Greeter starts again and again after login

Hi everyone !

Starting on my computer as everyday, I get my greeter screen to login in my session. I write the password, which is good (I get a confirmation message), then black screen (as usual), and instead of arriving on my desktop I come back on the greeter page…
As well as I installed the lightdm-webkit2-greeter theme, I accessed to the tty to switch on the lightdm-gtk-greeter theme through the lightdm.conf file. It doesn’t change anything. I then tried to update my computer, nothing changed.

Last time I accessed to my session, I only updated Thunderbird, that’s all.

I searched on forums, but I did not found the same issue. So I ask for your help guys ! Thanks !

EDIT : Next to Fabby answer (thanks a lot !), I created another user (called primavalou2 to stay accurate with your proposal), then I tried logging into the GUI with that one, and I could access to the session ! I then tried again with my original session but it still doesn’t work.

As you asked for, here is my inxi output :

System:
  Kernel: 5.10.61-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.1.0 
  parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.10-x86_64 
  root=UUID=a40fc586-5371-4b6e-baa7-0fae6eaddeea rw quiet 
  cryptdevice=UUID=5a520a86-b112-4ddb-928a-bc8773e8ca3d:luks-5a520a86-b112-4ddb-928a-bc8773e8ca3d 
  root=/dev/mapper/luks-5a520a86-b112-4ddb-928a-bc8773e8ca3d apparmor=1 
  security=apparmor 
  resume=/dev/mapper/luks-27380bc8-b40a-4238-a301-a1b369044eda 
  udev.log_priority=3 
  Desktop: Xfce 4.16.0 tk: Gtk 3.24.29 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm 4.16.1 vt: 7 
  dm: LightDM 1.30.0 Distro: Manjaro Linux base: Arch Linux 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Micro-Star product: GE60 0NC/GE60 0ND v: REV:1.0 
  serial: <filter> Chassis: Micro-Star International type: 10 serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: Micro-Star model: MS-16GA v: REV:1.0 serial: <filter> 
  BIOS: American Megatrends v: E16GAIMS.10F date: 12/18/2012 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT1 charge: 15.6 Wh (69.3%) condition: 22.5/48.8 Wh (46.0%) 
  volts: 11.3 min: 11.1 model: NEC PC-VP-BP77 type: Li-ion serial: N/A 
  status: Discharging 
Memory:
  RAM: total: 7.67 GiB used: 2.13 GiB (27.8%) 
  RAM Report: permissions: Unable to run dmidecode. Root privileges required. 
CPU:
  Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-3230M bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Ivy Bridge family: 6 model-id: 3A (58) stepping: 9 microcode: 21 
  cache: L2: 3 MiB bogomips: 20761 
  Speed: 1197 MHz min/max: 1200/3200 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1197 2: 1905 
  3: 1891 4: 1197 
  Flags: acpi aes aperfmperf apic arat arch_perfmon avx bts clflush cmov 
  constant_tsc cpuid cpuid_fault cx16 cx8 de ds_cpl dtes64 dtherm dts epb ept 
  erms est f16c flexpriority flush_l1d fpu fsgsbase fxsr ht ibpb ibrs ida 
  lahf_lm lm mca mce md_clear mmx monitor msr mtrr nonstop_tsc nopl nx pae pat 
  pbe pcid pclmulqdq pdcm pebs pge pln pni popcnt pse pse36 pti pts rdrand 
  rdtscp rep_good sep smep ss ssbd sse sse2 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 stibp syscall 
  tm tm2 tpr_shadow tsc tsc_deadline_timer vme vmx vnmi vpid x2apic xsave 
  xsaveopt xtopology xtpr 
  Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled 
  Type: l1tf 
  mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable 
  Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable 
  Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
  Type: spec_store_bypass 
  mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
  Type: spectre_v1 
  mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, 
  IBRS_FW, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling 
  Type: srbds status: Vulnerable: No microcode 
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics vendor: Micro-Star MSI 
  driver: i915 v: kernel bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:0166 class-ID: 0300 
  Device-2: NVIDIA GK107M [GeForce GT 650M] vendor: Micro-Star MSI 
  driver: nouveau v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:0fd1 class-ID: 0300 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.13 compositor: xfwm4 v: 4.16.1 driver: 
  loaded: modesetting alternate: fbdev,vesa display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1 
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1366x768 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 361x203mm (14.2x8.0") 
  s-diag: 414mm (16.3") 
