login fails with nvidia driver 96

[electhor]

Lucid lynx with kernel 2.6.32-12-generic. Can't login. Login seems to be stuck in a loop. As in; I login, the screen disappears as though it is going to go to the desktop, but the login screen then appears again...and it keeps happening again and again. Also happens on kernel 2.6.32-10-generic. Prior to the alpha 3 update the login screen did nothing at all on kernel 2.6.32-10-generic , as in it did not accept any keyboard or mouse input - it just frozen. Think that occurred after the last alpha 2 updates, prior to the alpha 3 updates.
I can only get into console via safe mode and thus can't provide any more information, unless someone can tell me what commands to enter.

[electhor (electhor)]

Oops just realised this is not alpha 3 updates as it is not due out for about 3 weeks - the large update was due to Open Office Core - never-the-less the last two updates have caused the above problem. i am not sure which package it is causing the problem. Sorry about he misinformation.

[electhor (electhor)]

Minor change with latest updates - kernel 2.6.32-12-generic continues to loop at login, as does kernel 2.6.32-10-generic, the only difference is that kernel 2.6.32-10-generic is now in low graphics mode, ie the nvidia driver seems to have been removed.
By the way computer specs are:

M/B Gigabyte MA-GA-770 DS3 ; 2GB 800MHz ram ; Nvidia 8600GT GPU

[electhor (electhor)]

I will make this invalid as the login loop has stopped since alpha 3 - although it takes a double login before it goes to desktop, which, by the way, is very slow to open up.

[Saša Teković (hseagle2015)]

I'm having exactly the same problem as described in bug description.

I select my user account, then enter my password. The screen turns black for couple of seconds, like it's going to show the desktop, but instead it shows the users list once again. The only way I can log in is to switch over to another tty, but after logging in I'm still not able to get GUI.

I've tried "startx", but I get the following error message:
xinit: Resource temporarily unavailable (errno 11): unable to connect to X server
xinit: No such process (errno 3): Server error
xauth: error in locking authority file /home/user/.Xauthority

I'm using Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Beta 1 and kernel version 2.6.32.16-generic.

[Thomas Garman (thomas-garman)]

I have the exact same issue that Saša Teković reports with the same error message. I purged gdm and then I reinstalled gdm and strangely enough now it gives me a choice between kde and xterm at the login screen. Before the purge it was not giving me any choice for a desktop environment.

So, any help here would be appreciated.

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

This sounds more like Xorg is crashing rather than a gdm problem. Please attach /var/log/Xorg.0.log and /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old after this happens

[Zempashi (julien-girardin)]

Same Issue...
I get only the mouse cursor when I do :"sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop& startx"
I am able to run graphic programs with "export DISPLAY:=0
firefox&".
The appearance of the Windows gets the Ambiance theme(metacity is running ?)
Sorry for my english, I'm french

Anyway, I keep aware of this topic for your questions.

[Saša Teković (hseagle2015)]

Here are mine Xorg log files. Both Xorg.0.log and Xorg.0.log.old are almost exactly the same, only few lines are different.

[Jakub Kamecki (puchat3k)]

I don't know if it is a gdm issue - but I can't login into my system.
After I updated yestarday I went home and put my system to sleep. Today when I came in to work I woke it up and was presented with the lock-screen input password dialog. Numerous attempts to enter the password failed. I rebooted the system and the same thing happened in gdm - "authentication failure".
I went into recovery mode updated the system again. Rebooted and went into single user mode. When I tried to change the password for my user the passwd command returned an error.

[Tom Louwrier (tom-louwrier)]

Same here, but not quite.
Loaded the usual updates yesterday evening, everything seemed fine. This morning I found the login screen resetting every time I click either my own username or the 'other user' option. It is certainly not X crashing and coming back, since the rest of the desktop stays intact. I do not see any messages about authentication failure or other errors, the login window just disapears and comes back within a second. And that's all I'm getting.

I can switch to a text-mode console with Ctrl-Alt-F1 and loging there, but can't kill and restart X from there. Probably lack of command knowledge on my part but still.

Effectively this locks me out of my system, since I do need to used the GUI and apps.
In case you're wondering how I got here: rebooted into Winblows XP..... :-((

cheers
Tom

[Tom Louwrier (tom-louwrier)]

Oh, and yes, I did load all avaailable updates just now through the rescue mode. No joy.

greetz
Tom

[Jakub Kamecki (puchat3k)]

Can you please try changing your password in recovery mode?

[Tom Louwrier (tom-louwrier)]

hi Jakub,

Will try that in a minute and report back here.
For now I found a workaround:
- boot into rescue mode
- choose 'resume normal boot'
- this gives me a pure text mode login, no virtual tty
- login with user/passw as normal
- issue command 'startx'
after that I get my normal desktop and everything works (so far)

I found no strange things in my home directory concerning ownership and
rights of files etc. All is as it should be.

cheers
Tom

[Jakub Kamecki (puchat3k)]

That workaround doesn't work for me. I can't login even in the standard text console. That's why I think that my problem isn't gdm related.

[Tom Louwrier (tom-louwrier)]

OK, tried the following:
- boot into rescue mode
- choose 'resume normal boot'
- this gives me a pure text mode login, no virtual tty
- login with user/passw as normal
- change my password with 'passwd' (success)
- reboot with sudo reboot
- booted the normal way
- got exactly the same situation as earlier this morning: login window resets within a second and I don't get to fill in my password

So I rebooted again and used my workaround (rescue mode, resume normal boot, login in text mode) to get in.
After that I reset my password to what it was and started X (startx).
After that I got into my normal desktop and everything works OK.

Note: switching to a tty session will *not* work, since KMS ant ATI do not play together very well (bug 509273).

cheers
Tom

[Jakub Kamecki (puchat3k)]

Good work. I'm sure it'll help someone else.

