We had a power outage and after that I have no longer been able to do a GUI login at the console. The screen goes blank for a few seconds, then comes back to the login screen. Other users have no problem at all.

I'm using RHEL 8 and I'm guessing that there is some safeguard against the same person having two GUI console logins at the same time, but I'm stumped as to how it works. I've tried eliminating all /tmp and /var/tmp files, but that did not help. Maybe it is on some system file??? I would greatly appreciate it if anyone had any suggestions...

Which display manager and desktop environment is in use? Perhaps the power outage event corrupted the user's home environment? You could try creating another user account from a VT, then restart the machine and see if you can successfully login as the new 'test' user.

I should have mentioned that I tried logging in with every display manager possible and the same thing happened each time.

Ok, and what about my suggestion re creating a new 'test' user account?

The test account can login with no problem. Only my original account has the problem...

Please disclose the desktop environment you're using. I know you mentioned RHEL 8, so I assume Gnome Wayland?

If inxi is installed run

The advice in this Ubuntu thread may be helpful (if using Gnome). Work your way through it...
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1237...sions-on-20-04

The general idea is to login via a VT as the original user, then perhaps try renaming the ~/.config directory to start with eg ~/.config.DISABLE, and then try to login to the graphical deksotop via the display manager again. The original poster (To Do) discovered there problem was something problematic in ~/.config/dconf that was causing the issue. Your issue may be different, but hopefully this gives you an idea on how to find the culprit configuration issue (specific to that user account).

Let us know how you get on.

I moved .config to .config.DISABLE and also moved .cache to .cache.DISABLE but the problem still remains...

I don't have inxi on my system.

What prevents you from installing it?

Run this when logged in to your working test account and report back

SESSION_TYPE = x11
SESSION_DESKTOP = XFCE

Ok, finally we know that you're using XFCE. Nothing in ~/.local/share/xfce4 perhaps?

~/.local/share/xfce4 contains only a single directory called helpers, which contains only a single file called google-chrome.desktop

However, as I mentioned before, no matter which windowing system I choose before entering my password, the result is always the same - fade to black, then after a few seconds back to the login screen...

Check your ~/.xsession, see if it is still there. If yes, open the file to see inside if all is well and healthy; The file must be set executable (chmod +x .xinitrc).

If the file is no longer there, recreate it, just copy the skeleton xsession to your $HOME, overwrite the old file if the old one is corrupted.

Easier way may be just to copy your ~/.xinitrc to ~/.xsession, if you already have the .xinitrc.

@ CMartin

Not very helpful! I don't have a file ~/.xsession, so perhaps this is a Slackware thing? And telling a beginner to "copy the skeleton xsession" without saying where it can be found is not much better.

@ edfriedman

All I can suggest is the "nuclear option". Create a new user, transfer the data from the damaged user's directory to the new one, and remove the damaged user.

Thank you all for your help. Unfortunately I never did solve this problem, but fortunately I am retiring in a few days, so after today I will never have to login to that computer again. I would delete this thread if I knew how to do so...