Missing User

Asked by srikumar

Have upgraded from Ubuntu 16.10 to 17.04 .

The user(not an administrator) set up under U 16.10 has disappeared in U 17.04.
Tried to add as a new user in U 17.04 but the following error message is shown:-

Failed to add account
running 'usr/sbin/adduser' failed: Child process exited with code 1

also tried:-
>sudo adduser staff
>The group "staff" already exists.
but the user "staff " is not displayed when logging in nor on the adduser graphical menu

also tried:-
>sudo deluser staff
> The user "staff" does not exist

It seems that the user "staff" remains hidden somewhere.
How to delete/remove this user completely and then add this as a new user

Thank you

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Solved by:
Manfred Hampl
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Manfred Hampl (m-hampl) said :
#1

...
>sudo adduser staff
>The group "staff" already exists.
...

If you read the man pages for adduser you will see "By default, each user ... is given a corresponding group with the same name. "
The error messages tells that there is already a group "staff" defined on your system. The command that you give tries creating a new "staff" group, and that fails because it apparently is already existing.

You have to either
use another user (and group) name than "staff"
or
delete the group "staff" before you add a new user (and group) with that name
or
add options to the adduser command that you can use the already-existing "staff" group for the new user "staff".

Revision history for this message
srikumar (ssrikumar) said :
#2

Thank you. I would like to use either option 2 or 3.

How to delete the group ".staff"
OR
What is the command to use the existing "staff" group for the new user "staff"

Thank you.

Revision history for this message
Best Manfred Hampl (m-hampl) said :
#3

Read the documentation (groupdel respectively useradd -g GROUP or adduser --ingroup GROUP etc.).

Revision history for this message
srikumar (ssrikumar) said :
#4

used the following command:-

> sudo delgroup staff
which deleted the group staff

added a new user using the graphical interface.

Thank you.

Revision history for this message
srikumar (ssrikumar) said :
#5

Thanks Manfred Hampl, that solved my question.