Gdm loops back to login after login

[K7AAY]

Binary package hint: gdm

After running for a week with random freezes of 30 secs-two min, I replaced the RAM on a newly acquired HP Pavilion ze2113us laptop, elevating RAM from 512MB to 1GB and reducing video RAM from 128MB to 64MB. Ran memtest 4x with no errors. Put the laptop back in service, and six hours later, did a shutdown when I relocated.

Upon power-up, I am now prompted for login (whereas I did not require passworded login before) by gdm after the splash screen. When I enter the password for the sole user on this machine, gdm loops back to the splash screen, then forces login again.

I verified the password is correct as an incorrect password generated an 'authentication error' whereas I am able to use that correct password for sudo on a recovery login.

1) The release of Ubuntu you are using, via 'lsb_release -rd'
Ubuntu Karmic 9.10 (development branch) with Linux 2.6.31-14

2) The version of the package you are using, via 'apt-cache policy gdm'
2.28.0-0ubuntu19

3) What you expected to happen

I should not have been prompted for a password, as I configured for no required login and ran that way for over a week without login problems.

4) What happened instead

When I boot the machine for a normal boot, after the splash screen, I am prompted by gdm; I enter my password, and then the splash screen reappears, then gdm loops back to the login screen again.

[K7AAY (john-bartley)]

More unsuccessful suggestions in how to find problem at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=8127393#post8127393 along with the results of the attempted fixes.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the bug is probably not a gdm one but rather an xorg issue

[K7AAY (john-bartley)]

Would anyone like me to upload an image of the drive to a file sharing service? I've eliminated personal data and replaced the drive with another Karmic install, trying to replicate the failure.

[krakenfury (krakenfury)]

I had this problem, too. It happened after I ran the update manager on 10-31 when 9.10 was officially released. I had been using the 9.10 release candidate for about two weeks before with the realtime kernel and the ubuntustudio-audio and -graphics packages with no problems. After reinstalling xubuntu from the CD, gdm worked, but after the updates were installed, it was broken again. Exact same symptom as you. I don't think it is an xorg issue, because I was able to boot into xterm session and manually start xfce with 'xfce4-session' from the terminal. I think that the gdm .desktop config file was somehow erased or screwed up because I couldn't find one in /etc/gdm. My solution: switch to xdm. Not as pretty, but it works and when you install the package, you can tell it to use xdm by default. gdm was modeled after xdm anyway. You could try reinstalling gdm. Maybe that would fix your .desktop file. But it think that's what's wrong, since your symptoms are the same as mine.

[papukaija (papukaija)]

I got this issue today after the latest updates (gdm, xsplash ...).

[papukaija (papukaija)]

Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release Candidate i386 (20091020.3)
Package: gdm 2.28.1-0ubuntu1
PackageArchitecture: i386
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 LANG=fi_FI.UTF-8
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.48-generic
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic i686
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout lpadmin plugdev sambashare

[Mark Weaver (mark-weaver)]

I had this problem after the November update. Running 9.10, i386, 32 bit, nvidia video card. It occurred because I run the monitor at less than full resolution. I did not have this issue originally on 9.10. The only workaround I found was to use the full resolution of my monitor, which I did not want to do. I removed gdm and loaded wdm, which allows me to change the screen resolution without a login loop.

[rent0n (rent0n)]

Same problem here on Karmic 64bit.
This bug is related to my dual monitor setup and due to the fact that xsplash/gdm does not recognize the second monitor resolution properly: https://bugs.launchpad.net/gdm/+bug/446412/

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

Could someone experiencing this please attach their /var/log/Xorg.0.log and /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old after experiencing this issue

[papukaija (papukaija)]

The login was successful after five login attempts ( =after around 2 minutes from first gdm login screen).

[papukaija (papukaija)]

It seems that I have gotten this issue after this update:

gdm (2.28.1-0ubuntu2) karmic-proposed; urgency=low

  * Don't respawn gdm on failure; this lets us capture X failures instead and
    trigger the bulletproof X handler here. LP: #441638.
  * re-export any XORGCONFIG value passed to the upstart job, needed to
    complete integration with bulletproof X. LP: #474806.

 -- Steve Langasek <email address hidden> Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:15:37 -0800

[papukaija (papukaija)]

The /var/log/gdm/:0-greeter.log is full of errors, including:

Ikkunointiohjelman varoitus: Buggy client sent a _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW message with a timestamp of 0 for 0x1600027
Ikkunointiohjelman varoitus: meta_window_activate called by a pager with a 0 timestamp; the pager needs to be fixed.
[...]
Ikkunointiohjelman varoitus: CurrentTime used to choose focus window; focus window may not be correct.
Ikkunointiohjelman varoitus: Got a request to focus the no_focus_window with a timestamp of 0. This shouldn't happen!

Translations:1) Ikkunointiohjelman varoitus = window manager's warning
2) "Tallennetun istuntotiedoston x luku epäonnistui " = "Failed to read the saved session file x"
3) "Tiedoston x avaaminen epäonnistui: Tiedostoa tai hakemistoa ei ole olemassa" =
"Could not open file x: File or folder is missing"

[papukaija (papukaija)]

There should be enough logs now.

[papukaija (papukaija)]

Sorry, it seems that that the buggy update was gdm 2.28.1-0ubuntu1, since synaptic's history tells that I have reinstalled (to see if it helps to solve this bug) gdm 2.28.1-0ubuntu1 on 7.11.2009.

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

Your log shows that Xorg is crashing

[papukaija (papukaija)]

I upgraded to Lucid and its new xserver fixes this bug.