Hi, I'm running Ubuntu 18.04.5 Bionic LTS. The box is running fine and supporting multiple user accounts.

My personal account is currently stuck in a login loop when I attempt to launch X-windows or login to the console GUI. In other words, using my login ID, I can ssh to the Ubuntu server and work via a terminal normally. I can launch X-windows application remotely as well. But, I cannot login on the console via X-windows (or the unity desktop) via the GUI or start X-windows using startx. Other users can login normally to their accounts from the console and start X-windows normally. This issue appears to have occurred while I tried to setup RDP for my account to this server.

So, I'm assuming this is a local setup corruption just for my account. I don't want to attempt a full upgrade/installation if this is just a local issue. I have searched online and seen some discussions about a login loop but they all appear to be a applicable to all the users on the system. And, besides the suggestions didn't work.

Any suggestions or troubleshooting advice will be greatly appreciated.

Use that to look at logs & journals for the relevant timeframe.

Any idea what specific logs or journals would help?
I haven’t seen any X windows errors. X sessions work fine for other users.

Ubuntu being a systemd distro, should be sufficient.
You might need to apply some filtering to get at the interesting bits. maybe by piping it to grep.

Thanks @Ondoho. That helped. I don't have access to my console due to the current pandemic situation. But, using the ssh access and and using RDP, I see the following error when I try to connect via RDP. I can see the X server having trouble setting up display 19 and I get a black screen. I don't know where display 19 got picked. Or if my user ID is missing some Xorg config files. I tried restarting xrdp service but no luck.
Do you have a comment ?


[FONT="Courier New"]Jan 16 13:25:53 Pluto xrdp-sesman[9519]: (9519)(140623189763392)[DEBUG] Closed socket 7 (AF_INET6 ::1 port 3350)
Jan 16 13:25:53 Pluto xrdp-sesman[9519]: (9519)(140623189763392)[DEBUG] Closed socket 8 (AF_INET6 ::1 port 3350)
Jan 16 13:25:53 Pluto xrdp-sesman[9521]: (9521)(140623189763392)[INFO ] /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg :19 -auth .Xauthority -config xrdp/xorg.conf -noreset -nolisten tcp -logfile .xorgxrdp.%s.log
Jan 16 13:25:55 Pluto xrdp[9507]: (9507)(140443844814656)[DEBUG] Closed socket 21 (AF_UNIX)
Jan 16 13:25:57 Pluto xrdp[9518]: (9518)(140443844814656)[DEBUG] Closed socket 21 (AF_UNIX)
Jan 16 13:25:59 Pluto xrdp[9507]: (9507)(140443844814656)[DEBUG] Closed socket 21 (AF_UNIX)
Jan 16 13:26:00 Pluto xrdp[9518]: (9518)(140443844814656)[DEBUG] Closed socket 21 (AF_UNIX)
Jan 16 13:26:02 s Pluto xrdp[9507]: (9507)(140443844814656)[DEBUG] Closed socket 21 (AF_UNIX)
Jan 16 13:26:03 Pluto xrdp-sesman[9519]: (9519)(140623189763392)[ERROR] X server for display 19 startup timeout
Jan 16 13:26:03 s Pluto xrdp-sesman[9519]: (9519)(140623189763392)[CORE ] waiting for window manager (pid 9520) to exit
Jan 16 13:26:03 Pluto xrdp-sesman[9520]: (9520)(140623189763392)[ERROR] X server for display 19 startup timeout[/FONT]

This line references the xrdp log file. It should be in the home directory of the user you tried to connect as. Something like ~/.xorgxrdp.19.log where 19 is the X display xrdp used.

The .xorgxrdp.19.log file shows few warnings and errors. I'm wondering about the /dev/tty0 or missing modules.
Is there something tied to my user login ? Not sure how this doesn't impact all the other Xorg users.



$ egrep 'EE|WW' .xorgxrdp.19.log
(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
[278954.235] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic" does not exist.
[278954.235] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/" does not exist.
[278954.235] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/" does not exist.
[278954.235] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi" does not exist.
[278954.235] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi" does not exist.
[278954.238] (EE) systemd-logind: failed to take device /dev/dri/card0: Operation not permitted
[278954.239] (EE) systemd-logind: failed to take device /dev/dri/card1: Operation not permitted
[278954.242] (WW) Warning, couldn't open module xorgxrdp
[278954.242] (EE) Failed to load module "xorgxrdp" (module does not exist, 0)
[278954.242] (WW) Warning, couldn't open module xrdpdev
[278954.242] (EE) Failed to load module "xrdpdev" (module does not exist, 0)
[278954.243] (WW) Warning, couldn't open module xrdpmouse
[278954.243] (EE) Failed to load module "xrdpmouse" (module does not exist, 0)
[278954.243] (WW) Warning, couldn't open module xrdpkeyb
[278954.243] (EE) Failed to load module "xrdpkeyb" (module does not exist, 0)
[278954.243] (EE)
[278954.243] (EE) parse_vt_settings: Cannot open /dev/tty0 (Permission denied)
[278954.243] (EE)
[278954.243] (EE)
[278954.243] (EE) Please also check the log file at ".xorgxrdp.19.log" for additional information.
[278954.243] (EE)
[278954.243] (WW) xf86CloseConsole: KDSETMODE failed: Bad file descriptor
[278954.243] (WW) xf86CloseConsole: VT_GETMODE failed: Bad file descriptor
[278954.243] (EE) Server terminated with error (1). Closing log file.

Have you looked to see if this might fix it for you? https://askubuntu.com/questions/1054...d-xrdp-session

Didn't see the relation to the RDP problem I'm reporting (always a black screen for RDP, even after restarting the service).

I believe Xorg has some serious issue too since I am stuck in a login loop on the system console when trying to login to X-windows from the GUI. This may be the root cause of my problems. I will collect the logs when I can get to the console.

Are there any other suggestions for remote debugging ? Thanks in advance.

re post #7:
It looks like Xorg cannot find a suitable graphics backend/driver and therefore closes down immediately after starting.
That could well explain the login loop.
It would be interesting to look at the ungrepped version, too.

Unfortunately my experience with remote GUI is exactly zero.

Just to be sure. You have the package xorgxrdp installed, haven't you?

Yes, xorgxrdp is installed with the latest.

I see. While troubleshooting RDP, I may have caused the drivers being re-installed/removed.
I'm still wondering why the Unity desktop GUI works for other users logging on to the console.
Wouldn't a the graphics backend/driver impact all users ? Why would the login loop just impact
my single userid ? Is there a way to re-install just my configuration files for X-windows without
re-installing the entire server Xorg ?

AFAIK that one doesn't even use Xorg.

Ok, finally figured this out. I see "ICEauthority" files was somehow owned by root. I changed the user/group back to my userId and I am out of the login loop. This took a while to figure out.

I'll test xrdp later.