Fixing fcitx refusing to start for no apparent reason

The work PC runs Ubuntu 12.04, and lately fcitx just wouldn’t come up. Ctrl+Space did nothing. But if I quit fcitx and started it once from a terminal, it worked fine for the rest of the session.

After screwing around with it for half a day, the culprit turned out to be in .xinit.

Nuke fcitx completely.

Clear out everything under .config/fcitx.

Delete the fcitx file under /etc/X11/xinit/.

Reinstall fcitx, and the problem’s gone.