You may have a locked .Xauthority, it will appear as a second .xauthority with .xauthority, either preceded by a ~ or followed by a .loc in roots $HOME directory. By all means remove it if it's there but I wouldn't startX under root, use a less authoritative (and therefor less potentially destructive) user to test changes in the system.

You may have a locked .Xauthority, it will appear as a second .xauthority with either preceded by a ~ or followed by a .loc in roots $HOME directory. By all means remove it if it's there but I wouldn't startX under root, use a less authoritative (and therefor less potentially destructive) user to test changes in the system.