"Sorry, password authentication didn't work. Please try again." - After install

Now - that is a problem - and it is most likely caused by the system trying to use the fingerprint reader and failing.

If I understand your latest comment correct - you are not allowed TTY login using your username?

One way to troubleshoot is if you reboot and bring up the grub menu - then edit the entry - and add the number three (3) to the end of the kernel command line.

This will just boot to command line and you can verify the login without the GDM displaymanger locking you out.

I’m kinda stuck for solutions, does dmesg or your journal have any clues as to what is happening ?
if disabling the hardware and removing the fprint packages I’m kinda stumped as to why the failed fingerprint messages keep happening and supposedly locking you out.

If I understand your latest comment correct - you are not allowed TTY login using your username?

That is correct. It works with root though, something is very fishy here.

One way to troubleshoot is if you reboot and bring up the grub menu - then edit the entry - and add the number three (3) to the end of the kernel command line.

This will just boot to command line and you can verify the login without the GDM displaymanger locking you out.

Will try it out.

Edit:

then edit the entry - and add the number three (3) to the end of the kernel command line.

Where is that stored ? As I only can select Edit Boot Options or GRUB CLI (I’m not very low-level proficient).

Bring up the grub menu - using Shift during a reboot.

Then on the default entry press e

In the editor that pops up navigate to the line with the word quiet then add the number three to the end of the line - then press F10 to continue booting.

That did not work. To add: I have encrypted my HD. After typing in my decryption key I do (press on shift multiple times to see if it gets triggered) as you mentioned but it just booted to login screen.

Ouch - while I have played with encryption I don’t use it - and I have zero experience in troubleshotting issues involving encrypted systems.

I don’t know how to continue …

I suspect there is a configuration in /etc/pam.d which is referring the fingerprint reader - but I have no idea where and even less idea on how to proceed.

I apologize for not being able to help you solve this…

1 Like

I had actually to press on ESC, I was already previously in the GRUB menu. Now seeing only a TTY as expected.

Edit: same as before, my user gets login incorrect while root can login without issues.

While logged in as root on TTY - try unlocking your username

usermod -U <username>

Don’t reboot - just logout with the command exit and try login with your username

When this happens and you’re logged in as root, check the failllock status for your $user:

# faillock --user $user

Possibly reset

# faillock --user $user --reset

and try login as $user again.

Try disabling fingerprint authentication for your uses, so that your system does not try and fail to login with fingerprint without your input:

https://help.gnome.org/admin/system-admin-guide/stable/login-fingerprint.html.en

Thank you all for the reply. I ended up wiping the distro again, only this time during install, I did not selected “Same password for superuser”, and instead typed the exact same password for the root, as for my user. What this solved for me was:

  • I am no longer blocked from logging in, although I still get the message about the fingerprint. Still, I can login so that is less one problem.

But now another thing arose. When installing software via the Add Software application, all packages get installed correctly but if I try to install via terminal I get the following: Sorry, try again.

I get the same output when trying with the sudo -i command. So now I can not use sudo from within terminal but I can via software application ? Also any sudo related command fails.

Edit: I’ve logged out, tried logging on tty (virtual console) and I could successfully login as root and as my user.

Edit 2: The same happens when on TTY with my user. If I login as my user and attempt sudo -i I get Sorry, try again. as if the sudo password is incorrect.

Edit 3: I’ve noticed that I’m not in sudo group:

groups:
network power users storage lp input audio wheel <my_username_group>*

*Omited for privacy.
I’ve tried adding myself to sudo (usermod -a -G sudo ) via TTY but I got a message stating that sudo group does not exist. What ?! @linux-aarhus do you have any input on this ?

Edit 4: su worked, but sudo -i did not.

Given the current situation (described here), I’ve tried doing that and nothing changed.

This actually had not effect. I did this, and when went back, I was locked out for 10min because of fingerprint :sweat_smile:

I’ve tried this but it did not help. I ended up removing the fprintd and libfprint packages and now I no longer have this issue.

