Rhean: Added login looping section, minor edits.

2011-09-29T19:22:33Z

Added login looping section, minor edits.

Messingerevan: New page: This page assumes that you have the password for the user account. For instructions on resetting the password to a known value, see Lost_Password. This page is about problems that can...

2011-04-21T23:12:46Z

New page: This page assumes that you have the password for the user account. For instructions on resetting the password to a known value, see Lost_Password. This page is about problems that can...

New page

This page assumes that you have the password for the user account. For instructions on resetting the password to a known value, see [[Lost_Password]].

This page is about problems that can arise after your user password is accepted. The problem discussed here will have '''all''' or '''most''' of the following symptoms:
*an abnormally long log-in time
*error dialog popups such as:
**could not update /home/USER/.ICEauthority
**gconf-sanity-check-2 exited with status 256
*no panels (but alt+ctrl+t and alt+F2 work)
*no sound and inability to change sound preferences
*very few (if any) files beginning with '''.''' in /home/USER (check with ls -la /home/USER)
If you have only a few of these symptoms, check the section below for your actual problem (however using the fix on this page won't harm anything).

===Other Problems That May Look Like This One===
*If there is literally no space left on the drive (or root partition), log in will complain that it can't access the user's home folder or create certain files '''then fail'''. Free some space on the drive.
*Bad hard drive. Do you hear clicking from the drive? Did it also take a very long time to start ubuntu? Is '''nothing at all''' happening for a very long time after log in before the process resolves normally? Back up and replace the drive.
*No /home/USER folder or /home/USER folder manually created as root or user is not in the right groups. From a root shell, create a new user:
adduser NEWUSER
and copy over the contents of the /home/OLDUSER directory:
cp -Rv /home/OLDUSER/* /home/NEWUSER/
*Problems with individual daemons or programs. You might want to try reinstalling gdm or pulseaudio, as these are complex programs that are harder to configure than they are to use.
*If your problem is not listed here or you find an additional solution, please add to this page!

===Fix===

The permissions and/or owner of the /home/USER directory are preventing programs and daemons from creating per-session configuration files. Check with:
ls -la /home
The user folders should all look like:
drwxr-xr-x USER:USER someDate USER
If they do, check the section above for your actual problem (however using the fix below won't harm anything).

Make sure each user's home folder is owned by that user:
sudo chown USER:USER /home/USER
and that it has read and execute permissions for its own user and other users:
sudo chmod 755 /home/user

[[Category: Tech support]]

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 This page assumes that you have the password for the user account. For instructions on resetting the password to a known value, see [[Lost_Password]].
 This page is about problems that can arise after your user password is accepted. The problem discussed here will have '''all''' or '''most''' of the following symptoms:
-*an abnormally long log-in time
+*An abnormally long log-in time
-*error dialog popups such as:
+*Error dialog popups such as:
-**could not update /home/USER/.ICEauthority
+**Could not update /home/USER/.ICEauthority
 **gconf-sanity-check-2 exited with status 256
-*no panels (but alt+ctrl+t and alt+F2 work)
+*No panels (but alt+ctrl+t and alt+F2 work)
-*no sound and inability to change sound preferences
+*No sound and inability to change sound preferences
-*very few (if any) files beginning with '''.''' in /home/USER (check with ls -la /home/USER)
+*Very few (if any) files beginning with '''.''' in /home/USER (check with ls -la /home/USER)
 If you have only a few of these symptoms, check the section below for your actual problem (however using the fix on this page won't harm anything).
-===Other Problems That May Look Like This One===
+===Login Looping===
 *If there is literally no space left on the drive (or root partition), log in will complain that it can't access the user's home folder or create certain files '''then fail'''. Free some space on the drive.
 *Bad hard drive. Do you hear clicking from the drive? Did it also take a very long time to start ubuntu? Is '''nothing at all''' happening for a very long time after log in before the process resolves normally? Back up and replace the drive.
@@ Line 21: / Line 32: @@
 *If your problem is not listed here or you find an additional solution, please add to this page!
-===Fix===
+==Fix==
 The permissions and/or owner of the /home/USER directory are preventing programs and daemons from creating per-session configuration files. Check with:
@@ Line 33: / Line 44: @@
 and that it has read and execute permissions for its own user and other users:
   sudo chmod 755 /home/user
 [[Category: Tech support]]

Log In Problems - Revision history

Rhean: Added login looping section, minor edits.

Messingerevan: New page: This page assumes that you have the password for the user account. For instructions on resetting the password to a known value, see Lost_Password. This page is about problems that can...