  Monitor-1: LVDS-1 res: 1366x768 hz: 60 dpi: 101 size: 344x193mm (13.5x7.6") 
  diag: 394mm (15.5") 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 4000 (IVB GT2) 
  v: 4.2 Mesa 21.2.1 compat-v: 3.0 direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 7 Series/C216 Family High Definition Audio 
  vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 
  chip-ID: 8086:1e20 class-ID: 0403 
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.10.61-1-MANJARO running: yes 
  Sound Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.19 running: no 
  Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 15.0 running: yes 
  Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.3.34 running: no 
Network:
  Device-1: Qualcomm Atheros Killer E220x Gigabit Ethernet 
  vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: alx v: kernel port: c000 bus-ID: 03:00.0 
  chip-ID: 1969:e091 class-ID: 0200 
  IF: enp3s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Intel Centrino Wireless-N 135 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: c000 
  bus-ID: 05:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:0892 class-ID: 0280 
  IF: wlp5s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
  IP v4: <filter> type: dynamic noprefixroute scope: global 
  broadcast: <filter> 
  IP v6: <filter> type: dynamic noprefixroute scope: global 
  IP v6: <filter> type: noprefixroute scope: link 
  WAN IP: <filter> 
Bluetooth:
  Message: No bluetooth data found. 
Logical:
  Message: No logical block device data found. 
  Device-1: luks-5a520a86-b112-4ddb-928a-bc8773e8ca3d maj-min: 254:0 
  type: LUKS dm: dm-0 size: 457.53 GiB 
  Components: 
  p-1: sda1 maj-min: 8:1 size: 457.53 GiB 
  Device-2: luks-27380bc8-b40a-4238-a301-a1b369044eda maj-min: 254:1 
  type: LUKS dm: dm-1 size: 8.23 GiB 
  Components: 
  p-1: sda2 maj-min: 8:2 size: 8.23 GiB 
RAID:
  Message: No RAID data found. 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 465.76 GiB used: 291.16 GiB (62.5%) 
  SMART Message: Required tool smartctl not installed. Check --recommends 
  ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Western Digital 
  model: WD5000LPVX-22V0TT0 size: 465.76 GiB block-size: physical: 4096 B 
  logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: HDD rpm: 5400 serial: <filter> 
  rev: 1A01 scheme: MBR 
  Optical-1: /dev/sr0 vendor: TSSTcorp model: CDDVDW SN-208DB rev: TM00 
  dev-links: cdrom 
  Features: speed: 24 multisession: yes audio: yes dvd: yes 
  rw: cd-r,cd-rw,dvd-r,dvd-ram state: running 
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 457.53 GiB size: 449.27 GiB (98.20%) 
  used: 291.16 GiB (64.8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-0 maj-min: 254:0 
  mapped: luks-5a520a86-b112-4ddb-928a-bc8773e8ca3d label: N/A 
  uuid: a40fc586-5371-4b6e-baa7-0fae6eaddeea 
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default) cache-pressure: 100 (default) 
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8.23 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 
  dev: /dev/dm-1 maj-min: 254:1 
  mapped: luks-27380bc8-b40a-4238-a301-a1b369044eda label: N/A 
  uuid: 1702c0e3-17a3-486b-b44a-ab154bdc2ddd 
Unmounted:
  Message: No unmounted partitions found. 
USB:
  Hub-1: 1-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 2 rev: 2.0 
  speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0002 class-ID: 0900 
  Hub-2: 1-1:2 info: Intel Integrated Rate Matching Hub ports: 6 rev: 2.0 
  speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 8087:0024 class-ID: 0900 
  Hub-3: 2-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 2 rev: 2.0 
  speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0002 class-ID: 0900 
  Hub-4: 2-1:2 info: Intel Integrated Rate Matching Hub ports: 6 rev: 2.0 
  speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 8087:0024 class-ID: 0900 
  Hub-5: 3-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 4 rev: 2.0 
  speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0002 class-ID: 0900 
  Hub-6: 4-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 4 rev: 3.0 speed: 5 Gb/s 
  chip-ID: 1d6b:0003 class-ID: 0900 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 29.8 C mobo: 27.8 C gpu: nouveau temp: 29.0 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:
  Processes: 210 Uptime: 6m wakeups: 1 Init: systemd v: 248 tool: systemctl 
  Compilers: gcc: 11.1.0 Packages: 1236 pacman: 1226 lib: 338 flatpak: 6 
  snap: 4 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.8 running-in: xfce4-terminal inxi: 3.3.06

