Removed startup apps, not cannot login to Unity desktop

[cigtoxdoc]

I was removing some of the apparently useless (hidden) startup applications. When I rebooted, I found that I could not log into Unity desktop (even with guest), but I could login to character-based environment after Ctrl-Alt-F1. So, I know my usernames and passwords are good. How do I get back to where I was?

John

[ManamiVixen]

What did you remove? Most of the stuff in startup was MANDITORY. Hence why it was hidden. But some, like bluetooth, desktop sharing could be removed.

[cigtoxdoc]

Thank you for your reply. All my data files are backed up on SpiderOak, but there should be an easier way to recover from this error. Any ideas?

John

[steeldriver]

what are the exact symptoms? does the lightdm / unity greeter screen start OK but then not let you login? or do you only get a CLI screen?

[cigtoxdoc]

Everthing behaves as normal until you go to log into Unity desktop. It is rejecting valid passwords. Password works when I do Ctrl-Alt-F1 and login with user name and password.

John

[cigtoxdoc]

it appears that I could quickly copy the etc/xdg/autostart folder from another similar PC and past it into /etc/xdg/ on the nonworking machine. I have the folder on a thumb drive. There appears no way using UNIX commands to copy the folder from the thumb drive into /etc/xdg/ .

[cortman]

There appears no way using UNIX commands to copy the folder from the thumb drive into /etc/xdg/ .

Come on now, really?

You need to mount the flash drive first. Run

sudo fdisk -l

to see what the computer is calling your flash drive (/dev/sd(a,b,c, etc)(1,2,3, etc). Likely it'll be /dev/sdb1.

Next run

sudo mkdir /media/flashdrive
sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /media/flashdrive

then navigate to /media/flashdrive, and the contents of the flash drive will be there. You can copy/paste into /etc/xdg, remembering you need to use sudo.

I'm not sure at all if this will fix your original issue but this is how to do what you wanted.

[cigtoxdoc]

Thank you very much for your help. Yes, the syntax that you gave me work. Yes, I now have the autostart files from /etc/xdg/autostart files from a similar machine over to /etc/xdg/autostart on problem machine.

However, I can still not get a logon to work on Unity desktop

John

[steeldriver]

Here's another diagnostic you can try - it will tell you whether it's your lightdm / greeter authentication process that is broken, or a problem starting your default session


1. log in at the virtual terminal (e.g. Ctrl-Alt-F1)

2. kill lightdm if it's still running

sudo service lightdm stop

3. attempt to start X manually

startx

If lightdm is broken, you might want to

a. backup the /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf file

sudo cp /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.back

b. reconfigure lightdm and the default greeter

sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm
sudo dpkg-reconfigure unity-greeter
sudo service lightdm start

[cigtoxdoc]

Thank you for your help. I have followed your suggestions, but none of the logins on the Unity desktop work.

What are next steps?

John