lightdm - can't log in - it hangs after entering password - "Logging in"

[8200]

Hi,

I did some upgrades and now that I have a problem also did a dist-upgrade.

The problem is when I enter my password on the login-screen it hangs while displaying "Logging in".

Attached my /var/log/lightdm/.. logfile

[8200 (8200)]

I'm using Ubuntu 12.04 amd64 with all latest updates.

[8200 (8200)]

The latest update solved the problem :-)

[Marc (m-chabot)]

I don't understand. I have the exact same problem, but in my case, the problem remains!

And it has been more then 3 days that I'm stuck like this.

Please help!

[Marc (m-chabot)]

I may have to add this comment:

First try, the login screen refreshes. Then I try again, and this time it freezes with "Connecting..."

Thank you.

[Ken Pratt (kenpratt)]

Just updated my 12.04 x86_64 Ubuntu this morning and now I can not log in via lightDM as a user that has a password. However, the guest account - no password - does allow me to login.

[Ken Pratt (kenpratt)]

If I switch over to a vt and stop lightdm, then start it. I am then able to log in with a password protected account.

[Marc (m-chabot)]

I cannot even log in as a guest... Could you tell me how to stop and restart lightdm so I can give it a try?

Thank you.

[Marc (m-chabot)]

Ok so I just killed lightdm and then ran it again, but no luck. Still cannot log in as a regular user or as a guest. It's been more then a week now and I cannot use my computer.

Is there anybody who can give me a hand please?

[Tuomo Keskitalo (tuomo-keskitalo)]

Updating packages has not solved this problem for me. lightdm just goes <defunct>. Rebooted and tried to log on with guest account -> hanged again. Rebooted again, and now I was successfully logged in with my own user account.

[8200 (8200)]

Hey Marc,

have you already tried logging in in the bash?

Press "ctrl + alt + f1" and give it a try. Maybe you have forgotten your password?

Regards,
Arthur

[Marat Galiev (marat1987)]

Same issue, 12.04 LTS, all updates installed. I can login to the bash via consoles F1..F6, but with lightdm I've got described problem.
This problem comes from beta2. Any suggestions?

[Florian Hagenauer (hagenauer-florian)]

Same here as for Marat....
I was able to enable automatic login over the console and I can at least get into the system - but that's not a permanent solution!

[Whitehat (i-whitehat)]

Fresh install ubuntu 12.04 x64 - same problem! I enter a password and nothing happens, just "logging in..."
switched to terminal, logged in, opened top - CPU usage 0%... killed Xorg, tried one more time - hangs on "logging in". Only full reboot helps

[Whitehat (i-whitehat)]

forgot to say - i'm using ecryptfs - Private directory, may be this is the reason for this strange behaviour

[cuc (cuc+)]

same problem here but no ecryptfs for home...

[Schalk Engelbrecht (rockhopper)]

same problem, not using ecryptfs

[Mendhak (mendhak)]

Fresh, standard install of Ubuntu 12.04. Nothing encrypted. The system was both installed and updated today.

I enter a password and it says "Logging in". It then stays like that.

You can use the up and down arrow keys which seems to interrupt the login process, but also prevents you from typing anything into the password boxes. The only thing you can do is reboot the machine and try again.

I went into a shell using Ctrl+Alt+F1. I then had a look at the /var/log/lightdm/lightdm.log log file and the logging also appears to be stuck. The last thing I see is

[+8.02s] DEBUG: Authenticate result for user mendhak: Success
[+8.03s] DEBUG: User mendhak authorized

I have attached my lightdm log file. Anything after the 8second mark is when I rebooted the machine.

I also tried reinstalling the greeter and rebooting.

    sudo apt-get install --reinstall unity-greeter
    sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm

But this had no effect. Still could not log in.

**WORKAROUND**

I noticed that GDM lets you log in.

    sudo apt-get install gdm
    sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm

Then from the options, select gdm and reboot the machine.

[Mendhak (mendhak)]

I did a bit more digging around. I had a look at the greeter log file. I have attached the greeter log file with this comment.

    sudo less /var/log/lightdm/x-0-greeter.log

I noticed these lines:

[+0.58s] DEBUG: background.vala:67: Making background /home/mendhak/Pictures/Wallpapers/General/sunset_texture.jpg at 1440x900
[+0.58s] DEBUG: background.vala:144: Error loading background: Failed to open file '/home/mendhak/Pictures/Wallpapers/General/sunset_texture.jpg': Permission denied
[+0.58s] DEBUG: background.vala:116: Render of background /home/mendhak/Pictures/Wallpapers/General/sunset_texture.jpg complete
[+0.58s] CRITICAL: background_loader_create_pattern: assertion `image != NULL' failed

That's a wallpaper in my own wallpaper collection. It is trying to access it and failing. On a hunch, I went in and used one of the regular/supplied wallpapers that came with Ubuntu (right click Desktop, change desktop wallpaper). That worked!

I then tried to set a custom wallpaper again after doing a chmod 0777 on the entire wallpaper directory. That still didn't work, the log file still mentions permission denied. I am not sure what kind of permissions I should be setting on my Wallpapers folder.

***tl;dr: Use one of the default Ubuntu wallpapers***

[Marat Galiev (marat1987)]

I'm using standart ubuntu wallpapers, nothing changed, error still exists.

[Marat Galiev (marat1987)]

Any updates? It's really serious bug in 12.04!

[Robin Sheat (eythian)]

I just had the exact same issue as described by Marat above, including the same things in the logs. I don't think I did anything that should have triggered it: it successfully worked this morning, then I shut down and started it up again this evening and the problem occurred. A reboot didn't change anything. What I have done now to make it work is to start the guest session, and from there do a switch user and log in as myself. This time lightdm worked.

In between it working and not working, I didn't apply any updates or anything like that. I haven't reconfigured lightdm in any way, aside from changing the default language and keyboard layout (but that was done a week ago, not today.) The background is the standard one.

[Marat Galiev (marat1987)]

Hi, I have installed last updates and do sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Problem gone away. Now fix looks like really released :)

[Robin Sheat (eythian)]

There are currently no updates available for my system.

[Robin Sheat (eythian)]

Oh, there are if I stop using the NZ mirror which is out of date. None that look like they're related to lightdm though, but I'll try it anyway.

[Marat Galiev (marat1987)]

Yep, please try it and post some message here, if problem still exists.

[Robin Sheat (eythian)]

Well, it worked that time. So either the updates fixed it, or whatever was causing it to happen stopped happening.

[Robin Sheat (eythian)]

Oh, I take that back. It happened again this morning. Also my workaround of starting the guest session wasn't reliable, it took a few goes before I could make it work. So, this is still an issue.

[Robin Sheat (eythian)]

I saw a fix for bug 986967 come through today, that looks like the same thing as this.

[Robin Sheat (eythian)]

Since then, I haven't noticed this occur, though it was intermittent anyway.

[Asoka Dissanayake (adsinky)]

Disabled a standard user account. When re-enabled, the user cannot login. Changed the user password but still the user cannot log in. User's name appears and login password box too. However, when password is entered, login password box returns.