2010-12-22 upgrade: No GUI login: User presented with flashing white rectangle instead of GDM login

[Paul Sladen]

Cause not yet determined.

Following tracking natty upgrade on 2010-12-22 GDM appears (or rather, doesn't) as a 1 Hz flashing white rectangle constantly hiding and showing itself, but not fully managing either. This prevent login and prevent Network Manager coming up.

There doesn't appear to have been a recent GDM update, or 'xserver-xorg-video-intel' update, but an updated was pushed for 'xorg' in the last 24 hours tweaking "failsafeXinit" (bug #596819).

Short-term workaround: If a user is lucky, they should be able to get a console using Ctrl-Alt-F1, then run:

  xinit /usr/bin/gnome-console --display :1 -- :1

and then run:

  metacity --replace &

At which point browsers and such can be started and 'ifconfig', 'dhclient3' and 'iwconfig', or if the graphics are up, running 'nm-applet &' can be used to manually bring up the network. (Compiz doesn't appear to want to start in this situation).

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

Downgrading to {xorg,x11-common}=1:7.5+6ubuntu4 does _not_ solve it.

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

sudo strace -t -s1000 -p `pidof gdm-binary` -o strace.txt shows:

  org.freedesktop.DBus.GLib.UnmappedError.GdmSettingsBackendError.Code

occuring 2-3 times per second.

[Harry (harry33)]

This bug may be a consequence of the latest GTK+2.0 upgrade.
See the bug #693737.
Thus this would be a duplicate.

Can you please check if you have installed the new GTK+2.0 (2.23.3_1ubuntu2).
If so, please downgrade to the GTK+2.0_2.23.2-0ubuntu4.

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

Lots of confirmations on Ubuntu Forums, first report 10 hours ago:

  "Natty gives me a white flashing login box"
  http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=10272367