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

At Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:41:15 +0200 [email protected] wrote:

> 
> 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:
> > 
> > >
> > > 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 message.  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 produce
> > > > > 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 shell):
> > > >
> > > > #
> > > > # set prompt
> > > > #
> > > > set me = `whoami`
> > > > if ("$me" != "root") set prompt="`hostname`% "
> > > > if ("$me" == "root") set prompt="`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?
> > 
> > I took out the 'set prompt=' commands from my .cshrc file, it still happens.
> > 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.
> 

Yes it was.  My .cshrc file has moved from machine to machine for decades, 
occasionally gaining a line or two,  And I probably inherieted it from 
somewhere in the depths of time...  It almost certainly predates Linux itself 
(from the days I was using various UNIX Workstations,,,)

> Cheers