Exactly as here: Gnome wants fingerprint and password after update

Followed this page and some applied to my case. Changing passwords did not help, checked the following:

ls -ld /etc/pam.d
ls -l /etc/pam.d/sudo
cat /etc/pam.d/sudo

Output:

[manjaro etc]# ls -ld /etc/pam.d
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 jul 20 15:44 /etc/pam.d
[manjaro etc]# ls -l /etc/pam.d/sudo
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 243 jul 19 18:31 /etc/pam.d/sudo
[manjaro etc]# cat /etc/pam.d/sudo
#%PAM-1.0

auth required pam_env.so
# auth sufficient pam_fprintd.so
# auth sufficient pam_unix.so try_first_pass likeauth nullok
auth required pam_deny.so
auth		include		system-auth
account		include		system-auth
session		include		system-auth

Mine looks different, it still is unchanged as provided by sudo package:

$ cat /etc/pam.d/sudo
#%PAM-1.0
auth            include         system-auth
account         include         system-auth
session         include         system-auth

Could you show me the output of your groups and sudo -l ?

I think that I might be missing something.

Also to note that I’ve installed the Gnome minimal version and not the “full” one. What I did today:

  • Install minimal version in VM and recreate the sudo issue
  • Install full version in VM and recreate the sudo issue

In both test cases, I had no issues with sudo, leaving me to believe that either fingerprint was messing all of this, or my download .iso was corrupted, although has the was correct :thinking:

Also, my USB is somehow faulty, as when formatting it, it takes lots of time (64GB Kingston, USB3.0)

Ok, after attempting again to just continue with my issues, after a restart I was not longer able to login agian. My username was not displayed on the login window, and when I typed my username and password I got the message that password was not correct (I could not even login from a TTY). I then proceeded to:

  1. Download a new full manjaro .iso (not the minimal version as I previously did)
  2. Burn on the same USB
  3. Wipe and install laptop

After doing these steps, was able to login into my user and sudo was working ok. For now I won’t be upgrading since the extension is broken with the current version of Gnome (dash-to-dock) since it breaks my workflow. Given my previous issues with fingerprint I decided to not install any updates/upgrades and leave the system be (proceeded only to install the packages that I needed). Although to avoid any future issues with fingerprint, I did the following (as per archwiki):

Before file change:

cat /etc/pam.d/system-local-login                                                          
#%PAM-1.0

auth      include   system-login
account   include   system-login
password  include   system-login
session   include   system-login


cat /etc/pam.d/sudo                                                          
#%PAM-1.0

auth required pam_env.so
auth sufficient pam_fprintd.so
auth sufficient pam_unix.so try_first_pass likeauth nullok
auth required pam_deny.so
auth		include		system-auth
account		include		system-auth
session		include		system-auth

After file change:
/etc/pam.d/system-local-loginremained the same

cat /etc/pam.d/sudo                                                          
#%PAM-1.0

auth required pam_env.so
# auth sufficient pam_fprintd.so
# auth sufficient pam_unix.so try_first_pass likeauth nullok
auth required pam_deny.so
auth		include		system-auth
account		include		system-auth
session		include		system-auth

Also removed the packages:
sudo pacman -R fprintd libfprint

  1. Restart
  2. Login into user → sucess
  3. Try sudo -i → Got incorrect password
  4. Removed previously added # to /etc/pam.d/sudo
  5. Restart
  6. Login into user → sucess
  7. Try sudo -i → sucess

So apparently, those two lines were most probably the ones that did not allow me to use sudo in terminal. All this happened on the following version:

DISTRIB_ID=ManjaroLinux
DISTRIB_RELEASE=21.0.7
DISTRIB_CODENAME=Ornara

Edit: Fixed typos and made text more clear. Will report back in a couple of days if all goes well, and accept this as solution.

Edit 2: So 3 days later and I’m not experiencing any issues whatsoever. I still haven’t upgraded (and probably will not for the next several months). I’ll accept this as a solution.

This topic was automatically closed 15 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.