12.04 LTS login problem

[JohnMoore]

First, while I have little experience with Ubuntu, I am familiar with distros based on it.

I have a small Dell PC (i386) that I use to automate some tasks. It boots up from BIOS at the same time each day, and runs a script.

The "user" for this login is set to be logged in with no password, but recently, this has stopped working. Instead, the system boots to a sign-in screen and just sits there. If I enter the correct password, the screen tells me it's incorrect and reprompts. If I hit Ctrl-Alt-F1, I get a TTY prompt. If I enter the same ID and password that was just rejected, the system will accept the user and assign rights accordingly.

Unfortunately, this doesn't help me, since it's the login that triggers the script (it is triggered as soon as I login on the terminal), but this requires user intervention, and there is usually no "user" there when the system runs. So my automation is no longer automatic.

Does anyone have a suggestion that would help me get the old functionality back?

=======

Update: I don't think the login screen is actually functional. It "acts" like it is, but regardless of which user I choose (including myself), and entering correct passwords, the screen goes black, I see some quick terminal text (which is gone before I can either stop or read it), and the login screen reappears.

[chipbuster]

I haven't actually looked on an Ubuntu system since 13.04 shot my laptop to hell, but I believe anything in etc/rc.local will run on boot with root permissions. Have you tried putting it there (if it still exists)?

[steeldriver]

If the login screen disappears and then reappears WITHOUT actually telling you the login is incorrect, then that probably means password authentication is OK but the user's X session is failing to start. If that's happening for a single user it's often because of an ownership / permissions problem on the user's .Xauthority file - but if it's for ALL users then I'd check first that the home filesystem is writeable and not full up, and then if you can log in via a virtual terminal (Ctrl-Alt-F1 etc.) check the /var/log/Xorg.0.log, lightdm logs, and users' ~/xsession-errors for hints

[JohnMoore]

The filesystem seems intact. The script is intact, and it runs when I login as the special "user," but the TTY requires a password, while the GUI is set to log this user in by default with no password required. The account is tied down pretty well, and onlt has the power to do what the script requires. The Windows domain will allow certain activities from this user only from a specific IP. My problem is that this has been working perfectly for several years, but some recent "update" seems to have broken it--I have never seen this graphic login before.

Now that I think further, I had a similar problem when I upgraded my Kubuntu Desktop to 13.04. I could only login as "Guest," with no power to actually do anything useful. I fixed it by installing KDM from the command line of a TTY session, but this is the Unity desktop, not KDE.

[JohnMoore]

There's ample free space, but I'll check the fixed disk with SpinRite, and take a look at the logfiles. Thanks.

[JohnMoore]

There's 5G used on a 40G drive. Disk has no reported problems.

I checked each user's .Xauthority file. Seem OK.

Looking at lightdm.log, surprise! The user does get automatically logged in without the greeter getting called, everything's great--except that the session immediately exits and eventually the greeter gets called.