I've started a new bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/shadow/+bug/546874
that describes my issue.
My problem is that passwd doesn't work as expected. :-(

[Tom Louwrier (tom-louwrier)]

Still not working right today.
I can get in through the backdoor though, so I'm poking around to see if I can find out what's going on.
Decided to try the "loging screen" in system > administration. That comes up with all options greyed out, so I clicked the 'unlock' button. Nothing happened.
Opened a terminal and gave 'sudo gdmsetup' plus my pwd. Lots of error messages and warnings, then same screen and still no way to unlock the settings. See below:

================
thomas@tom-laptop:~$ sudo gdmsetup
[sudo] password for thomas:

** (gdmsetup:3025): WARNING **: Error calling GetSoundEnabled(): The name org.gnome.DisplayManager was not provided by any .service files

** (gdmsetup:3025): WARNING **: Error calling GetFaceBrowserEnabled(): The name org.gnome.DisplayManager was not provided by any .service files

** (gdmsetup:3025): WARNING **: Error calling GetValue('daemon/TimedLoginEnable'): The name org.gnome.DisplayManager was not provided by any .service files

** (gdmsetup:3025): WARNING **: Error calling GetValue('daemon/TimedLoginDelay'): The name org.gnome.DisplayManager was not provided by any .service files
** (gdmsetup:3025): DEBUG: init delay=30
** (gdmsetup:3025): DEBUG: "/usr/share/xsessions/guest-restricted.desktop" is hidden or contains non-executable TryExec program

** (gdmsetup:3025): WARNING **: Error calling GetValue('daemon/DefaultSession'): The name org.gnome.DisplayManager was not provided by any .service files
** (gdmsetup:3025): DEBUG: Init default session found:'(null)'
** (gdmsetup:3025): DEBUG: Failed to identify the current session: Unable to lookup session information for process '3025'

** (gdmsetup:3025): WARNING **: Unable to find users: no seat-id found
** (gdmsetup:3025): DEBUG: GdmUserManager: explicitly skipping user: nobody
** (gdmsetup:3025): DEBUG: GdmUserManager: user icon changed
** (gdmsetup:3025): DEBUG: adding monitor for '/home/thomas/.face'
** (gdmsetup:3025): DEBUG: Getting list of sessions for user 1000
** (gdmsetup:3025): DEBUG: Found 2 sessions for user thomas
** (gdmsetup:3025): DEBUG: GdmUserManager: not adding session on other seat: /org/freedesktop/ConsoleKit/Session1
** (gdmsetup:3025): DEBUG: GdmUserManager: not adding session on other seat: /org/freedesktop/ConsoleKit/Session2

** (gdmsetup:3025): WARNING **: Failed to unlock: The name org.gnome.DisplayManager was not provided by any .service files

** (gdmsetup:3025): WARNING **: Failed to unlock: The name org.gnome.DisplayManager was not provided by any .service files
thomas@tom-laptop:~$
===========

Have reinstalled gdm, gdm-guest-session, gnome-session-bin and libpam-gnome-keyring (basically anything I see when I search for gdm in synaptic), but no joy.

If there are any logfiles I can check out and post, plz let me know.

cheers
Tom

[CristianCantoro (cristiancantoro)]

Same issue for me with 2.6.32-17 kernel on a 64 bit machine with little differences: I haven't experienced any "login loop", bu t the problem seems the same. After an update I rebooted and now this is my situation: I get to login screen quite normally (I get some warning while booting but this was happening also before this problem showed up). In the login window I notice the option "session" is missing, then after login I am in failsafe mode (but I did not boot in failsafe mode) having only xterm. X is working, i.e. I can launch programs normally (I even watched a video using vlc, to say... but no sound) but the windows do not have the title bar, and I can't move/resize,minimize them. If I launch a program a window just appears in some spot where it is doomed to stay with a definite size (this differs between different programs, I think this depends on some predefined configuration of said programs).
I can provide any information you want (I can connect to the internet from terminal and use firefox) if you can guide me I will be happy to help.
This problem seems not to be kernel-related since I tried booting another kernel (2.6.31-14) and got the same behavior.
Tried to reinstall gdm (using aptitude) but nothing changed, please note that my system is fully updated.

[CristianCantoro (cristiancantoro)]

I tried to install kdm and, in the configure screen, I choose kdm as the default window manager. the login changed to KDE-style and I was able to use KDE normally. Please note that the login screen did not give me the possibility to choose GNOME session (gdm was installed, though).
I tried to purge/install gdm swithching from version gdm 2.29.92-0ubuntu6 to gdm 2.20 (I installed package gdm-2.20 via synaptic)m, still no luck.

Today I decided to install "ubuntu-desktop" package which requires gdm as a dependency and /voilà/ my gdm (and GNOME desktop is back).

For that matters:
1) after logging in apport signaled me bug #418083.
2) I had graphics driver (for nVidia) disabled, I am renabling them and seeing what happens
3) Also bugs (which may be unrelated) bug #543484 and bug #550450
----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----
Here some package info:
cristian@cristian-asus:~$ dpkg -l gdm
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Cfg-files/Unpacked/Failed-cfg/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Nome Versione Descrizione
+++-=========================-=========================-==================================================================
ii gdm 2.29.92-0ubuntu8 GNOME Display Manager

cristian@cristian-asus:~$ dpkg -l ubuntu-desktop
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Cfg-files/Unpacked/Failed-cfg/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Nome Versione Descrizione
+++-=========================-=========================-==================================================================
ii ubuntu-desktop 1.193 The Ubuntu desktop system

[Tom Louwrier (tom-louwrier)]

Reinstalled ubuntu-desktop, rebooted.
Same behaviour as before: clicking on either my username or on the 'other user' bar leads to the login screen fading out and coming back within a second. Loop-di-loop...
The bar at the bottom of the screen is completely blank apart from the clock, so I can't choose any options for gnome to use.

Back to the workaround I described earlier (recovery mode > resume normal boot > login > startx)

Tom

[CristianCantoro (cristiancantoro)]

Can't say if it is an indipendent bug or it is related, after reboot the boot get stucked.
A similar workaround works for me: I can change console (e.g. tty1) login and the start gdm. For further reference you can find my syslog attached.

[Tom Louwrier (tom-louwrier)]

=== system now useless ===

Loaded a lot of updates today: a new kernel, gdm, gnome-session-manager and others.
- Booting without 'nomodeset' does not work because KMS is broken, no change here (bug 509273)
- Have to boot into recovery mode and then resume normal boot because gdm is broken (bug 516520)
- Could not use 'resume normal boot' anymore because Plymouth seems broken (no bugreport yet but removing Plymouth solved this. will file one in a minute)
- Can not get into my GUI anymore by manually starting X, because now X/Gnome is broken (no bugreport yet but will do so in a minute)

My Ubuntu installation is now effectively FOOBAR, so I'm back to booting Windows XP..... hip hip hooray! (not)
I must say that Alpha was a lot more stable than beta is now :-((

gr
Tom

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

Please check /var/log/auth.log for errors.

[Joshua Davison (jd-ozchat)]

Was experiencing the same login boot issue you guys describe after the current Lucid update (was working on earlier Alpha)
Tried the usual update NVidia drivers etc, No luck :-(
I couldn't login, but was able to see this by using tty1 and install Lynx (ugh!)

