Ubuntu 10.04 Login Loop

[moonguide]

I installed ubuntu-10.04-desktop-i386.iso from a CD I burned. (I ran md5sum and got the correct result. Also checked the media for errors; there were none.) The installation ended with the long list of "end-request: I/O error" and I've read that I should not be concerned about that.

However, when I try to log in, I'm returned to the login prompt. If I switch to Gnome-failsafe, I can successfully log in. I've tried several things listed on this forum, but none of them work on my machine. A number of them talk about problems with nvidia. My machine has the on board VIA video hardware.

The last post that seems related was six days ago. Has there been any further progress?

Is there something I can do to resolve the problem from the failsafe login?

Thanks for any help.

[AJH101]

I have the same problem by the sound of it - a login 'Groundhog Day' - a looping login!

[dabl]

"Login-loop" has historically had several possible causes:

- filesystem full/almost full
- root permissions attached to ~.ICEauthority and ~.Xauthority
- some miscellaneous video driver issues

So, in your "recovery mode" session (running as root at the "#" prompt) you can run

df -h

and observe how much free space you have in your root filesystem -- on a new installation there should be 20% or more free space.

Also in recovery mode, you can safely delete the hidden ~.ICEauthority and ~.Xauthority files that are in your user's home folder. Then you can try a reboot, or else

# service gdm start

and see if it starts the X server.

[AJH101]

Great - how do we delete the files?!

[kansasnoob]

My guess is that it's related to Plymouth. First look here:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...84/comments/18

The whole thread:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...th/+bug/532984

But since you're dealing with an installed Lucid rather than the Live CD when it boots you'll need to try temporarily editing the "boot line" in grub2.

Now if you only have one OS you won't see the boot menu unless you press the Shift key right after the System/BIOS screen passes, but once you get the boot menu press e.

That will allow you to temporarily edit the grub "boot" parameters. On the line that looks something like:

linux	/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-22-generic root=UUID=fb0e61a6-d355-4687-9a98-da164a56cc60 ro splash quiet  quiet splash

Just use the backspace key to remove all of the "splash quiet quiet splash". Why that's redundant I don't know? Dev asleep at the wheel?

Then just press Enter to try and boot. If it works then you know it's Plymouth! So then file a bug against Plymouth using "ubuntu-bug plymouth".

In the meanwhile you can sort of "fix" it by editing "/etc/default/grub". Look here:

lance@lance-desktop:~$ cat /etc/default/grub
# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT=60
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="splash quiet"

# Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only)
#GRUB_TERMINAL=console

# The resolution used on graphical terminal
# note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
# you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo'
#GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true

# Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_RECOVERY="true"

# Uncomment to get a beep at grub start
#GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1"

I don't know why I have that redundancy, but you remove only the part in parentheses! So those two lines would end up like this:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=""
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

Of course you may not have that redundancy, then again maybe that redundancy is good?????????

Just be careful! If you break it you own it!

Oh also be sure to run "sudo update-grub" after you're done editing any grub file.

Another also: this will disable your quiet splash!

[bitter_mike]

I'm having this same problem and I think it has something to do with apparmor. I managed to get dmesg output from when I try to login and I get this error message:

[  506.798163] type=1503 audit(1273089330.541:17):  operation="open" pid=2001 parent=1951 profile="/usr/share/gdm/guest-session/Xsession" requested_mask="r::" denied_mask="r::" fsuid=1000 ouid=1000 name="/home/mike/.profile"

I also checked out ~/.xsession-errors which contains the following, also relating to ~/.profile:

/etc/gdm/Xsession: Beginning session setup...
Setting IM through im-switch for locale=en_US.
Start IM through /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/all_ALL linked to /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/default.
/etc/gdm/Xsession: Beginning session setup...
.: 34: Can't open /home/mike/.profile

I've seen similar errors in the forums which have the same format but the file in question has something to do with a program or service besides GDM (i.e. firefox or evince).

Hopefully someone with more knowledge than I about apparmor knows what this error means and can help with fixing it. I've already tried dpkg-reconfigure apparmor, which completed successfully, but didn't fix the problem.

Mike

[bitter_mike]

kansasnoob: I tried doing that on the fly edit of the Grub entry and it did indeed make the booting verbose, but the problem remained, so I don't think the problem is Plymouth.

On a further note, I played around with a few things in apparmor to see if I could get this working. First, I disabled apparmor by logging into one of the terminal screens and executing

sudo service apparmor stop

After this, when I logged in, instead of flashing the black screen and bringing me back to the login screen, it just hangs with nothing but the background and a cursor, which I can move. Doing this generates no dmesg output and no output in the ~/.xsessionerrors file. It just hangs there.

From this, I conclude that apparmor definitely plays some role in this, but there's more to it obviously.

[dabl]

Great - how do we delete the files?!

If you boot recovery mode, and are at a text prompt, you need to "change directory" (cd) to the /home/user directory, and then "remove" (rm) the files I named above.

so it is

# cd /home/AJH101

(or whatever your user name on the system is)

and then

# rm .ICEauthority

# rm .Xauthority

# service gdm start

[bitter_mike]

I can't speak for the originator of this thread, but I already tried removing .Xauthority and .ICEauthority and that didn't work either. No change.

Mike

[bitter_mike]

Ok, so good news and bad news. Good news: I got this fixed on my computer. Bad news: its a pain in the ***. Here's how I did it:

Important note: I noticed that the menu for selecting a Gnome session was gone from the login menu before I got the idea to do this.

step 1: Re-install GDM.

Boot up normally, then press control+alt+f3 to get to a TTY login window and login. From there, execute the following command to stop GDM:

sudo service gdm stop

Then, use apt-get to first remove, then re-install the gdm package.

At this stage, restarting GDM and logging in got me to a blank desktop with a cursor and a single terminal window in the upper-right hand corner. There was still no sessions menu at the logon page; just keyboard and language selection.

step 2: Install gnome-session

For some reason this package is not installed when you re-install GDM. As far as I can tell, it actually enables GDM to run the desktop environment session with menu bars and such. From that tty window, use apt-get to install gnome-session.

At this stage, when I logged it, everything worked fine except it threw an error about not being able to load the fast-user-switcher applet.

step 3: Install the applet again.

Just use apt-get to install the package indicator-applet-session. This fixed my problems completely and I'm not back to my normal desktop.

If this works for anyone else with the problem, go ahead and mark it solved.