10.04 -> 12.04 upgrade; Now root login hangs, other logins are fine

[jjv]

Howdy,

I recently (finally) upgraded my notebook to 12.04. I assumed the upgrade would go well as we have three other identical notebooks and fresh installs of 12.04 were flawless. I guess I should not have upgraded during the full moon on Monday.http://ubuntuforums.org/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

My notebook system was first installed with 8.04 (back in the dark ages ;)), upgraded to 10.04 and now 12.04.

The central problem I am facing is that while all user logins work correctly, a root login never gets off the login screen and hangs the system until it is restarted. I do limit the use of the root login. I have over 30 years of sysadmin experience, 23+ on Unix and the last 15+ years on Unix and Linux systems. Contrary to some opinions I do know what I am doing when logged into the root account.

Following the upgrade I had several issues as reported in xsession-errors (all cleared up), gdm (perhaps the root of the problem), dbus issues and nvidia driver issues (also cleared up).

The graphical login screen continues to look like 10.04 gnome and not the unity login screen. I did remove gmd, but then the system would not display the login screen at all. I regained access by booting into recovery and dropping to the command line, remounting / as rw and re-installing gdm.

nvidia seems to be working for all other users, I also moved the /root directory and replaced it with a blank one. The root login behaves the same, files created are only .pulse and .pulse-cookie.

Here are some specifics:


Dell M6300
nvidia FX 3600M

> cat /etc/issue
Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS \n \l

> uname -r
3.2.0-57-generic

nvidia drivers present on the system (these are the only proprietary drivers on the system).


NVIDIA binary Xorg driver, kernel module and VDPAU library
NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver (version 173)
NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver (post-release updates) (version 173)
NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver (version 304)
NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver (post-release updates) (version 304)
NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver (post-release updates) (version 319)

Here are some of the relevant log files at the time of the attempted root login

apport.log


ERROR: apport (pid 2768) Tue Dec 17 21:39:01 2013: called for pid 2334, signal 11
ERROR: apport (pid 2768) Tue Dec 17 21:39:01 2013: executable: /usr/lib/gdm/gdm-session-worker (command line "/usr/lib/gdm/gdm-session-worker")
ERROR: apport (pid 2768) Tue Dec 17 21:39:01 2013: is_closing_session(): no DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS in environment
ERROR: apport (pid 2768) Tue Dec 17 21:39:01 2013: apport: report /var/crash/_usr_lib_gdm_gdm-session-worker.0.crash already exists and unseen, doing nothing to avoid disk usage DoS

syslog


Dec 17 21:39:01 localhost kernel: [ 90.971302] gdm-session-wor[2334] general protection ip:7fe820e7ee08 sp:7fff965361f0 error:0 in libc-2.15.so[7fe820e00000+1b5000]

auth.log


Dec 16 21:39:50 localhost polkitd(authority=local): Unregistered Authentication Agent for unix-session:/org/freedesktop/ConsoleKit/Session2 (system bus name :1.49, object path /org/gnome/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent, locale en_US.UTF-8) (disconnected from bus)

Xorg.0.log (only one error)


[ 65.091] (EE) Failed to load module "v4l" (module does not exist, 0)

kern.log


Dec 17 21:39:01 localhost kernel: [ 90.971302] gdm-session-wor[2334] general protection ip:7fe820e7ee08 sp:7fff965361f0 error:0 in libc-2.15.so[7fe820e00000+1b5000]


Since I mainly work wit servers, debugging a graphical login is something I do not have much skill with, nor knowledge about.http://ubuntuforums.org/images/smilies/confused.gif

Any help is appreciated. I will respond to information requests as quickly as my work allows.

I know the hardware supports 12.04, but I'm just having issues in this one case. I would like to solve this BEFORE one other user still on 10.04 says she wants to upgrade.

Thank you all.

[fantab]

Ubuntu 12.04 uses 'LightDM (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LightDM)' as display manager. Ubuntu does not use 'GDM' anymore.
I am not sure but I think you may have to 'purge/remove' GDM and install 'LightDM'.

After installing LightDM Or to continue using GDM, try:


sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm

replace 'gdm' with 'lightdm' if you installed it.

Reboot might be necessary.

[jjv]

I have lightDM installed.

When I removed gdm I did reconfigured lightdm (9953 [2013-12-17 10:01:41] dpkg-reconfigure lightdm) (from history)

Then when I rebooted I got the kubuntu screen as normal, then a graphical kubuntu screen, then just a black and blank screen.

I then booted into recovery and from the command line re-installed gdm in order to get back to a graphical login screen.

Did I miss a step in removing gdm?

Do I need to perform a re-install of lightdm after removing gdm?

[jjv]

I also have now found another error message that may be related.

When I run firefox (as root) to display some pdf documents from the command line I get the following:


[calBackendLoader] Using libical backend at /root/.thunderbird/ij7nim5t.default/extensions/{e2fda1a4-762b-4020-b5ad-a41df1933103}/components/libical.manifest

NVIDIA: failed to execute '/sbin/modprobe': Permission denied.
NVIDIA: failed to load the NVIDIA kernel module.

[fantab]

If you are using Kubuntu then you probably have 'KDM', and not GDM. I don't know about Kubuntu.
A 'blank and black' screen usually indicates a problem with Graphic Drivers...
Try 'nomodeset (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1613132&p=10069997#post10069997)' option from Grub-menu and see if it helps... if it helps then you will have install the proprietory graphic drivers. If you have them already, then perhaps you need to purge/remove them first then reinstall.

Edit: The last error does show that its a graphic issue....

[mörgæs]

and fresh installs of 12.04 were flawless.
...

My notebook system was first installed with 8.04 (back in the dark ages ;)), upgraded to 10.04 and now 12.04.


I think we have something here...

[jjv]

Howdy,

I did get everything sorted out, eventually.

For the general audience here is what happened.

Thanks to all for the suggestions and comments, they tripped the idea lightbulb and got me to the solution.


First I removed and purges ALL the nvidia packages. Then installed the collection of current nvidia packages. This cleared up the modprobe error messages when firefox was started. (yeah, progress!).

The login issue still remained.

I removed and purged gdm and configured lightdm. The system would not even show a login screen and hung during the boot cycle.

I booted into recovery mode and configured kdm.

This got me to a login window and I could login as users and as root.

I then removed and purged the lightdm packages and then re-installed them and configured lightdm.

The boot and login for users and root now work. This got me past the issue I brought up here.

I still had several application issues (the real headache was email (thunderbird)) - but that is another story.

Thanks again for all the provided fodder for the grist mill.

[fantab]

I am glad that you have sorted out the issue. Well done! =D>
You can mark the Thread as 'Solved' using 'Thread Tools', if we are done here. A 'Solved' thread might help someone facing a similar problem.

Regards....