Cannot get past login. I think .ICEauthority, .Xauthority, and permission issue?

[Dáire Fagan]

Hi

Using the GUI for the user options I set my account so no password would be required on login. After doing this at boot I am not asked for a password and there is just a login button. Unfortunately when I pressed it white text on black appears for an instant and I am asked to login again. I was able to get passed the login screen last night after deleting .ICEauthority and then running sudo chown dusf:dusf ~/.Xauthority.

The same problem then occurred this morning and by mistake I not only deleted .ICEauthority but also .Xauthority after which I was still unable to login. I created a new user disf, which is able to login to X, and copied both files from there to /home/dusf but this made no difference. At one point I was following various suggestions and I think I may have messed up my /home and/or /home/dusf permissions. To try and correct this I ran a sudo chmod -R 755 /home and then a sudo chown dusf:dusf ~/.Xauthority.

I have also tired deleting .Xauthority which has been recommended to others but this also made no difference.

Trying to start X as root from recovery gives the error: error in locking authority file /root/.Xauthority. I cannot login to tty as root using my root password - same password works fine for sudo commands logged into tty as dusf.

The persmissions for /home are set to: drwxr-xr-x 6 root root

The permissions for /home/dusf are set to: drwxr-xr-x 63 dusf dusf

The permissions for /home/dusf/.Xauthority are set to: -rw------- 1 dusf dusf

The permissions for /home/dusf/.ICEauthority are set to: -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 0

In /home/disf I can see the permissions for .Xauthority are set to -rwxr-xr-x and .ICEauthority to -rwxr-xr-x. In /home/dusf I tried sudo chmod -rwxr-xr-x but it told me there was an input/output error although I was able to correct the .ICEauthority permissions - if it is even valid since I copied it from another users home dir.

Please advise?

As I could not set the permissions for /home/dusf/.Xauthority I deleted the file, and copied it over again from /home/disf. I then ran a sudo chown dusf:dusf ~/.Xauthority and it took the correct permissions. I rebooted but I still cannot get past login. I checked the permissions again and .ICEauthority had changed to something like -r--------. I deleted the file as I have booted before without it when there was a problem. I rebooted but I still cannot get past login.

I have also tried sudo xauth generate :0 .trusted but it gives the error 'No protocol specified. xauth: (argv):1: unable to open display ":0".

Can someone please help me with this?

[Erik1984]

I don't know much about these files but if I do a quick Google search I've seen the suggestion to delete (or rename) the .Xauthority file. If I understand correctly you have (accidentally) deleted the .ICEAuthority file but not the .Xauthority right? You could rename it to be safe (then you can put it back in case you ever need the old one):

If you are logged in as dusf (you can still do a TTY login right?)

mv ~/.Xauthority ~/.Xauthority_bak

edit You did delete Xauthority as it seems, you can still try to delete it again but I guess it won't do much.

btw is this you? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21610998/accidentally-deleted-iceauthority-and-xauthority-filesubuntu-12-10 If you deleted more files it could be some other file causing the login trouble.

[Dáire Fagan]

btw is this you? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21610998/accidentally-deleted-iceauthority-and-xauthority-filesubuntu-12-10 If you deleted more files it could be some other file causing the login trouble.

No not me, it must be going around :)


I don't know much about these files but if I do a quick Google search I've seen the suggestion to delete (or rename) the .Xauthority file. If I understand correctly you have (accidentally) deleted the .ICEAuthority file but not the .Xauthority right? You could rename it to be safe (then you can put it back in case you ever need the old one):

If you are logged in as dusf (you can still do a TTY login right?)

mv ~/.Xauthority ~/.Xauthority_bak

edit You did delete Xauthority as it seems, you can still try to delete it again but I guess it won't do much.

Yes, and I think that may have been what is causing the problem in the first place. I would be happy enough at this point if I could just backup my home dir before reinstalling.

I logged in with the second account I created 'disf' and set it as an administrator. I was then apply to set my original account dusf to ask for a password - setting it to not ask for password seemed to cause the problem in the first place. Logged in as disf, and running thunar file manager as sudo I can access the dusf home dir but it now just shows two files, 'Access-Your-Privatew-Data.desktop' and README.txt. The README says to run just click on the other file or run encryptfs-mount-private but neither do anything. Trying to login top dusf as normal still brings the login screen up after I enter my password, and now when I log into a TTY as dusf and do ls -la I see the following:

Access-Your-Private-Data.desktop -> /usr/share/encrypts-utils/encrypts-mount-private.desktop
.cache
.encrypts -> /home/.encrypts/dusf/.encrypts
.Private -> /home/.encrypts/dusf/.Private
README.txt -> /usr/share/encrypts-utils/encrypts-mount-private.txt

There was no option mentioning encryption when I set dusf to ask for password.

I am trying to change dusf back to not asking for a password to see if it removes the encryption but the GUI button 'change...' is now not responding.

Can anybody help me out here? Like I said, I would be happy if I could just get access to backup the contents of my home dir.

[felgro]

Have a look at the latest Xorg.#.log in /var/logs/

[Dáire Fagan]

Thanks for the reply.

I have cat Xorg.5.log, what am I looking for exactly? Bottom of the log read 'Fatal server error: no screens found' if that helps...

[felgro]

Thanks for the reply.

I have cat Xorg.5.log, what am I looking for exactly? Bottom of the log read 'Fatal server error: no screens found' if that helps...

Ok, if it says that then I bet your /etc/X11/xorg.conf is full of bad information. Your symptoms are what I had to deal with recently trying to install to a Dell system with a new Radeon card (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2204332). Honestly, the best thing to do is probably gut xorg, fglrx and any proprietary drivers you have and rebuild them from scratch. Don't take my word for it - someone may offer some better advice I am unaware of. But it looks like you have trashed your entire display system to me.

[Dáire Fagan]

Ok, if it says that then I bet your /etc/X11/xorg.conf is full of bad information. Your symptoms are what I had to deal with recently trying to install to a Dell system with a new Radeon card (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2204332). Honestly, the best thing to do is probably gut xorg, fglrx and any proprietary drivers you have and rebuild them from scratch. Don't take my word for it - someone may offer some better advice I am unaware of. But it looks like you have trashed your entire display system to me.

Okay, well we are already having fish for dinner tonight so let's gut away!

Honestly, I just want to back up the 5GB or home partition before wiping and converting into Ubuntu server - I am happy once Xorg anyway long enough to establish that. Can you please advise on how to gut xorg and fglrx and any proprietary drivers I may have? I upgraded the old dell with a Radeon card.

[felgro]

Okay, well we are already having fish for dinner tonight so let's gut away!

Honestly, I just want to back up the 5GB or home partition before wiping and converting into Ubuntu server - I am happy once Xorg anyway long enough to establish that. Can you please advise on how to gut xorg and fglrx and any proprietary drivers I may have? I upgraded the old dell with a Radeon card.

Heh. This was all new to me a week ago - never had to deal with exploding display systems before, everything worked perfectly. Your best friend is google. Your second best friend is this Wiki -

http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubuntu_Saucy_Installation_Guide

It covers all versions. Be prepared to get frustrated and to rebuild failed attempts. You need patience and diligence - there is no "right way". You need to deduce what will work for you. Sorry I can't be more specific. Took me a week of experimenting and tearing my hair out. But where there's a will there's a way. Critical - you MUST be able to access the 'net from your terminal environment.

[felgro]

What is your card btw?