If you need more info / log files / anything else to diagnose the issue, feel free to ask !

1 Like

It looks like you still have access to the console, so could you humour me and create another user in the console and try logging into the GUI with that one? (E.G. primavalou2)

Is the problem the same for that user?

If yes,

  1. Please read this:
    How to provide good information
    and press the three dots below your post and press the :pencil2: to give us more information so we can see what’s really going on.
    Now we know the symptom of the disease, but we need some more probing to know where the origin lies… :grin:
  2. An inxi --admin --verbosity=7 --filter --no-host --width would be the minimum required information for us to be able to help you. (Personally Identifiable Information like serial numbers and MAC addresses will be filtered out by the above command)
    Also, please copy-paste that output in-between 3 backticks ``` at the beginning and end of the code/text.

:+1:

P.S. If you want to notify me that you did provide this information, please :heart: this message and I’ll come back and have another look.

1 Like

Hi everyone, do you miss any information ? I still can’t access to my session, which is very annoying… I hope someone could try to help me, else I would have to install a fresh OS. Quite radical as a solution, I hope I can try others before…

So you have an issue in your user profile and finding out which exact setting you changed is going to take weeks if not months, therefore, we’re going to do the following:

  • Verify that the new user has access to the same groups as your old one by executing groups and comparing the output of both users.

    groups twitty
    groups twitty2
    

    (Where obviously, twitty is your old user and twitty2 is your new one.)
    E.G. if twitty is a member of operator and twitty2 isn’t, execute:

    usermod --append --groups operator twitty2
    
  • Copy all data files from your old profile into your new one

    cp --verbose --recursive --preserve=timestamps /home/twitty/Documents/* /home/twitty2/Documents/
    

    If that worked and you had no errors, remove the documents from your old user:

    rm --recursive /home/twitty/Documents/*
    

    repeat for:

    • Pictures
    • Videos
    • Music
    • .thunderbird
    • .mozilla/firefox/
    • Templates, and everything else that is important to you.
    • Linux games like Battle of Wesnoth have their game data stored under ~/.local/share/ E.G. ~/.local/share/wesnoth/
  • After everything has been copied over, disable the old user so you cannot accidentally log on to it any more:

    usermod --lock twitty
    
  • If you would have theming or other customisations going on, don’t do everything in one day but do this at the rate of 1 application / theme / … per day and if the same issue crops up again, roll back your last change and thus you’ve now pinpointed the exact setting that made your old user misbehave. :thinking:

  • in 1 month delete the entire home directory of your old user, but don’t delete the user itself so that in 6 months time files still owned by that user will still show up under its username.

  • If you ever migrate to a new machine, just don’t migrate the old user: only the new one.

  • From now on, start making backups so you can roll back and never have to do this again:

Right, I won’t waste your time for weeks/months, and I prefer to be able to access to my computer now than for Christmas !

The copy of all my data worked well, but Thunderbird and Firefox gave me error messages then. I so moved the content of their folder in a temporary one, tried to launch them, and they worked. For sure I had to configure each again, but that was not so annoying for me. I had to do the same for onlyoffice, else it could not open new blank files.

Other issue : some files or folders was then owned by root (so no write access with my fresh new user), even next to give the access to the same groups than the previous user to the new one. Next to copying every file, I run that command to solve that :

sudo chown -R primavalou2 /home/primavalou2

Thanks for your help ! I am now following your tutorial for backups !

1 Like

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