After seeing CristianCantoro's posts, I decided to try "sudo apt-get install gnome-desktop-environment", which solved the issue for me :-) I hope this helps others.

P.S. Yes, GDE was installed before the updates.

JD

[CristianCantoro (cristiancantoro)]

With updates the system is fully fuctional.
ii gdm 2.29.92-0ubuntu9
ii kdm 4:4.4.1-0ubuntu7
I should reconfigure to set GDM as default (now I boot with KDM). News will follow.

[Tom Louwrier (tom-louwrier)]

Booted into recovery mode then root (had to remove plymouth -which was reinstalled by some partial upgrade- to get recovery mode working). Added another user. Rebooted. Both user names appear in the login screen, but clicking either one makes the screen fade out and in again. Background stays on all the time, so no X resetting.

I'm adding /var/log/auth.log from the last time I actually could use the pc. Last night's updates to X and ATI/Radeon broke it completely and so does the live cd. No way left to boot it into anything usable since I'm not even getting a terminal anymore, let alone a GUI.
Highly frustrating, I had XP (worked), Jaunty (great) and Karmic (less great) on this laptop. Lucid has regressed over the last days to the point of wanting to get rid of it for all the headaches in KMS (kernel / X / ATI), plymouth, devicekit and gdm.
Let's see if I can find some motivation to stick with it, before it drives me back to an os I neither like nor trust.

Tom

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

> Mar 29 18:24:26 tom-laptop gdm-session-worker[1237]: pam_succeed_if(gdm:auth): requirement "user ingroup nopasswdlogin" not met by user "thomas"
> Mar 29 18:30:58 tom-laptop login[1213]: pam_unix(login:session): session opened for user thomas by LOGIN(uid=0)

This shows that somewhere between the middle of the auth stack and the session stack, the login fails silently.

Can you post the contents of your /etc/pam.d/common-auth and /etc/pam.d/common-account files? Have you modified these files by hand in the past?

[CristianCantoro (cristiancantoro)]

@Tom: Lucid is now unstable, I think these things are quite normal when you do beta test... at least I think you should be aware that is more risky to use (and headache-prone), so you can always use previous stable version instead of use other OSes ;).

Anyway, got the same behaviour after KERNEL update:
cristian@cristian-asus:~$ uname -a
Linux cristian-asus 2.6.32-18-generic #27-Ubuntu SMP Fri Mar 26 21:13:44 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux

now I am in KDE with no possibiliuty to choose GNOME in the login screen. Please note that during boot I got messages saying that the nVidia driver could not be loaded, this happened the previous time, also (i.e. I got the problem the first time after kernel upgrade and after reboot it complained about nVidia drivers).

GDM is still at the same version as before.
cristian@cristian-asus:~$ dpkg -l gdm
[...]
ii gdm 2.29.92-0ubuntu9

Another question: I am "forcing" kernel upgrades (i.e. when I apt-get update/upgrade I saw [both times] "the following packages would not be updated" and linux-headers ... where among them.
To install them I had to sudo apt-get install linux-headers ...
Am I doing right, I mean is "deprecated" to do such thing? (and if it is, how much it is?)

[CristianCantoro (cristiancantoro)]

Maybe I got it!
I had to reinstall (yet again!) the ubuntu-desktop package:

Note that I had to **install** it and it wasn't saying "already install, he just installed it has if it did not have it (and I believe it wasn't having it)... see attachment to look at what had been installed
ii ubuntu-desktop 1.193

After rebot, no complaint about graphics card, GNOME session available.

So I believe there is something in kernel updates messing with ubuntu-desktop package in a strange but reproducible way,
should I change the title to this bug?

[Tom Louwrier (tom-louwrier)]

Good to hear it makes sense to you.
I have not modified or even peeked into these files, no.

If I ever get into my Lucid installation again I will get those files and
post them here. Promised.

Tom

[CristianCantoro (cristiancantoro)]

@Tom, did you tried installing kdm (the KDE desktop manager)? That
always worked for me, anyway it seems that you are having trouble also
with authentication. Have you tried login in with single user mode?
That automatically logs you in as root if I am correct, so you can at
least avoid the first step of the problem. You just have to choose an
appropriate boot option.

2010/3/31 Tom Louwrier <email address hidden>:
> Good to hear it makes sense to you.
> I have not modified or even peeked into these files, no.
>
> If I ever get into my Lucid installation again I will get those files and
> post them here. Promised.
>
> Tom
>
> --
> lucid lynx - login screen stuck in a loop - SYSTEM BROKEN
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/516520
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Tom Louwrier (tom-louwrier)]

Cristian,

Thanx for your support.
I know very well it is beta, but until last week even alpha was a lot better than beta now. Better even than Karmic.
AFAIK a LTS release is branched off Debian stable, so should be pretty good to start with.
It's a number of bugs biting me simultaneously that have locked me out of my pc now completely.
Also, the only M$ box I have left (a win2k desktop) died on me as well for no good reason. Only reason I kept that one was because of 2 apps I need and are just not available on Linux (AutoCad and Tomtom). I'm now trying to rescue that with a i386 Live CD....

All n all pretty frustrating, does it show much?
;-)
Tom

[Tom Louwrier (tom-louwrier)]

Cristian,

No, I did not try KDE and right now I can't. I'll have to wait for this to get fixed and then reinstall from a daily cd containing the right kernel and ati drivers.
Single user mode (as in 'recovery mode > root') for repair and adding a second user, but did not startx.
The other way of getting in my system was 'recovery mode > resume normal boot > login > startx'. That gave me my desktop, but I did have to unlock my keyring manually (saw a bug report for that too).

[AO (aofrl10n)]

Bonjour,

Updated my Lucid Beta @ 05:00 am UTC, over 100 updates, rebooted. Since GDM loops, and I cannot go into recovery mode. When tryin gto go into recovery mode, I get fsck from util-linux-ng 2.1.7.2 4 times.