Here's the log snippet (user name changed to "xxxxx")
=======
[+0.04s] DEBUG: Logging to /var/log/lightdm/lightdm.log
[+0.04s] DEBUG: Starting Light Display Manager 1.2.3, UID=0 PID=1734
[+0.04s] DEBUG: Loaded configuration from /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
[+0.04s] DEBUG: Using D-Bus name org.freedesktop.DisplayManager
[+0.04s] DEBUG: Registered seat module xlocal
[+0.04s] DEBUG: Registered seat module xremote
[+0.04s] DEBUG: Adding default seat
[+0.04s] DEBUG: Starting seat
[+0.04s] DEBUG: Starting new display for automatic login as user xxxxx
[+0.04s] DEBUG: Starting local X display
[+0.06s] DEBUG: X server :0 will replace Plymouth
[+0.09s] DEBUG: Using VT 7
[+0.09s] DEBUG: Activating VT 7
[+0.09s] DEBUG: Logging to /var/log/lightdm/x-0.log
[+0.10s] DEBUG: Writing X server authority to /var/run/lightdm/root/:0
[+0.10s] DEBUG: Launching X Server
[+0.10s] DEBUG: Launching process 1770: /usr/bin/X :0 -auth /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -novtswitch -background none
[+0.10s] DEBUG: Waiting for ready signal from X server :0
[+0.10s] DEBUG: Acquired bus name org.freedesktop.DisplayManager
[+0.10s] DEBUG: Registering seat with bus path /org/freedesktop/DisplayManager/Seat0
[+6.42s] DEBUG: Got signal 10 from process 1770
[+6.42s] DEBUG: Got signal from X server :0
[+6.42s] DEBUG: Stopping Plymouth, X server is ready
[+6.45s] DEBUG: Connecting to XServer :0
[+6.45s] DEBUG: Automatically logging in user xxxxx
[+6.45s] DEBUG: Started session 1914 with service 'lightdm-autologin', username 'xxxxx'
[+7.01s] DEBUG: Session 1914 authentication complete with return value 0: Success
[+7.01s] DEBUG: Autologin user xxxxx authorized
[+7.06s] DEBUG: Autologin using session ubuntu
[+7.23s] DEBUG: Dropping privileges to uid 1000
[+7.25s] DEBUG: Restoring privileges
[+7.28s] DEBUG: Dropping privileges to uid 1000
[+7.28s] DEBUG: Writing /home/xxxxx/.dmrc
[+7.52s] DEBUG: Restoring privileges
[+7.67s] DEBUG: Starting session ubuntu as user xxxxx
[+7.67s] DEBUG: Session 1914 running command /usr/sbin/lightdm-session gnome-session --session=ubuntu
[+8.40s] DEBUG: New display ready, switching to it
[+8.40s] DEBUG: Activating VT 7
[+8.40s] DEBUG: Registering session with bus path /org/freedesktop/DisplayManager/Session0
[+8.75s] DEBUG: Session 1914 exited with return value 0 (well that sucks!)
[+8.75s] DEBUG: User session quit
[+8.75s] DEBUG: Stopping display
[+8.75s] DEBUG: Sending signal 15 to process 1770
[+9.06s] DEBUG: Process 1770 exited with return value 0
[+9.06s] DEBUG: X server stopped
[+9.06s] DEBUG: Removing X server authority /var/run/lightdm/root/:0
[+9.06s] DEBUG: Releasing VT 7
[+9.06s] DEBUG: Display server stopped
[+9.06s] DEBUG: Display stopped
[+9.06s] DEBUG: Active display stopped, switching to greeter (Once we're here, it's wash-rinse-repeat!)
[+9.06s] DEBUG: Switching to greeter
[+9.06s] DEBUG: Starting new display for greeter
=======
Since it mentioned x-0.log, I checked that, but everything's normal there with no errors or warnings. I looked at x-0-greeter.log, and it's full of warnings:
=======
Successfully activated service 'org.a11y.atspi.Registry'
** (at-spi2-registryd:2463): WARNING **: Failed to register client: GDBus.Errorrg.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.gnome.SessionManager was not provided by any .service files
** (at-spi2-registryd:2463): WARNING **: Unable to register client with session manager
------<snip>
[+0.53s] CRITICAL: g_error_free: assertion `error != NULL' failed
------<snip>
[+0.58s] WARNING: IndicatorObject class does not have an accessible description.
[+0.60s] WARNING: IndicatorObject class does not have an accessible description.
------<snip>
[+2.63s] WARNING: Getting layout failed: GDBus.Errorrg.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownMethod: No such interface `com.canonical.dbusmenu' on object at path /com/canonical/indicator/users/menu
[+2.65s] DEBUG: Num devices: '0'
[+2.65s] MESSAGE: Couldn't find primary device
[+2.65s] DEBUG: Num devices: '0'
[+2.65s] DEBUG: icon_policy is: 0 (present==0, charge==1, never==2)
[+2.65s] DEBUG: count_batteries found 0 batteries (0 are charging/discharging)
[+2.65s] DEBUG: should_be_visible: no
[+2.65s] DEBUG: menubar.vala:519: Removing indicator object 0x9c414d4
[+2.65s] WARNING: invalid cast from `GtkMenuItem' to `IndicatorMenuItem'
[+2.65s] WARNING: invalid cast from `GtkMenuItem' to `IndicatorMenuItem'
[+2.65s] WARNING: invalid cast from `GtkMenuItem' to `IndicatorMenuItem'
[+2.65s] WARNING: menubar.vala:531: Indicator object 0x9c414d4 not in menubar
[+2.91s] DEBUG: Setting keyboard layout to 'us'
[+3.15s] DEBUG: unity-greeter.vala:315: starting system-ready sound
[+3.28s] DEBUG: background.vala:116: Render of background /usr/share/backgrounds/warty-final-ubuntu.png complete
[+3.36s] DEBUG: notify visible signal received
[+3.36s] CRITICAL: ido_calendar_menu_item_set_date: assertion `IDO_IS_CALENDAR_MENU_ITEM(menuitem)' failed
[+3.36s] DEBUG: indicator-sound: new_volume_slider_widget
[+3.38s] DEBUG: indicator-sound: new_voip_slider_widget
[+3.41s] DEBUG: New calendar item
<EOF>

I do notice in the greeter's log that it's setting the display to 1024x768. This doesn't sound correct. The monitor is a DELL with a wide display, and while I don't have the model # or specs handy, I feel pretty sure that it does 1366x768 on the built-in video on the little DELL PC.

Anybody think of something else to check?

[steeldriver]

Do you have a .monitors file in your home dir (~/.monitors)? an /etc/X11/xorg.conf file? if so try renaming it/them (e.g. add a .bak extension) and then restarting lightdm

[JohnMoore]

I'll go in tomorrow and check that situation. Thanks. Frankly, most of my customizations are in a very limited set of text files (which I have backed up all over the place), so if this doesn't work, I'll just wipe the drive, do a full reinstall, and start with a blank slate.

[JohnMoore]

I appreciate the help. On Friday, I decided to "kill two birds" by taking the disaster recovery memo I wrote when I first set up the machine on Ubuntu and follow my own instructions as I re-installed 12.04.2 LTS.

Here's what I found. First, the memo needs updating, since it preceded Unity, and as they say on the phone all the time "menu items have changed."

Second, other than the changes to accommodate the forced switch to Unity, the memo was pretty good if I do say so myself.

I downloaded a new 12.04.2 iso, checksums were good, so I burned a CD and verified it. Checksums matched. So I took the CD in and installed it.

I created the necessary users, and set the main user to log in automatically. The installation blew up in the middle with some really crazy graphics problems appearing (jagged thin semi-horizontal bars like a TV horizontal hold problem), but I had selected "Download updates while installing," so I restarted the installation without this. Installation proceeded normally with no errors, I rebooted, and my user was logged in automatically. I finished the rest of my setup, and rebooted again. Everything worked perfectly!

But then I received notifications of 221 updates, and it was time to go home, so I told the system to install the updates, and I left.

I went back this morning to a screen telling me that everything had been applied with no errors, but I needed to restart. I did.

Guess what? The "updated" system was borked just the way it had been before the reinstall (except that now, when the greeter restarts, it is faster, and I couldn't even see any white text).

For this application, what I really need is stability, so I'm downloading Debian 7. Ubuntu has already wasted too much of my time for what appears to be a system-induced problem.