gdm hangs after theme upgrade and reboot

[Andrew Oakley]

After today's update (1 Apr 2008, no this is not an April Fools joke), GDM hangs upon reboot. It is impossible to log in graphically.

GDM hangs immediately prior to the greeter with a rotating busy pointer. Pointer moves with mouse. Keyboard is unresponsive except I can switch to console sessions with CTRL-ALT-F(1-etc) and can restart X with CTRL-ALT-Backspace (but GDM just hangs again in same manner).

If I switch to the console with CTRL-ALT-F1, I can login but issuing sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart doesn't fix the problem.

I can also login via SSH over the network.

[Andrew Oakley (andrew-aoakley)]

This is on a Dell Inspiron 1520 laptop with Intel X3100 (i965) graphics.

[Simon Kent (simonkent)]

Same issue as above, on Toshiba Equium M50 216, Intel i915 graphics card

[Andrew Oakley (andrew-aoakley)]

This appears to be related to the GDM face browser / graphical greeter. Simon, were you using the face browser?

Lots of discussion here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=742511

Workaround is to go into console, manually reconfigure GDM to use the standard greeter.

1.Press Ctrl-Alt-F1

2. Log in as an administrative user (someone who can use sudo)

3. Edit gdm.conf eg: sudo nano /etc/gdm/gdm.conf

4. Search for: Greeter=/usr/lib/gdm/gdmgreeter
and change this to: Greeter=/usr/lib/gdm/gdmlogin

[Andrew Oakley (andrew-aoakley)]

Forgot to add:

5. Restart GDM with: sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart
...or just reboot your PC.

[Simon Kent (simonkent)]

Ok, thanks for the workaround, I'll give it a try. Yes, I was using the GDM face greeter.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

could you stop using the title to specify the version you are using, that creates confusion and extra work when the next ubuntu will be available

[Andreas Hannig (andreash)]

I had the same problem this morning.

cp /usr/share/themes/Human/gtk-2.0/gtkrc /usr/share/themes/Human/gtk-2.0/gtkrc.en

fixed the problem for me.

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

This bug does not happen with the default ubuntu gdm theme but it always happen with the Human List theme, in my case.

[Étienne BERSAC (bersace)]

Hi,

I'm the HumanList theme writer. This bug appear unexpectedly. gdmthemetester is also concerned. Where to find debug info ?

Regards,
Étienne.

[Étienne BERSAC (bersace)]

Hrm,

So, gdmthemetester console HumanList hang, but gdmthemetester console . in HumanList dir works. How to fix that ???

Étienne.

[Andreas Hannig (andreash)]

I have debugged gdm with:

strace -f gdm --nodaemon

When the gdmgreeter starts up you can see that it reads the same config files in a loop.
It does not stop if it is not able to open the files.

[gerstrong (gerstrong)]

Same Problem here. gdmgreeter is the problem!

[fragro (frank-grossmann)]

Same here!

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

downgrading ubuntulooks workaround the issue

[Nick Russell (thatnick)]

For me, on my desktop it does get to the login screen eventually, but it takes about 5 mins. On my laptop its been stuck for about 30 mins (so far...) however.

[Jon Leighton (jonleighton)]

Same problem here... "apt-get remove ubuntu-gdm-themes" is a workaround as it's that theme which causes the problem.

[Andrew Oakley (andrew-aoakley)]

Andreas' workaround of:

sudo cp /usr/share/themes/Human/gtk-2.0/gtkrc /usr/share/themes/Human/gtk-2.0/gtkrc.en

...seems to work far better than my gdmlogin workaround.

I'm guessing this is a spelling mistake somewhere - missing .en off the end of /usr/share/themes/Human/gtk-2.0/gtkrc.en

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

could be similar to bug #147045

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Commenting the HumanList gtkrc gtk_color_scheme = line workaround the issue, does anybody knows why this theme is not using the same gtkrc as Human and if the line can be commented? the theme seems to not change when it's commented

[Alessandro Guido (iro)]

Thanks Sebastian!
commenting that line in /usr/share/gdm/themes/HumanList/gtk-2.0/gtkrc worked for me.

