Can't get past login screen in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx.

I installed Ubuntu for the first time yesterday by running Wubi on Windows Vista Home Premium. For all of yesterday and up to lunchtime today Ubuntu was working fine. I followed the instructions on a forum post to remove Evolution Mail via the synaptic applications menu. I proceeded to log out of Ubuntu and reboot (I hoestly can't remember what for) Anyway, ever since I have not been able to log in to Ubuntu. I enter my username and password as normal and they are accepted, however moments the log in page displays again. This continues in an endless loop.

The password is definitely correct because I get an authentication error if I enter anything else. I know I am not the only person experiencing this issue. None of the suggestions I have found by searching this forum have worked.

Someone must be able to fix this problem, please offer any advice you can.

Thanks a lot!

You didn't say what all you have tried from the other "suggestions".

Are you able to get to a console from the login screen by pressing Ctrl-Alt-F2?

If so, login and try typing 'df -h' to see if you have enough disk space.

Also here is a post talking about some of the reasons the loop occurs: http://ubuntu-virginia.ubuntuforums....36&postcount=2

I have plenty disk space, 13GB out of 17GB.

Anything else I should try as I'm in there?

I would try maybe reconfiguring gdm:

Code:

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sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by beckols

I would try maybe reconfiguring gdm:

Code:

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sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm

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What should happen if that works?

After you do that, switch back to the GUI by hitting 'Ctrl-Alt-F8' then attempt to log on again.

Edit: Actually, you might want to restart gdm first

Code:

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sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart

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I'm not sure if you need to or not, but it won't hurt.

That hasn't worked either I'm afraid. Any other ideas?

(Thanks a lot for your help by the way)

EDIT: No joy following the gdm restart either unfortunately.

EDIT 2: Don't know if this helps, but I restarted the computer and on booting Ubunrtu I was told that my drive was being checked for errors. That doesn't seem to have fixed anything though.

Hm, well try these commands:

Code:

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grep -i gnome /var/log/auth.log
grep -i gnome /var/log/daemon.log
grep -i gnome /var/log/syslog

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See if there are any error messages from the last time you tried to log on. If it helps, go ahead and try to log on before you look at the logs. That way, errors will be at the bottom of the list.

It's too bad you can't post the logs, that would make it a lot easier.

Also one more thing you might check:

Code:

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cat ~/.xsession-errors

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There might be some interesting snippets in there from when you tried to login.

I don't understand or recognise anything in the auth log.

The daemon log mentions that I couldn't launch evolution-on-alarm-notify.desktop (it took a couple of attempt to uninstall Evolution Mail). There's also something about gnome-mah jongg.

The last piece of code didn't work.