Unable to log in if user has invalid session configured and no session switcher shown
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
unity-greeter (Ubuntu) |
Fix Released
|
Low
|
Robert Ancell |
Bug Description
I was having some unrelated problems with unity, so I temporarily removed it which caused me to stumble across this problem.
I have gnome also installed on my system, and was planning to use it in the meanwhile. After I removed unity and reboot my computer, I noticed the session selector disappeared. From the ubuntu wiki I found this information:
The session switcher will only show up if you have more than one VALID session; a valid session is one that points to a valid executable.
This would be fine, except for lightdm assumed that the one session available was 'ubuntu.' I could not change the session because the selector was missing. Every attempt to log in would begin to appear as if it worked, but then I would just be stuck looking at the background image and nothing else.
I looked though the logs and found these lines in x-0-greeter.log
[+0.03s] DEBUG: Connected version=1.8.5 default-
...
[+0.09s] DEBUG: Ignoring session /usr/share/
[+0.09s] DEBUG: Loaded session /usr/share/
...
[+1.79s] DEBUG: Authentication complete for user jonathan with return code 0
[+1.79s] DEBUG: Starting session ubuntu
So I changed the default session from 'ubuntu' to 'gnome', by running the following command:
sudo /usr/lib/
(I also verified in /etc/lightdm/
This time around the log showed that default-
Related branches
- PS Jenkins bot (community): Approve (continuous-integration)
- Robert Ancell: Approve
-
Diff: 35 lines (+18/-0)1 file modifiedsrc/unity-greeter.vala (+18/-0)
Changed in lightdm: | |
status: | New → Triaged |
importance: | Undecided → Medium |
Changed in lightdm (Ubuntu): | |
status: | New → Triaged |
importance: | Undecided → Low |
Changed in lightdm: | |
importance: | Medium → Low |
summary: |
- Lightdm incorrectly assumes if there is only one session, that session - is 'ubuntu' (and ignores .conf) + Greeter doesn't allow to switch sessions if only one session installed + (user is set to old session) |
no longer affects: | lightdm |
affects: | lightdm (Ubuntu) → unity-greeter (Ubuntu) |
tags: | added: ubuntu-desktop-trusty |
Changed in unity-greeter (Ubuntu): | |
status: | Triaged → In Progress |
assignee: | nobody → Robert Ancell (robert-ancell) |
Changed in unity-greeter (Ubuntu): | |
status: | In Progress → Fix Committed |
I think the problem is:
1. You log into a standard install
2. You log out
3. You install GNOME and uninstall Unity
4. You attempt to log in
The configured session for your user is "ubuntu" but this session is no longer available. Unity Greeter doesn't show a session switcher since only one valid session is installed (GNOME).
The solution is for unity-greeter to detect that your configured session is not available and show a session switcher / or just log you into the default.