So I'm totally stuck

AO

[NoOp (glgxg)]

Same issue; however I found that at the end of the recovery mode messages, I hit enter, msgs to to last, and then from there I can do Ctrl-Alt-F1 and get into a console. From that I can login, stop gdm (need to use 'sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop'), and then 'startx' and I'm in.

auth.log is showing:
Mar 31 10:18:17 x gdm-session-worker[1259]: pam_succeed_if(gdm:auth): requirement "user ingroup nopasswdlogin" not met by user "x"
Mar 31 10:18:23 x gdm-session-worker[1259]: pam_unix(gdm:auth): conversation failed
Mar 31 10:18:23 x gdm-session-worker[1259]: pam_unix(gdm:auth): auth could not identify password for [x]
Mar 31 10:18:23 x gdm-session-worker[1259]: pam_winbind(gdm:auth): getting password (0x00000388)
Mar 31 10:18:23 x gdm-session-worker[1259]: pam_winbind(gdm:auth): Could not retrieve user's password
Mar 31 10:19:32 xn gdm-session-worker[1503]: pam_succeed_if(gdm:auth): requirement "user ingroup nopasswdlogin" not met by user "x"
Mar 31 10:19:39 x gdm-session-worker[1503]: pam_unix(gdm:auth): conversation failed
Mar 31 10:19:39 x gdm-session-worker[1503]: pam_unix(gdm:auth): auth could not identify password for [x]
Mar 31 10:19:39 x gdm-session-worker[1503]: pam_winbind(gdm:auth): getting password (0x00000388)
Mar 31 10:19:39 x gdm-session-worker[1503]: pam_winbind(gdm:auth): Could not retrieve user's password

Added note: This is on a system that was upgraded from 9.10 to 10.04.
  Had similar issue on a clean 10.04 install that has been kept upgraded from beta1. Gdm on that system is however working this afternoon. Looking at yesterday's auth.log on that machine shows the same errors yesterday, none today.

[NoOp (glgxg)]

Another added note: on the machine still having issues, I cannot unlock the Login Screen Settings (System|Administration|Login Screen); click 'Unlock' and it remains greyed out. On the machine that is working again, I can unlock the Login Screen Settings.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

Mar 31 10:18:23 x gdm-session-worker[1259]: pam_unix(gdm:auth): conversation failed
Mar 31 10:18:23 x gdm-session-worker[1259]: pam_unix(gdm:auth): auth could not identify password for [x]
Mar 31 10:18:23 x gdm-session-worker[1259]: pam_winbind(gdm:auth): getting password (0x00000388)
Mar 31 10:18:23 x gdm-session-worker[1259]: pam_winbind(gdm:auth): Could not retrieve user's password

Well, "conversation failed" points to a bug in gdm, definitely.

[NoOp (glgxg)]

I've got another test machine that hasn't been updated since 2.6.32-16-generic (32bit). I'll fire that one up, update it & see if I can reproduce on that one as well.

[NoOp (glgxg)]

upgraded the test machine. GDM login shows options for Language, Keyboard, Sessions and accepts the password & desktop shows up fine. I wonder if perhaps the 9.10 > 10.04 machine has issues with old policykit permissions, etc, settings? Unfortunately that machine has multiple accounts setup on it, so I can't do too much experimenting. I do however have another 9.10 test machine that I could perform an upgrade to 10.04 on if that will help. Unfortunately, the liveCD upgrades do not work yet, so to do that last will take some time as the upgrade needs to be performed via the network.

[NoOp (glgxg)]

OK. Not sure how I managed to do this, but the problem (9.10 > 10.04) machine is now working again. I modified the /etc/apt/custom.conf file to:
===
# GDM Configuration Customization file.
#
# This file is the appropriate place for specifying your customizations to the
# GDM configuration. If you run gdmsetup, it will automatically edit this
# file for you and will cause the daemon and any running GDM GUI programs to
# automatically update with the new configuration. Not all configuration
# options are supported by gdmsetup, so to modify some values it may be
# necessary to modify this file directly by hand.
#
# Older versions of GDM used the "gdm.conf" file for configuration. If your
# system has an old gdm.conf file on the system, it will be used instead of
# this file - so changes made to this file will not take effect. Consider
# migrating your configuration to this file and removing the gdm.conf file.
#
# To hand-edit this file, simply add or modify the key=value combination in
# the appropriate section in the template below. Refer to the comments in the
# /usr/share/gdm/defaults.conf file for information about each option. Also
# refer to the reference documentation.
#
# If you hand edit a GDM configuration file, you should run the following
# command to get the GDM daemon to notice the change. Any running GDM GUI
# programs will also be notified to update with the new configuration.
#
# gdmflexiserver --command="UPDATE_CONFIG <configuration key>"
#
# e.g, the "Enable" key in the "[debug]" section would be "debug/Enable".
#
# You can also run gdm-restart or gdm-safe-restart to cause GDM to restart and
# re-read the new configuration settings. You can also restart GDM by sending
# a HUP or USR1 signal to the daemon. HUP behaves like gdm-restart and causes
# any user session started by GDM to exit immediately while USR1 behaves like
# gdm-safe-restart and will wait until all users log out before restarting GDM.
#
# For full reference documentation see the gnome help browser under
# GNOME|System category. You can also find the docs in HTML form on
# http://www.gnome.org/projects/gdm/
#
# NOTE: Lines that begin with "#" are considered comments.
#
# Have fun!

[daemon]
AutomaticLogin=<username>
AlwaysLoginCurrentSession=false
AutomaticLoginEnable=true
TimedLoginEnable=false
TimedLogin=<username>
TimedLoginDelay=30
DefaultSession=gnome.desktop
===

and now the machine is booting & autologing in. Rebooted twice and the same results - machine boots up and autolog's in w/o issue. Also, System|Administration|Login Screen Unlock is working again after the reboots. I'll see if I can break it again by setting the login to 'show the screen for choosing who will log in' v 'Log in as <username> automatically'. In the interim, can other users having the same isse advise if they: 1) have upgraded from 9.10 to 10.04, have an '/etc/gdm/custom.conf' file on their system?

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

NoOp,

thanks, the PAM related files/outputs look alright. Can you please check if your /etc/gdm/custom.conf still tries to log in the "laptop" user automatically? Also, can you try changing "DefaultSession=gnome" to "DefaultSession=gnome.desktop"? (Log into a text terminal with Ctrl+Alt+F1 and do "sudo nano /etc/gdm/custom.conf").

Finally, do you have the ubuntu-desktop package installed?

