Ubuntu
gnome-screensaver package

Screen won't unlock

Bug #76634 reported by spif on 2006-12-20

This bug report is a duplicate of: Bug #76632: gdm should add symlink to /var/run/gdm_socket during ugrades to prevnet the sceensaver from hanging if no logout has happened. Edit Remove

Affects		Status	Importance	Assigned to	Milestone
	gnome-screensaver (Ubuntu)	New	Undecided	Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: gnome-screensaver

After upgrading to 2.17.4 on my feisty system, the screen won't unlock. The unlock dialog hangs and eventually dies leaving the screen locked. If I switch to a VT and kill gnome-screensaver it unlocks. I have tried rebooting several times, clearing out configs, tracing the process, etc. It appears gnome-screensaver is trying to access the /etc/shadow file unsuccessfully. When I run xscreensaver it works fine. When I manually downgrade to 2.16.1 it works fine. Currently I am running on 2.16.1 with no problems. I will see about attaching the strace output, if launchpad will let me. Otherwise please let me know if you want me to e-mail it to you.

Revision history for this message

spif (launchpad-spif) wrote on 2006-12-20:

strace output from gnome-screensaver 2.17.4 unsuccessful unlock attempt on feisty system Edit (159.4 KiB, application/octet-stream)

Here is the strace output.

Revision history for this message

Pappan (ppadman) wrote on 2006-12-20:

Is your password expired ? Can you try changing your password and see whether you are able to unlock with the new password ?

If you still see the problem can you post "/var/log/auth.log" after trying to unlock the screen.

Revision history for this message

Scott Jones (scott-jones) wrote on 2007-04-23:

auth.log entries for new user Edit (1.3 KiB, text/plain)

I am running into this problem as well. I have tried changing my password and that does not help matters at all.
My /var/log/auth.log has the following in it after a failed gnome-screensaver unlock:
Apr 23 14:08:28 bucket gnome-screensaver-dialog: (pam_unix) auth could not identify password for [scott]

I just tried adding a new user to my system to see if things worked for them, and I find that I cannot even log in as that user. I have attached the relevant output from auth.log in that case. Thanks for any help you can offer.