Can't change auto login status to "no" in Ubuntu or Ubuntu GNOME Saucy after "yes" is selected

[Erick Brunzell]

I've been testing alternative DE's in both Ubuntu and Ubuntu GNOME Saucy and I've been selecting "auto-login" during installation of the OS.

I now notice that going to System Settings > User Accounts and changing the automatic login status from on to off has no effect. Since it effects both Ubuntu and Ubuntu GNOME it's also fair to say it effects both lightdm and gdm.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.10
Package: gnome-control-center 1:3.6.3-0ubuntu44
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.11.0-12.19-generic 3.11.3
Uname: Linux 3.11.0-12-generic i686
ApportVersion: 2.12.5-0ubuntu2
Architecture: i386
Date: Tue Oct 29 09:52:09 2013
InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-10-17 (11 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 13.10 "Saucy Salamander" - Release i386 (20131016.1)
MarkForUpload: True
SourcePackage: gnome-control-center
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
usr_lib_gnome-control-center:
 activity-log-manager 0.9.7-0ubuntu4
 deja-dup 27.3.1-0ubuntu1
 gnome-control-center-datetime 13.10.0+13.10.20131016.2-0ubuntu1
 gnome-control-center-signon 0.1.7~+13.10.20130724.1-0ubuntu1
 gnome-control-center-unity 1.3+13.10.20131004-0ubuntu1

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

I did some testing with the new Trusty image (circa Oct 21) and I find that if I select NOT to auto-login during installation I can successfully change to auto-login successfully,

But once I've changed to auto-login switching it to "off" does NOT work. But this is very preliminary so I need to explore further.

I'm certainly more concerned with Saucy ATM.

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

I changed the name after quite a bit of testing. There are two ways to reproduce this bug:

#1: Install either Ubuntu or Ubuntu GNOME Saucy and during installation select auto-login, then try switching auto-login to off in System Settings > User Accounts. The GUI appears to work OK but you'll find that you still login automatically on reboot.

#2: Install selecting NOT to auto-login, then after installation go to System Settings > User Accounts and change to auto-login. You'll find that works OK but after trying to turn auto-login off you'll find that does NOT work.

And it does effect both gdm and lightdm, in the case of lightdm it effects both greeters.

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

I'll follow up on this during Trusty dev, I agree it's low priority bug in Saucy.

Does anyone know of a reliable work-around for Saucy?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

What is in your "/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf"?

Toggling an user autologin control in the UI makes that value change correctly for me on saucy.

 e.g having it on for the user "ubuntu" makes the config get "autologin-user=ubuntu", turning it off changes that line to "autologin-user="

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

You can see it in this screenshot ............ BTW I've rebooted that OS many times playing with "flashback" but it also happens if you add another DE like 'lubuntu-core'.

Just can't change auto-login to off :^(

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Is that the case of an installation with autologin selected in the installer? Does it work if you delete the bottom line of this config?

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

Hmmm, give me a couple of days as I need to bounce around on a tractor, but that last line includes "lightdm" and I've seen the same thing in Ubuntu GNOME which uses gdm.

So please give me a couple of days to poke around :^)

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

I decided to play with this a bit tonight and I was having trouble reproducing this behavior in my "stable" updated Ubuntu Saucy, so I did a fresh install of Ubuntu Saucy i386 selecting to auto-login during installation. Then I ran all updates and rebooted when prompted.

Upon reboot auto-login worked as it should but when I went to System Settings > User Accounts I see it's set to "off".

Please look at the screenshot. I must get some sleep but this is indeed mind boggling :^(

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

Oh, I decided to check "/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf" before any further reboot so look:

lance@lance-desktop:~$ cat /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
[SeatDefaults]
autologin-guest=false
autologin-user=lance
autologin-user-timeout=0
autologin-session=lightdm-autologin

Somehow the User Accounts GUI may not be recognizing what 'ubiquity' is telling it to do?????

Where would I look for the equivalent files in Ubuntu GNOME since it uses 'gdm'?

Sorry to be such a pain.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

Also effects Trusty ATM so I added the trusty tag.

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

Here's a screenshot from Trusty ........... you'll see the file has changed in structure but it conflicts with the GUI.

[pierre chrzanowski (pierre-chrzanowski)]

Same problem here with ubuntu 13.10 saucy.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Sorry for the delay replying there.

While fixing another issue I ran into a bug in the logic of the code determining what configuration file to read, which is likely the cause of the issue there. It would be nice if somebody having the issue could test that update and confirm is resolves the bug
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/accountsservice/0.6.35-0ubuntu7

(the debs are in trusty and can be installed on saucy without issue)

I'm closing the bug since it seems resolved here but feel free to reopen if you still have the issue with the update

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

Thanks Sebastien. I won't test right now because I'm working on my test suite for Alpha 2 (flavors) testing but I will follow up next week :^)

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thanks!

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

Looks good with 'gdm' in Trusty. I'll follow up soon with 'lightdm' in Trusty.

[Erick Brunzell (lbsolost)]

Looks good in both Ubuntu GNOME and Edubuntu Trusty circa Alpha 2.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

@Eirck: Great, thanks for testing and confirming!

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

(sorry, "@Erick" rather)