Skype won't open: "We can't open Skype. You are already signed in on this computer..."

Question

I get the following message when trying to sign into skype after my Ubuntu machine hasn't been shut down properly and skype was running:

"We can't open Skype. You are already signed in on this computer. Please sign out and try again."

Worth mentioning that this problem happened to me on Ubuntu 14.04 x86_64 after I ran Skype for the first time and then minimized it. After it minimized, it didn't add an icon to the top right corner of the screen, so I had no way to re-open it. When I tried to re-open it from the launcher I got the above error. To fix, I installed: `sudo apt-get install sni-qt:i386`, killed the Skype process, removed the .lck file from .Skype (see answers below), and then re-opened from the launcher. The icon then appeared at the top right. — Will Keeling, Jan 12 '16 at 09:46
Funny, the same happened to me and the fixes below did not work for me. I just realized, skype was active in the status bar on top. I just had to navigate from there. — alex351, Mar 17 '17 at 12:52

score 45 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 01 '13 at 07:57

45

To fix the problem you will need to manually delete the lock files in your .Skype directory.

To do this, run these commands in terminal:

cd ~/.Skype
find ./  -name "*.lock" | xargs rm
find ./  -name "*.lck" | xargs rm

answered Jul 01 '13 at 07:57

Donal M

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Thanks for the tip. It worked. I was having this issue and was very irritated with it. Thanks :) – Yadu Krishnan Dec 03 '13 at 03:29
I wish I could upvote this again and again when this happens every couple of years :P – bbozo Sep 14 '17 at 08:10

score 19 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 21 '13 at 13:15

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If nothing works, do this:

cd ~
rm -rf .Skype

This deletes the complete Skype-Configuration and you're existing and faulty session. .Skype will be recreated when you restart skype.

edited Dec 21 '13 at 13:15

danilodeveloper

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answered Dec 21 '13 at 12:55

dfostic

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This worked for me. I had an old .Skype directory from an old installation. – Jens Aug 03 '15 at 13:23
Perfect... Worked like charm.. – jeet.chanchawat Feb 24 '16 at 17:10

demented hedgehog · Answer 3 · 2014-05-20T01:32:32.470

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As Donal points out you need to get rid of the lock files in the ~/.Skype dir. I like this cmd better than Donal's merely because it's a one liner. I'd add this as comment to Donal's answer except I can't add code blocks in comments.

find ~/.Skype -regex ".*\.lo?ck" -exec rm {} \;

edited May 20 '14 at 01:32

answered May 20 '14 at 00:35

demented hedgehog

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This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post. – matiash May 20 '14 at 00:55
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I think I understand the question just fine. I've edited my answer to provide a complete answer to the question. I think it's a bit petty though cause I see this as an addition to Donal's answer not an answer in its own right - I just can't format it correctly as such. – demented hedgehog May 20 '14 at 01:36

score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 29 '13 at 22:29

4

The above did not resolve it here on an Ubunto 12.04 installation. But what helped was removing the entire ~/.Skype subdirectory : sudo rm -R ~/.Skype It is remade by the Skype application the next login.

answered Oct 29 '13 at 22:29

senora

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works for ubuntu 16.04 – ajaanbaahu Oct 02 '16 at 06:03

Skype won't open: "We can't open Skype. You are already signed in on this computer..."

4 Answers4