[NoOp (glgxg)]

> NoOp,
>
> thanks, the PAM related files/outputs look alright. Can you please check
> if your /etc/gdm/custom.conf still tries to log in the "laptop" user
> automatically? Also, can you try changing "DefaultSession=gnome" to
> "DefaultSession=gnome.desktop"? (Log into a text terminal with
> Ctrl+Alt+F1 and do "sudo nano /etc/gdm/custom.conf").
>
> Finally, do you have the ubuntu-desktop package installed?
>

Modified custom.conf to:

[daemon]
AutomaticLogin=laptop
AlwaysLoginCurrentSession=false
AutomaticLoginEnable=true
TimedLoginEnable=false
TimedLogin=laptop
TimedLoginDelay=30
DefaultSession=gnome.desktop

rebooted and the session results in bringing up the standard gdm menu
list. Selected gg-main and it goes into the loop. Ctrl-Alt-F1 to console &
- log in as gg,
- 'sudo nano /etc/gdm/custom.conf',
- change from 'laptop' to 'gg',
- 'sudo stop gdm' and then 'sudo start gdm'
- back into user 'gg' desktop.

Yes, I have ubuntu-destop version:
$ apt-cache policy ubuntu-desktop
ubuntu-desktop:
  Installed: 1.195
  Candidate: 1.195
  Version table:
 *** 1.195 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
installed.

Attached are auth.log (for today only), 0-greeter.log.1 & 0-greeter.log.

[NoOp (glgxg)]

Martin: as a test I created the user 'laptop' & modified the custom.conf accordingly. Autologin to that username works (standard login does not), but if I try to switch to another user from 'laptop' (ggserv for example) I get the same results; gdm loops & sends me back to the switcher password to get back into 'laptop'. Ctl-Alt-F1, login as 'gg' & change custom.conf to 'gg', stop/start gdm & puts me to the 'gg' desktop, go back to the console & exit & F8 gets me back to the 'gg' desktop. I can repeat for the other usernames.

I then deleted 'laptop' (including home folder files), switch user from 'gg' and gdm menu still showing 'laptop'. So apparently deleting a user from the Users Settings isn't working, there is no 'laptop' in /home but I bring up Users Settings after reboot and I see that 'laptop' is still listed as a user.

[NoOp (glgxg)]

Martin: I know you folks are busy trying to get 10.04 out the door. So, unless you'd like me to troubleshoot further I plan to just do an inplace reinstall from today's daily. I'll reload all of my additional packages via Synaptic markings. Thanks for all the effort, but this one is just taking too much of everyone's time. It's obvious that the problem isn't in a user config as each user can login when the custom.conf file is modified accordingly. I'll hold off doing the inplace reinstall until you reply. Thanks again.

Added note: I did purge ubuntu-desktop & reinstalled - no difference.

[Johannes Rohr (jorohr)]

I did something as close as you can get to a complete reinstall: I purged everything except for the bare minimum (those packages on which ubuntu-minimal depends on), next I cleaned up the /etc dir and removed all config files which had no owner and did not belong to an installed package, including, of course, the gdm subdirectory. Next I installed ubuntu-desktop. At first, it seemed fine, I could log on. The next thing I did was to run language-selector to get the localisation back (in installed the de languages packages) and I followed the suggestion to install the nvidia proprietary drivers (which btw failed).

Now, upon reboot, I was back in the same old mess: I was unable to log on, gdm went into the same loop as before I did the cleanup. So this appears to be something serious and reproducible, deserving some real dev attention, else who knows how many people will be affected one 10.4 get out of the door officially?

[NoOp (glgxg)]

Ah, got it. I'll leave the machine in it's exisiting state for further testing. It's not a primary machine (right now) so it's not a problem for me to continue troubleshooting if it can help. BTW: no issues with my nvidia-96 drivers w/regard to compiz et al. But a user on the users list mentioned that he "fix'ed" his issue:
<quote>
I had exactly the same problem on a desktop pc after an upgrade from
9.04 to 9.10.
For some unknown reason, the screen resolution has been modified during
the upgrade process to an unsupported value.
I changed the screen resolution according the monitor's specs and the
"login loop" problem disappeared.
</quote>
Not sure if that is related to this particular bug, but thought it worth mentioning.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

those getting the issue does starting your user session using startx works correctly?

[Tom Louwrier (tom-louwrier)]

When I had the problem that is how I got myself logged in, yes. I had to
unlock the keyring manually, but that was it.
Right now it is working as it should (see earlier post; one of many
updates solved it).

cheers
Tom

[NoOp (glgxg)]

@Sebastien: not sure exactly what you are asking. If you mean 'no autologin' and at the gdm menu, Ctrl-Alt-F1-6, login at the console & then '$ startx', no it does not work.

$ startx

Fatal server error:
Server is already active for display 0
  If this server is already running, remove /tmp/.X0-lock
  and start again.
etc., etc.

However:

$ sudo stop gdm
gdm stop/waiting
$ startx

does work. So you need to kill off gdm before using startx.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

NoOp [2010-04-06 16:31 -0000]:
> Modified custom.conf to:
>
> [daemon]
> AutomaticLogin=laptop

If you don't actually have a "laptop" user, this doesn't look healthy.
How did it get there, was that damaged this way with System ->
Administration -> Login Window? Or did you add it by hand?

> rebooted and the session results in bringing up the standard gdm menu
> list. Selected gg-main and it goes into the loop. Ctrl-Alt-F1 to console &
> - log in as gg,

So is your user "gg" or "gg-main"?

> - 'sudo nano /etc/gdm/custom.conf',
> - change from 'laptop' to 'gg',
> - 'sudo stop gdm' and then 'sudo start gdm'
> - back into user 'gg' desktop.

This looks like it worked?

--
Martin Pitt | http://www.piware.de
Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org)

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

NoOp [2010-04-07 14:50 -0000]:
> For some unknown reason, the screen resolution has been modified during
> the upgrade process to an unsupported value.
> I changed the screen resolution according the monitor's specs and the
> "login loop" problem disappeared.

Ah, that would explain it, too. You can try deleting
~/.config/monitors.xml, which will not touch the resolution during
login any more.

Admittedly I'm still confused about this bug. There are several
reporters, several situations with various valid and invalid login
names, and now the screen resolution issue...

[NoOp (glgxg)]

On 04/08/2010 02:53 AM, Martin Pitt wrote:
> NoOp [2010-04-06 16:31 -0000]:
>> Modified custom.conf to:
>>
>> [daemon]
>> AutomaticLogin=laptop
>
> If you don't actually have a "laptop" user, this doesn't look healthy.
> How did it get there, was that damaged this way with System ->
> Administration -> Login Window? Or did you add it by hand?

I'd modified it by hand. I had taken your "Can you please check
if your /etc/gdm/custom.conf still tries to log in the "laptop" user
automatically?" to mean modify to try with 'laptop'. It's of course back
to 'gg'.
>
>> rebooted and the session results in bringing up the standard gdm menu
>> list. Selected gg-main and it goes into the loop. Ctrl-Alt-F1 to console &
>> - log in as gg,
>
> So is your user "gg" or "gg-main"?

