unable to login after restart

Asked by Bidski

I installed Ubuntu 10.04 LTS on to my system, booted up for the first time and logged in. Did a load of updates (like 224 of them of something) then had to restart.

Logged back in again, installed some more software (G++, wxWidgets, Eclipse, OpenJDK, with associated dependencies) and a NVIDIA driver which required another restart.

After that last restart, Ubuntu boots back to the login screen, but there is no login dialog, just the wallapaper. I tried booting into the recovery console and running dpkg-reconfigure gdm, but this didnt work.

This is a recurring problem for me. I have re-installed Ubuntu 3 or 4 times now all because of the same problem (I cant say if the same things happened on the other occassions, but the error is the same).

Why is this happening?

Regards
Bidski

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Bidski (bidski) said :
#1

Forgot to mention. Its the AMD64 version of Ubuntu 10.04 and Im also dual-booting with Windows 7 using grub installed by Ubuntu (Windows seems unable to add an Ubuntu boot entry ........ typical windows)

Regards
Bidski

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inashdeen (inashdeen) said :
#2

there might be a few errors:
1) theres a bug. if you had downloaded nvidia driver, better remove. i haduse nvidia driver before, it caused a lot of problem
2) your gnome panel might be missing. to install it, do some googling
3) your entire gnome DE os lost, try to go to gnome website at get the package back.

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marcobra (Marco Braida) (marcobra) said :
#3

Please try this:

Please first boot in recovery mode and from the terminal,
Please be sure you are connected to a network via ethernet cable and use dhclient from the command line to get an internet connection type:

sudo dhclient

(if the system ask you a password give your user password, you will not see nothing when you type it, then press enter)

sudo dpkg --configure -a
sudo apt-get -f install
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get --reinstall --purge install gdm gnome-session
sudo apt-get --reinstall --purge install indicator-applet-session apparmor

sudo reboot

Hth

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marcobra (Marco Braida) (marcobra) said :
#4

Or better try this... not in recovery mode:

After upgrade to Ubuntu 10.04 cannot login

Please try this:

Please press ctrl+alt+f2 and made login with your user and password
Please be sure you are connected to a network via ethernet cable and use dhclient from the command line to get an internet connection type:

sudo dhclient

(if the system ask you a password give your user password, you will not see nothing when you type it, then press enter)

sudo dpkg --configure -a
sudo apt-get -f install
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get --reinstall --purge install gdm gnome-session
sudo apt-get --reinstall --purge install indicator-applet-session apparmor

sudo reboot

Hth

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Bidski (bidski) said :
#5

Just tried this. Booted into recovery mode then went to netroot (root terminal with network support).
sudo dhclient
sudo dpkg --configure -a
sudo apt-get -f install
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get --reinstall --purge install gdm gnome-session
sudo apt-get --reinstall --purge install indicator-applet-session apparmor
sudo reboot

Upon running the 2 apt-get --reinstall commands I received the following message

error processing gdm (--configure):
    subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 245

The other commands appear to have completed without error.

---------------------

1) theres a bug. if you had downloaded nvidia driver, better remove. i haduse nvidia driver before, it caused a lot of problem
2) your gnome panel might be missing. to install it, do some googling
3) your entire gnome DE os lost, try to go to gnome website at get the package back.

Is it possible to complete any of these from a terminal or from my Windows installation? Sorry, im not very knowledgable about these things, im still new to unix type OSes.

Regards
Bidski

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#6

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

in root recovery mode. At the login screen you could try CTRL+ALT+F1 and login there, then run:

startx

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#7
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Bidski (bidski) said :
#8

Ok, I have good news and I have bad news.

I had a look at the site that actionparsnip mentioned. It wasnt possible to just type my password in to a "blank" screen. If I remember rightly, I had to click on my username in a dialog that popped up then enter my password.

As for the other suggestions on that site....

1) running xfix .... this option wasnt available in my recovery console
2) editing /etc/gdm/custom.conf to enable AutomaticLogin ........ the file didnt exist on my system, I ended up creating it but for some reason it wouldnt save any changes to the file.
3) running dpkg-reconfigure xerver-xorg (also suggested by actionparsnip) ....... this didnt appear to work either (I did this after I wasnt able to successfully edit the file from the previous step then did a reboot).

I then went back to my Windows system and checked my emails again (because I forgot to write down actionparsnips last suggestion :( ). Rebooted again, went to the recovery console, then to the root terminal and ran startx.

This successfully loaded up my desktop, yay!

However, I was faced with a "half-empty" screen and 8 error messages

The panel encountered a problem while loading OAFIID:GNOME_ClockApplet
The panel encountered a problem while loading OAFIID:GNOME_IndicatorApplter
The panel encountered a problem while loading OAFIID:GNOME_Panel_TrashApplet
The panel encountered a problem while loading OAFIID:GNOME_ShowDesktopApplet
The panel encountered a problem while loading OAFIID:GNOME_NotificationAreaApplet
The panel encountered a problem while loading OAFIID:GNOME_WindowListApplet
The panel encountered a problem while loading OAFIID:GNOME_WorkspaceApplet
The panel encountered a problem while loading OAFIID:GNOME_FastUserSwitchApplet

With the result being that I now only have a background, a grey-ish bar with nothing on it at the botton of the screen and a grey-ish bar with only a menu (Applications, Places, System, Firefox and Help) on it and no apparent way to restart or shutdown from the desktop.

Im leaving this question open for now as I feel those error messages might be related to my original problem.

Regards
Bidski

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#9

You will need to run:

gksudo gedit /etc/gdm/custom.conf

Users dont have write access to the file so you must use sudo (and in this case gksudo due to gedit being an X based app) to get write access.

Revision history for this message
Bidski (bidski) said :
#10

Just to update, this "bug" is the same as described here (https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/117827).

Anyone know why zlib-1.2.5 "breaks" gdm?

I downloaded zlib-1.2.5 from www.zlib.net and built/installed it using the following
1) unpack the archive
2) cd zlib-1.2.5
3) ./configure --64
4) make
5) make test (all tests passed)
5) sudo make install

Regards
Bidski

PS: I am now using zlib1g and zlib1g-dev (from Ubuntu Software Center) in stead of zlib-1.2.5

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