Re: Pesky message: cannot stat /var/run/utmp. Please "unset watch".

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On Thu, Jul 23, 2026 at 02:21:22PM -0400, Robert Heller wrote:
> At Thu, 23 Jul 2026 18:41:49 +0200 <[email protected]> wrote:
>=20
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 23, 2026 at 12:33:32PM -0400, Robert Heller wrote:
> > > At Thu, 23 Jul 2026 10:12:31 -0400 Greg Wooledge <[email protected]> =
wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > > On Thu, Jul 23, 2026 at 09:15:05 -0400, Robert Heller wrote:
> > > > > On a fresh install of trixie (Debian 13), I am getting this messa=
ge.  Where is
> > > > > it coming from?
> > > > >
> > > > > The message is:
> > > > >
> > > > > cannot stat /var/run/utmp.  Please "unset watch".
> > > >
> > > > It would help enormously if you told us what command you ran to pro=
duce
> > > > the message.
> > >
> > > I'm not running any partitular command.  This message occurs at every=
 shell
> > > prompt.  I do have a set prompt in my .cshrc (I am using tcsh as my s=
hell):
> > >
> > > #
> > > # set prompt
> > > #
> > > set me =3D `whoami`
> > > if ("$me" !=3D "root") set prompt=3D"`hostname`% "
> > > if ("$me" =3D=3D "root") set prompt=3D"`hostname`# "
> > > #
> >
> > - Does it happen if you don't set your prompt?
> > - does it happen if you invoke hostname directly?
> > - does it happen (improbable) if you invoke whoami directly?
>=20
> I took out the 'set prompt=3D' commands from my .cshrc file, it still hap=
pens.
> It does NOT happen if I use either of the whoami and hostname commands,

Interesting: elsewhere in this thread "set watch" is named as the
most probable culprit, which sounds plausible to me. Probably it's
elsewhere in your .cshrc.

Cheers
--=20
t

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