User is 'gg' & home for that user is 'gg'. 'gg-main' is the machine &
sometime back I'd changed the 'full name' to 'gg-main' just so that I'd
remember the machne name. Doesn't matter. If I change the full name to
'gg' so that 'gg' shows up on the gdm menu, the results are the same. To
avoid further confusion in troubleshooting this bug I've changed it back
to 'gg'.

>
>> - 'sudo nano /etc/gdm/custom.conf',
>> - change from 'laptop' to 'gg',
>> - 'sudo stop gdm' and then 'sudo start gdm'
>> - back into user 'gg' desktop.
>
> This looks like it worked?

Yes.

[NoOp (glgxg)]

On 04/08/2010 02:55 AM, Martin Pitt wrote:
> NoOp [2010-04-07 14:50 -0000]:
>> For some unknown reason, the screen resolution has been modified during
>> the upgrade process to an unsupported value.
>> I changed the screen resolution according the monitor's specs and the
>> "login loop" problem disappeared.
>
> Ah, that would explain it, too. You can try deleting
> ~/.config/monitors.xml, which will not touch the resolution during
> login any more.

Tried that - No change. Checked the other users & monitors.xml isn't in
their ~/.config.
  However, I wouldn't expect that to make any difference anyway as that
is user dependent. As mentioned, the situation occurs even when
custom.conf is reset to log in as another user on reboot & also occurs
when I create a new user. I've also tested on the system side by using
the previous karmic xorg.conf and also tested by moving xorg.conf
completely out of the way.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

NoOp [2010-04-08 15:21 -0000]:
> User is 'gg' & home for that user is 'gg'. 'gg-main' is the machine &
> sometime back I'd changed the 'full name' to 'gg-main' just so that I'd
> remember the machne name. Doesn't matter. If I change the full name to
> 'gg' so that 'gg' shows up on the gdm menu, the results are the same. To
> avoid further confusion in troubleshooting this bug I've changed it back
> to 'gg'.

Ah, thanks for the explanation. So the AutomatiLogin= argument needs
to be an user name, not a machine name.

> >> - 'sudo nano /etc/gdm/custom.conf',
> >> - change from 'laptop' to 'gg',
> >> - 'sudo stop gdm' and then 'sudo start gdm'
> >> - back into user 'gg' desktop.
> >
> > This looks like it worked?
>
> Yes.

So what's actually left for you on this bug?

[NoOp (glgxg)]

On 04/08/2010 08:47 AM, Martin Pitt wrote:
...
>
>> >> - 'sudo nano /etc/gdm/custom.conf',
>> >> - change from 'laptop' to 'gg',
>> >> - 'sudo stop gdm' and then 'sudo start gdm'
>> >> - back into user 'gg' desktop.
>> >
>> > This looks like it worked?
>>
>> Yes.
>
> So what's actually left for you on this bug?
>

To get the gdm menu working :-) The above is from the console. I can:

1. Change the custom.conf to any of the valid users while in the desktop
(after getting there by autologin first). Example, from the 'gg'
desktop, change to 'ggserv':

[daemon]
AutomaticLogin=ggserv
AlwaysLoginCurrentSession=false
AutomaticLoginEnable=true
TimedLoginEnable=false
TimedLogin=ggserv
TimedLoginDelay=30
DefaultSession=gnome.desktop

2. Ctrl-Alt-F1-6 and get to the console and login as 'gg' (that username
has admin privileges). Note: I can also use nano to change custom.conf
after console login of course.

3. 'sudo stop gdm' then 'sudo start gdm' that will bring up the 'ggserv'
desktop.

If I want to switch back to 'gg' I cannot use the gdm menu, I must go
back to the console, change the custom.conf again back to 'gg'
(Ctrl-Alt-F1), and then start/stop gdm to get back to the 'gg' desktop.

Confusing, but that is the only way that I can switch to another user.

[Chris Thompson (chris-thompson)]

I would like to confirm that I have the same problem (as "NoOp") on a test system (inability to login using gdm login screen).
It is ok when using AutomaticLogin.
I have a single user on the system.
It failed after an update somewhere between 26 March to 6 April (I was away for a week, came back, updated and the problem appeared).
I have just been waiting for a fix thinking that such a fault would be catastrophic and would be fixed immediately, but it seems from this dialog that it is hardly recognised!

[domink (domingo-berron)]

Hi,
It looks like I have the same issue. But, I have it under control with a quite little workaround.
The problem suddenly appears when I installed privative NVidia drivers and after executed nvidia-xconfig.
Until that I have lucid working without any issue (apparently), except, obviusly, the resolution screen which it was 1024x768.
I got the suggestion to use privative drivers and I tried. After activation, the system asks for a restart and I restarted.
The system restart and when the login screen appears it was at (1600x1200). I thougth... Great!!!!!!
I selected my used and... The system goes freeze!!!
- The box for password appears and the cursor is inside but it does not blink
- I try to type chars but nothin happens
- The mouse cursor is freeze also

After a few seconds, the display looks restarted and it asks again to select the user. If I select the user, the problem happens.

Workaround:
- Open a console (Ctrl+Alt+F1, for example).
- login on the console
- Copy the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file to a "backup" folder to analyze on future
- Remove the /etc/X11/xorg.conf (sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf)
- Restart gdm (sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart)

Now the system restart with the 1024x768 resolution... but it is working and I will wait for a solution for this wait

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

NoOp [2010-04-08 17:25 -0000]:
> > So what's actually left for you on this bug?
>
> To get the gdm menu working :-)

"gdm menu" → is that System → Administration → Login Window
configuration program? (i. e. gdmsetup). Or the login screen itself,
which you see when you start the computer and disabled automatic
login?

I played around with gdmsetup a bit: Switched the automatic login user
two times, disabled automatic login in favor or timed login ("Allow 10
seconds for other users to login"), and reenabled it again, etc. This
all worked, so I really need very precise details about what's wrong
here.

From what I could understand from the bug trail so far, your problem
seems to be that custom.conf gets broken as soon as you change
something. However, you obfuscated your custom.conf in the bug trail
(like in comment 42) to say "<username>" instead of the actual
username, so it's not clear to me whether it had a working one or an
invalid one (which seemed to be the case in the meantime).

So, I understand that right now you have working autologin for the
"gg" or "ggserv" user. What do you try to to in gdmsetup (please
describe the exact steps), how does custom.conf look before and after?
I. e. in which steps can you reproduce the broken custom.conf?

