Switch User menu item gone after upgrade to Ubuntu 19.04

[Johannes Rohr]

After today's upgrade to Ubuntu 19.04 with GNOME Shell 3.32, the switch user menu is gone, even though org.gnome.desktop.lockdown disable-user-switching is false

[Johannes Rohr (jorohr)]

I can still switch to the first virtual console with Ctrl-Alt-F1 and open a new session, also switch between the sessions with ctrl-alt-fX

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Johannes Rohr (jorohr)]

For completeness' sake: Just upgraded another machine and I see the same here.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

What release was the Switch User option in? I can't see it in either 19.04 or 18.04.

[Johannes Rohr (jorohr)]

I upgraded both machines from Cosmic to Disco. In both instances, the menu item was there before and was gone after the upgrade.

[peterzay (peterzay)]

In reply to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-shell/+bug/1829536/comments/2
please see the attached screenshot.

As for journalctl, I have 4 different versions. Which one do you want to see?

[Amit Schreiber (gnobal)]

I have the same issue. On my machine I have 2 accounts: and admin account and a regular user account. For the admin - the "Switch User" option never appears. For the regular user - the option appears sometimes (can't figure out what the circumstances that cause it to appear are)

Please fix this. The Ctrl+Alt+fX workaround for this is not great.

[peterzay (peterzay)]

THE GOOD NEWS:

edit /etc/gdm3/custom.conf and uncomment the line:

   #WaylandEnable=false

Then reboot. This solves the problem.

THE BAD NEWS:

With WaylandEnable=false active in /etc/gdm3/custom.conf, the system monitor does not launch.

[peterzay (peterzay)]

After today's system update and upgrade, the fix from comment #8 has disappeared.

[Grzegorz Korba (wirone)]

I got this problem after upgrading Ubuntu 18.04 to 19.04. My system was initially installed as KUbuntu, later I've installed Cinnamon so it's a mix of many packages. However, I couldn't change user while logging so I needed to use ctrl+alt+F* and start new session as specified user, then start X server. `startx cinnamon` somehow worked, but there were some issues while running, so I've been googling a bit and this is what I've done:

- added "Session=cinnamon" to ~/.dmrc
- added `exec cinnamon-session` to ~/xinitrc
- enabled automatic and timed login like mentioned in https://askubuntu.com/a/1140036
- run `sudo service gdm3 restart` as mentioned in https://askubuntu.com/q/1136457
- disabled automatic and timed login
- reboot

After that I have logon screen with ability to choose user and I can properly log in.

When I try to switch users and login again, I got "could not acquire name on session bus" error, but I can switch to session where I'm still logged in. Hope this will help anybody, but I'm looking forward for proper fix and instructions less random than mine ;-)

[Craig McQueen (cmcqueen1975)]

For me, this bug just started happening when I did a software update yesterday.

[John Ladasky (john-ladasky)]

Like Craig McQueen, I just lost the Switch User menu option within the past two or three days. I have accepted a few automatic software updates recently.

[John Ladasky (john-ladasky)]

Following up to my remarks from yesterday: when I logged out of my primary account, I DID see a Switch User menu option from my secondary account. When I returned to the primary account, Switch User was not present. But that was yesterday. On reboot today, Switch User has reappeared in my primary account. Perhaps a patch has fixed the problem?

[peterzay (peterzay)]

When I log in to my (regular user) account early morning, the Switch User menu item is not present.

When I log out late in the evening, the Switch User menu item is present.

This is reproducible day in, day out.

This is the case even on days when there are no system updates or upgrades at all.

[Dizaster (eastendmumbles)]

Just installed 19.04. added a second account for the kids mother to watch netflix on. when I switched users it switched fine to the other account. however when I switched back to the main account (mine) it was like it just signed me out when switching users and did not keep anything open at all. then I checked processes and the other account (kids mothers account) is completely logged out.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu 19.04 (disco) reached end-of-life on January 23, 2020.

See this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

We appreciate that this bug may be old and you might not be interested in discussing it any more. But if you are then please upgrade to the latest Ubuntu version and re-test. If you then find the bug is still present in the newer Ubuntu version, please add a comment here telling us which new version it is in and change the bug status to Confirmed.