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

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."

Amphibolous

Off-topic, belongs to superuser.com – Shrader

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. – Pontefract

terminal -> pkill Skype – Havener

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. – Materiality

Answer 1

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

Amphibolous

Thanks for the tip. It worked. I was having this issue and was very irritated with it. Thanks :) – Ode

I wish I could upvote this again and again when this happens every couple of years :P – Manualmanubrium

Answer 2

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.

Whomsoever

This worked for me. I had an old .Skype directory from an old installation. – Exhortative

Perfect... Worked like charm.. – Havener

Answer 3

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 {} \;

Grath

This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post. – Flushing

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. – Grath

Answer 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.

Sale

works for ubuntu 16.04 – Rivero