Martin

--
Martin Pitt | http://www.piware.de
Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org)

[Chris Thompson (chris-thompson)]

For me the system as standard with one user "crt" (or at least via standard updates) has a frozen gdm login screen as described by others.
Modify /etc/gdm/custom.conf to add the following:
[daemon]
AutomaticLogin=crt
AlwaysLoginCurrentSession=false
AutomaticLoginEnable=true
TimedLoginEnable=false
TimedLogin=crt
TimedLoginDelay=30
DefaultSession=gnome

Restart results in user "crt" being logged in.

Log out user "crt"
Attempt to login in user "crt": gdm login screen asks for password, but mouse is frozen and no keyboard input accepted. After about 7 seconds gdm login screen redisplayed.

Restart gdm (which progresses through automatic login) to get access to graphic platform again.

Run gdmsetup to require manual login ("Show the screen for choosing who will log in") which sets AutomaticLoginEnable=false.

Restart system.

Cannot login due to frozen password dialog.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Hello Chris,

Chris Thompson [2010-04-12 11:01 -0000]:
> Attempt to login in user "crt": gdm login screen asks for password,
> but mouse is frozen and no keyboard input accepted. After about 7
> seconds gdm login screen redisplayed.

This sounds like an entirely different problem. Can you please do
ubuntu-bug and select the display symptom?

Martin
--
Martin Pitt | http://www.piware.de
Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org)

[NoOp (glgxg)]

On 04/12/2010 01:54 AM, Martin Pitt wrote:
> NoOp [2010-04-08 17:25 -0000]:
>> > So what's actually left for you on this bug?
>>
>> To get the gdm menu working :-)
>
> "gdm menu" → is that System → Administration → Login Window
> configuration program? (i. e. gdmsetup). Or the login screen itself,
> which you see when you start the computer and disabled automatic
> login?
>
> I played around with gdmsetup a bit: Switched the automatic login user
> two times, disabled automatic login in favor or timed login ("Allow 10
> seconds for other users to login"), and reenabled it again, etc. This
> all worked, so I really need very precise details about what's wrong
> here.
>
>>From what I could understand from the bug trail so far, your problem
> seems to be that custom.conf gets broken as soon as you change
> something. However, you obfuscated your custom.conf in the bug trail
> (like in comment 42) to say "<username>" instead of the actual
> username, so it's not clear to me whether it had a working one or an
> invalid one (which seemed to be the case in the meantime).
>
> So, I understand that right now you have working autologin for the
> "gg" or "ggserv" user. What do you try to to in gdmsetup (please
> describe the exact steps), how does custom.conf look before and after?
> I. e. in which steps can you reproduce the broken custom.conf?
>
> Martin
>

I'm not sure what exactly you aren't understanding; I'v described the
exact steps multiple times & tested using multiple scenarios and logins.
In the simplest terms, the symptoms are exactly as Chris Thompson has
described.

So as to remove any confusion regarding multiple users on the system
I've deleted/removed *all* users with the exception of 'gg'. Set
autologin to off (prompt for username at gdm startup), and the symptoms
are exactly as prevously described by me and the others on this report.
  In order to get to the desktop I then have to Ctrl-Alt-F1 to get to a
console, 'sudo nano /etc/gdm/custom.conf' and change it back to
'AutomaticLoginEnable=true', 'sudo stop gdm', 'sudo start gdm'. That
gets you to the desktop, then go back to the console (Ctrl-Alt-F1),
logout of the console '$ exit', and use Ctrl-Alt-F8 to get back to the
desktop.

[Chris Thompson (chris-thompson)]

I have determined that (on my system) disabling the Nvidia video driver fixes this problem.
When using the Nvidia video driver the following is found in the Xorg.0.log file:

Backtrace:
0: /usr/bin/X (xorg_backtrace+0x3b) [0x80e937b]
1: /usr/bin/X (0x8048000+0x61c7d) [0x80a9c7d]
2: (vdso) (__kernel_rt_sigreturn+0x0) [0x393410]
Segmentation fault at address (nil)

Caught signal 11 (Segmentation fault). Server aborting

Installed versions are:
nvidia-96 96.43.14-0ubuntu13
xserver-xorg-video-nv 1.2.1.15-1ubuntu3

[NoOp (glgxg)]

I'm not seeing that in my Xorg.0.log - the log file is attached.

 apt-cache policy nvidia-96
nvidia-96:
  Installed: 96.43.14-0ubuntu13
  Candidate: 96.43.14-0ubuntu13
  Version table:
 *** 96.43.14-0ubuntu13 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid/restricted Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
$ apt-cache policy nvidia-common
nvidia-common:
  Installed: 0.2.23
  Candidate: 0.2.23
  Version table:
 *** 0.2.23 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

nv is not installed:
$ apt-cache policy xserver-xorg-video-nv
xserver-xorg-video-nv:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 1:2.1.15-1ubuntu3
  Version table:
     1:2.1.15-1ubuntu3 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid/main Packages

Nor is nouveau.

[NoOp (glgxg)]

Note to Martin: can this bug be marked as 'Confirmed' rather than 'Incomplete'? Others have confirmed the same & the bug affects 12 people so far.

@Chris: by "disabling the Nvidia video driver fixes this problem", just how/what did you do to disable the driver?

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

I don't think there's anything "confirmed" about this bug. There are about six different issues being discussed in this bug, and we still don't actually have an explanation for the problem you're having on your system.

[Chris Thompson (chris-thompson)]

By "disabling" I mean using the "System->Administration->Hardware Drivers" and then specifying "Remove" as the action against Nvidia proprietary driver.

Xorg.0.log.old is a better place to look as it seems that when X crashes and restarts the crash log is remained .old, and the new instance of X writes the (at the time of looking a good) Xorg.0.log file.

My reading of the problem described is that everyone has consistently described the behaviour of the login window freezing and re-appearing shortly after.

[Chris Thompson (chris-thompson)]

<p>It appears that <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gdm/+bug/553200">bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gdm/+bug/553200</a> describes the problem that has been described in this thread.</p>
<p>I will be watching that thread from now on. </p>

[NoOp (glgxg)]

On 04/13/2010 10:48 PM, Chris Thompson wrote:
> By "disabling" I mean using the "System->Administration->Hardware
> Drivers" and then specifying "Remove" as the action against Nvidia
> proprietary driver.

Confirmed that doing the same works for me as well. Removed the driver
via the same method, changed login screen to show user names, rebooted,
got the username, clicked, entered password & desktop is up. Thanks!

