GDM- authentication failure

[lemmy999]

Just done a clean install of 10.4. On reboot I could log in. When I tried to install the nvidia drivers the PC appeared to have a mind of its own. Having installed the driver it then spontaneously removed it!

I decided a reboot was in order. Upon reboot I get as far as the log-in screen and the PC then goes into auto- mode and tries to log me in. Of course there is no password entered so I get " Authentication failed". It then tries again,and again, and again.......

Tried to log in using Ctrl-Alt-F1 but all I am getting is the following

chris-desktop login:
Ubuntu 10.4 LTS chris-desktop tty

My gut feeling is that my PC is failing somewhere along the line but I haven't got a clue where that might be.

[JohnVLang]

I don't have a fix, sorry to say - but i can say i'm getting a very similar issue... upgraded from 8.04 to 10.04 via Update Manger -> Upgrade and all seemed well... after re-start, couldn't log in "authentication failure"?!?!? Even tried a complete re-install from the Live CD but same result!?!?!

Forgot to mention, i do get to choose the user and then enter a password - so it's a bit different... but i keep get the "authentication failure" message even though i'm very sure the password is correct!

J

[Esai]

Same here, I am not very good with unix, never have been... But I have installed this version, lucid lynx, several times before and it has never hapened before
In my case, I put in the Live CD, selected install and went to sleep
When I woke up about 4 hours later I had Ubuntu login screen in front of me with no previous username -.- I did try root with password toor but as far as I know it is disabled on a clean install
Also I had forgotten to plug in my mouse -.-
So I restarted my computer... On BIOS one of my hdds was missing... Not that this is important, just something to type here while waiting it to boot into windows -.-
So the installing hadn't even started -.-
I tried to intsall again but it started screaming auth. Failture mid install... Something was a miss....
Now I used demo option to install... As I always have done so far and it worked like it always had...
(And no that missing hdd can't be the problem... Problem was corrupted install on cd that didn't have login part gotten right... Probably some part of the install script was worng... It might be the same case with all of the other lucid lynx install cd-s and probably is...)


EDIT:
My version of the install was 9.10 NOT 10.04 as I remembered, Sorry...

[JohnVLang]

I never did find a fix for this one upgrading to 10.04, the system in question was upgraded to, and then left, running 9.10... which has now reach end of life for support so, not sure what to do next... Thing is, this is my mothers laptop - she lives in England, i live in Australia - so it's a bit tricky to help her out remotely! It might be time to just buy a new piece of hardware for her!

I've now got issue a similar issue with 10.04 and a recent update: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1782845 boots to wallpaper, no icons or menu bars... again, old hardware, but - that was always one of the great things about Ubuntu, it would run really well on older machines as well as new ones!

Cheers,
John