafpad and any GUI apps work fine even when started in terminal as NORMAL user, but not with gksudo nor sudo...
My username has sudo & adm groups. All been working fine for years but suddenly this problem occured. I'm wondering that hard disk usage which never ends. To get rid of that the OS must be rebooted.
So guys, how to sort this out?
If you're using Thunderbird you might want to look at: How to remove "Messaging Menu and Unity Launcher integration" from Thunderbird?
I had a similar problem and removing the above-mentioned extension seemed to clear the problem.
I suggest disabling the add-on in Thunderbird to see if your problem goes away before actually trying to remove it.