Hi folks
Sure hope somebody knows smth about this.
I'm using Fedore 9 (fairly new), and recently and out of the blue, it's giving me a hard time loging in as user. It looks like it hangs, but in fact it takes a couple of hours to start the desktop (gnome). I tried starting it in text only - same thing. I can start as root, both on desktop and text line only, no problem, but as user it just takes ages.Tried creating another user, but the problem persists. I should add when I created another user, it took another 2 hrs to do so. I suspect the problem is somewhere with the privileges set for user, cause root bypasses most of those settings, but don't know what / where
Cheers

Welcome to LQ!

1. Take a look at the logs in /var/log esp the boot log
2. Disable unused services
#system-config-services

You may be having h/w problems.

Also fsck all partitions from a live/fedora cd

Hi,

Sounds like a permissions issue to me. Make sure when you create a user that they are in the proper groups;

Make sure the '/etc/X11/xorg.conf' is properly setup.

I've checked the file messages in var/log, and I can see that in the time it took to start the user session, it's full of messages like these:
Dec 2 10:05:42 localhost gdm-session-worker[3571]: nss_ldap: reconnecting to LDAP server (sleeping 32 seconds)...
Dec 2 10:06:14 localhost gdm-session-worker[3571]: nss_ldap: failed to bind to LDAP server ldap://127.0.0.1/: Can't contact LDAP server

and these

Dec 2 10:09:27 localhost dbus-daemon: nss_ldap: failed to bind to LDAP server ldap://127.0.0.1/: Can't contact LDAP server
Dec 2 10:09:27 localhost dbus-daemon: nss_ldap: reconnecting to LDAP server (sleeping 8 seconds)...

and these

10:53:45 localhost perl: nss_ldap: could not search LDAP server - Server is unavailable
Dec 2 10:53:46 localhost perl: nss_ldap: failed to bind to LDAP server ldap://127.0.0.1/: Can't contact LDAP server
Dec 2 10:53:46 localhost perl: nss_ldap: failed to bind to LDAP server ldap://127.0.0.1/: Can't contact LDAP server
Dec 2 10:53:46 localhost perl: nss_ldap: reconnecting to LDAP server (sleeping 4 seconds)...
Dec 2 10:53:50 localhost perl: nss_ldap: failed to bind to LDAP server ldap://127.0.0.1/: Can't contact LDAP server
Dec 2 10:53:50 localhost perl: nss_ldap: reconnecting to LDAP server (sleeping 8 seconds)...

and loads of other like that, basically just the process after "locahost" variates, but the error message is the same a few pages full
What does this mean? Could this be the problem. I keep seeing "sleep for x seconds", I think all those seconds together amounts to the time it takes it to start up!

Hi,

You don't have a LDAP server setup. You could use 'LDAP Tutorial: Deploying OpenLDAP' for 'LDAP Directory Server Installation and configuration (V2.x / V1.2)'. Go to the tutorial to see some easy checks.

post your nsswitch if youu can or check if
passwd: files
shadow: files
group: files

the line with the ldap loiks like this:
passwd: files nis ldap hesiod winbind

remove these if you are not using them" nis ldap hesiod winbind "
from "passwd: files nis ldap hesiod winbind"

Big thx to everyone who's contributed
In the end what apparently did the trick was changing bind policy to soft in /etc/ldap.conf.
It still can't find server but at least in doesnt take ages trying to find it
Probably unrelated to this problem, it now started to shut down by its own will (not always but every so often). The log simply says: gconfd (gdm-2536): Exiting
I guess I'll have to live with it ...

comment out that line like this,
#bind_policy hard

So it was like that , and i changed it to
bind_policy soft