I’m running TOR on Linux Mint and, following a very dirty shutdown (basically the machine simply switched itsself off for an hour or so), I can now no longer run TOR.
Trying from the command line, I get the following feedback …
graeme> tor
Feb 08 14:40:54.630 \[notice\] Tor 0.4.6.10 running on Linux with Libevent 2.1.12-stable, OpenSSL 3.0.2, Zlib 1.2.11, Liblzma 5.2.5, Libzstd 1.4.8 and Glibc 2.35 as libc.
Feb 08 14:40:54.630 \[notice\] Tor can't help you if you use it wrong! Learn how to be safe at [https://support.torproject.org/faq/staying-anonymous/](https://support.torproject.org/faq/staying-anonymous/)
Feb 08 14:40:54.630 \[notice\] Read configuration file "/etc/tor/torrc".
Feb 08 14:40:54.631 \[notice\] Opening Socks listener on [127.0.0.1:9050](http://127.0.0.1:9050)
Feb 08 14:40:54.631 \[warn\] Could not bind to [127.0.0.1:9050](http://127.0.0.1:9050): Address already in use. Is Tor already running?
Feb 08 14:40:54.632 \[warn\] Failed to parse/validate config: Failed to bind one of the listener ports.
Feb 08 14:40:54.632 \[err\] Reading config failed--see warnings above.
This is following a clean reboot, so no instances of the browser are running, nor should there be any stray processes running to prevent this.
My system:
I don’t really want to remove and reinstall from scratch, due to the number of bookmarks I have saved.
First off, it looks like you are running the Ubuntu Tor package for jammy (v0.4.6.10). FYI you should note the advice here under Debian/Ubuntu heading.
Do not use the packages in Ubuntu’s universe. In the past they have not reliably been updated. That means you could be missing stability and security fixes.
The link includes instructions on how to install the latest version with apt from the Tor Project’s repo.
It looks like you have a process running on TCP port 9050. You can easily check what is running on that port, for instance like this: sudo ss -lntp|grep 127.0.0.1:9050. If you kill that process you should be good to run your system Tor.
Re Tor Browser, note that this uses its own tor binary and config file, not the one the system Tor uses at /etc/tor/torrc. Any problems running a system Tor should not impact Tor Browser. You don’t even need ‘little-t’ tor installed in order to use Tor Browser.
Also note that should you ever want to reinstall Tor Browser you can backup your bookmarks and import them into your new browser (as you can with Firefox). Instructions are here.
Sorry for bothering when the problem has already been resolved, but on Linux Mint, shouldn’t you be starting Tor by starting it as a systemd service (systemctl start tor@default), instead of running it directly as your current user?