Now I'll try testing by reinstalling nvidia-96 and then with just nouveau.

I'll be watching #553200 as well. Thanks again Chris.

[NoOp (glgxg)]

> Now I'll try testing by reinstalling nvidia-96 and then with just
> nouveau.

Reinstalling nvidia-96 reverts gdm back to the original symptoms. I'll
have a look at trying:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gdm/+bug/553200/comments/33

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Ah, that would explain also why I'm not able to reproduce the issue with any of the previous descriptions (changing gdmsetup, etc.). So I'm going to mark this as a duplicate of bug 553200.

If there is anyone who does _not_ use the nvidia 96 driver, can you please open a new bug with exact description of the problem? It's much easier to handle separate problems in separate bugs than trying to untangle the various configurations and scenarios of different reporters/systems in one report. Thanks!

[NoOp (glgxg)]

On 04/15/2010 01:09 AM, Martin Pitt wrote:
> *** This bug is a duplicate of bug 553200 ***
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/553200
>
> Ah, that would explain also why I'm not able to reproduce the issue with
> any of the previous descriptions (changing gdmsetup, etc.). So I'm going
> to mark this as a duplicate of bug 553200.

Thanks for all the help Martin.

[Aaron Plattner (aplattner)]

NoOp, I already mentioned in the other bug that I don't think electhor's original problem is related. Electhor was using a GeForce 8600 GT, which is not supported by the 96.43.* legacy driver, so can't have been affected by bug #553200. The rest of the discussion in this bug that *is* related to #553200 is off-topic.

Electhor, when you filed this bug, were you using the NVIDIA 96.43.* legacy driver? If not, please un-duplicate / reopen this bug.

[NoOp (glgxg)]

FYI: I was simply thanking Martin for all the time & effort spent working on this bug. So I've no idea what you are going on about.

If you read the *original* description of this bug report the *symptoms* are the same. Electhor marked it as invalid 2010-03-05, Saša reopened 2010-03-21. 553200 wasn't opened until April 1st, and while there was some speculation that the video driver may have created the problem, (comment #67) it wasn't until Chris Thomson pointed out that disabling the nvidia driver correct his problem that I tried the same with the same results. comment #88 later pointed to 55320. Unsubscribing now.

[Aaron Plattner (aplattner)]

NoOp unsubscribed, so the point is mostly moot, but the original report is not the same symptom, it describes a black screen and an X server restart *after* logging in. Bug #553200 is a hang or crash as soon as the password prompt is displayed. In addition, Saša's report confirming the original symptoms is from the intel driver.

Unduplicating.

[new2linux (darfsten-wi)]

i am still affected by this bug system all up to date as of 6:15 am central time. running lucid lynx with kernel 2.6.32-21-generic and nvidia prop driver 96.43.14.
I did see a message about plymouth as my boot line has quite and splash removed from it. however the plymouth line is NOT in dmesg so I am not sure where it's being logged to. this is an annoyance but not keeping me from running lucid on all 3 of my computers as well as my main server.

i have
blacklist vga16fb
blacklist nouveau
within my /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf also if that matters,.

[new2linux (darfsten-wi)]

sorry to do this but i can't edit my previous post (i don't think)
mountall: plymouth command failed

that's what I see when I go to tty2 immediately following boot up

[NoOp (glgxg)]

Replicated again when upgrading a another 9.10 system to 10.04 w/nvidia-96. Purposely had not set that machine to autologin & the same issue occured. Workaround is basically the same as before by adding a custom.conf file to /etc/gdm to enable autologin:

1. When gdm is looping see if you can get into a console (wait for it to settle after attempting to enter your password the first time (black screen, gdm background, then frozen gdm login display again): Ctrl-Alt-F1

2. Once into the console, login with your username and password. Then cd to the /etc/gdm folder:

$ cd /etc/gdm

3. Now create a custom.conf file if you do not alread have one using nano:

$ sudo nano custom.conf

Enter the following (substituting your regular username in the place of
<username>:

[daemon]
AutomaticLogin=<username>
AutomaticLoginEnable=true
DefaultSession=gnome
TimedLoginEnable=false
TimedLogin=<username>
TimedLoginDelay=30

Now use Ctrl-o save the file (leave it's name as custom.conf) and then Ctrl-x to exit from nano.

Note: you can do the same by using 'sudo nano /etc/gdm/custom.conf' but it may be more convenient to cd into the /etc/gdm folder first so that you can use 'ls' and 'cat custom.conf' etc., later if you wish without having to add the path in the commands.

Added Note: if you by chance already have a custom.conf on the system already just change

AutomaticLoginEnable=false

to

AutomaticLoginEnable=true

4. Now, back at the console prompt ($):

$ sudo stop gdm
$ sudo start gdm

That _should _ get you into the desktop. Leave autologin enabled until the bug is fixed.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Alberto has uploaded a fixed driver to unapproved, will be accepted after the release candidate.

[Woonjas (woonjas)]

I've run into this login loop on my z61m Thinkpad with ATI Radeon card.
The workaround by logging into tty, stopping gdm and then using startx gets me into X

After creating a new user and restarting gdm, I noticed that the logon works for the new user, but not for my own account which was working fine before upgrading from Karmic (64 bit).

To me this indicates a problem with saved preferences, but I'm not sure which .xxxxxx directories (or individual files) I need to delete/modify to get my account to work again.

[JamesH (sammy-joe)]

First of all I do not see any connection between this bug and 553200. This is a login loop issue, not a keyboard/mouse issue. I also have a nvidia card and a login loop issue. I am running Ubuntu 9.10. I have found this to be a timing issue with the video card. If I log in over and over, I eventually get into the system.

There are many people with this problem. Many think they have a solution, but the problem is intermittent. At one point, I did not see an issue for about 4 weeks, then it came back.

Google "Ubuntu 9.10 login loop" and you will see various hits (including http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1338879). Also google "ubuntu xorg.conf". Ubuntu 9.10 does not have a xorg.conf by default. However I regenerated an xorg.conf for my system (gdm stop, sudo Xorg -configure, ...). After doing so, I still had the problem, but did not have to do as many retries. Some people report that after trying some change, they only need a couple of login tries to login. This is because the change they made CHANGED THE TIMING ON THEIR SYSTEM. People with a slower CPU will have less problems. I proved this on my computer by moving the mouse back and forth very rapidly during the login process (after entering my password). I was able to log in with success almost every time. This problem slipped through testing because the programmer had a slow system. The fix will be to add software delays during the login process to allow the nvidia card to change resolution and any other setup it needs between login and the main gui.