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pcar916
August 28th, 2013, 08:54 PM
Fairly new to the LINUX world.

The problem:
1. Ubuntu 12.04 LTS will not allow me to log in any more. I have a 12.04 USB drive I can still boot from. The login (splash) screen simply returns with the standard error message

"Invalid password, please try again"

The environment:
1. Toshiba Satellite A215 (I know, ancient. But it's always worked fine)
2. Kernel: 3.2.0-49-generic
3. This is a dual-boot Win 7 machine with a menu (GRUB) that allows the standard options.
4. The boot menu and Ubuntu partition booted fine for more than a year, but suddenly, and repeatedly, gives the error message described above.

What I've tried:
5. I've tried to login to an earlier kernels with precisely the same result
6. I have tried to reset the user password with the following procedure. Using the GRUB menu I've booted into recovery mode and (as root) issued the following commands to reset the user password.

mount -rw -o remount /
passwd <username>

The system reports the password change as successful... but on reboot it still doesn't work.

The only good thing is that it's staying broken... nothing intermittent about it.

Anyone know What my next step should be?

Thanks in advance,
Ron

papibe
August 28th, 2013, 09:32 PM
Hi pcar916.

Try to login in text mode to see if it is a core problem, or a problem with the GUI login:

Boot normally, and when you get to the GUI login, press Ctrl+Alt+F1. You'll be presented with a text mode login.

Note that you can always go back to the GUI by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F7

Let us know how it goes.
Regards.

pcar916
August 28th, 2013, 09:46 PM
Cntl-Alt-F1 works and I'm in as <username>.

I've issued some basic commands, ls, whoami, cal, date, man, and they all work.

When I boot to the USB drive I have access to the drives, including the Win7 partition. Look like a GUI problem eh? Excellent.

What's next? I'll learn / RTFM whatever I should.

~Ron

papibe
August 28th, 2013, 09:59 PM
Let's run some general solutions to see if we can solve it easily.

Run this commands on your text mode session:

sudo chown -R yourusername:yourusername ~/

rm ~/.Xauthority*
(replace yourusername for your actual username).

To login again restart lightdm:

sudo service lightdm restart
or reboot:

sudo reboot
Let us know how it goes.
Regards.

pcar916
August 28th, 2013, 10:36 PM
I'm in! Here's the sequence.
sudo chown -R yourusername:yourusername ~/: worked.
Note: I assume "~/" means my user home directory where perhaps a corrupted file was?

rm ~/.Xauthority*: reported that the directory did not exist.
Note: I ignored that message thinking it worked anyway. It exists now so perhaps it was recreated?



sudo service lightdm restart: worked as advertised.

The GUI login works just fine.

What happened?

papibe
August 28th, 2013, 11:48 PM
Great :D

My guess is that a config file or a directory in your home was not owned by you. That could've have been because of several reasons, but the common ones are either a sudo command wrongly executed, or the use of sudo for a GUI tool (gksudo is for that).

Either way, I'm glad you are able to login again.

Please mark the thread as SOLVED when you have the chance (here (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UnansweredPostsTeam/SolvedThreads)'s how to do it).
Regards.