ubuntu box just redisplaying login screen after update

david.karr · 07-09-2012, 04:34 PM

My Ubuntu 12.04 box has been working fine. A recent update may have messed something up.

I normally run remote windows on it, and I noticed that my windows were failing to start up. I then tried logging into it directly from the GUI console, and I'm seeing that after I press enter on the (valid) password, the page just redisplays. It's not a password error, as that would give me an inline error. I see some messages appear and disappear quickly between the login screen going away and then redisplaying, but they go away too quickly to read.

I was able to run the non-gui login, and I did an update and upgrade, and then rebooted, but it's doing the same thing.

I have a Samba connection from my Windows box, and that's still working.

If it matters, here's my uname output (somewhat elided):

Linux ... 3.2.0-26-generic #41-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jun 14 17:49:24 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

What can I do to troubleshoot this?

Note: After more testing, I found that I can log in with the text console (Ctrl-Alt-F1), but I can also log into the GUI console with a "Guest" session. This seems significant to me, as if there's something specific to my own login that causes the window manager to die.

honeybadger · 07-10-2012, 02:34 PM

Not a solution - just a pointer... all the error log files (including X) would be in /var/log. You can check thoes files and see what exactly is causing the crash.
You can also create a new user and see if you are able to log in as the new user.

Hoe this helps.

david.karr · 07-10-2012, 03:27 PM

Ok, I saw the following lines in "auth.log" that seem to be relevant:

Code:

Jul 10 13:23:33 .... lightdm: pam_ck_connector(lightdm:session): nox11 mode, ignoring PAM_TTY :0
Jul 10 13:23:34 .... lightdm: pam_succeed_if(lightdm:auth): requirement "user ingroup nopasswdlogin" not met by user "...."
Jul 10 13:23:34 .... dbus[796]: [system] Rejected send message, 2 matched rules; type="method_call", sender=":1.75" (uid=104 pid=25402 comm="/usr/lib/indicator-datetime/indicator-datetime-ser") interface="org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties" member="GetAll" error name="(unset)" requested_reply="0" destination=":1.15" (uid=0 pid=1197 comm="/usr/sbin/console-kit-daemon --no-daemon ")

This makes it seem like it's just a password problem, but I haven't changed my password, and I can log into the text console with the same password. I also have Samba connections from my Windows box, which are authenticating with no problem.

david.karr · 07-11-2012, 05:41 PM

I figured it out. It was a simple problem. I was trying to source my .bashrc from my .profile, without checking for Bash. It was failing when sourced from the login, as that's apparently the Bourne shell (not Bash, in any case). I commented out the sourcing of it, and that fixed that problem. I had a valid reason to source it, because my Emacs wasn't getting my environment variables, so I'll have to figure out the correct way to make that happen.