[SFN (sfnative33)]

"commenting that line in /usr/share/gdm/themes/HumanList/gtk-2.0/gtkrc worked for me."

I can confirm the same results here, although I'm using UbuntuStudio so what I had to change was "/usr/share/gdm/themes/UbuntuStudio/gtk-2.0/gtkrc".

Tried earlier suggested workaround of

sudo cp /usr/share/themes/Human/gtk-2.0/gtkrc /usr/share/themes/Human/gtk-2.0/gtkrc.en

again substituting "UbuntuStudio" for "Human" but it didn't help. In fact it didn't result in /usr/share/themes/Human/gtk-2.0/gtkrc.en existing even though I received no errors.

For the record, I'm on an Acer TravelMate 8210-6245. (Intel Core 2 Duo T5500, 2GB DDR2 RAM, ATI Mobility Radeon X1600)

[schnittchen (schnittchen)]

I started having such a problem today, notably gdmgreeter is hanging with 100% cpu usage.

An easy workaround was moving /usr/lib/gdm/gdmgreeter out of the way and restarting gdm with
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart

[schnittchen (schnittchen)]

The above .en file ending thing

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gdm/+bug/210538/comments/7

did not work for me. Shall I report a separate bug?

[Kenneth Wimer (kwwii)]

replaced gtkrc with a hard-coded color value gtkrc

[Andrew Oakley (andrew-aoakley)]

Thomas Stratmann wrote: Shall I report a separate bug?

If your gdmgreeter is hanging (100% CPU), probably best not. You can check this by doing: sudo top

Try comment 19: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-gdm-themes/+bug/210538/comments/19

Out of interest, which version of ubuntu-gdm-themes are you using? You can check this by doing: sudo dpkg -s ubuntu-gdm-themes

[schnittchen (schnittchen)]

I am sorry. I really should have read the entire thread before crying! ;-)

Comment 19 does it for me, so I am experiencing the same bug.

ubuntu-gdm-themes is installed as version 0.28

[daniele pirani (daniel-pirani)]

the right answer for me
"Commenting the HumanList gtkrc gtk_color_scheme = line workaround the issue, does anybody knows why this theme is not using the same gtkrc as Human and if the line can be commented? the theme seems to not change when it's commented"

just to put a # before "gtk_color_scheme"
i changed this file "sudo gedit /usr/share/gdm/themes/UbuntuStudio/gtk-2.0/gtkrc"

thanks

[Nils Naumann (nau)]

cleaning the custom configuration file /etc/gdm/gdm.conf-custom is another work around. After that the standard greeter is working without problems.

[Valentin Neacsu (valentin.neacsu)]

I had the same problem, but then I updated ubuntu-gdm-themes and I don't have the problem any more. I tried editing the file, but that line isn't there any more.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

that's not a gdm issue

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the theme update uploaded today workaround the issue

[Daniël H. (daan-is-here)]

Bug seems fixed to me

[justinf (justinf-live)]

Seems fixed but now no names come up in the face browser. I must have messed something up. is it working for everyone else?

[Claudio André (claudioandre.br)]

Hi, Justinf. Just to give you an answer.

It is working fine to me.

[Anders (andersja+launchpad-net)]

Confirming - the fixed face browser login works for me now

[Benjamín Valero Espinosa (benjavalero)]

Hardy Beta installed and updated from scratch, and everything works fine. Thanks.

[nife (nife87)]

I had the same problem and posted the solution here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=754769

[Evon (evon-smith)]

Well I've tried everything that is suggested in this thread but the same problem still occurs. I have a compaq AMD64, ATI 200 express card on a r4000 laptop. please help. I can't even use an old kernel without the same problem occuring.

[Evon (evon-smith)]

And please when helping me be very explicit about which commands I should run and how to do them. I am still fairly new to linux. Thanks.