Can't get past sign-in screen, after BleachBit run

[tomcloyd]

Because this involves (I suspect) aspects of two complex systems, I've cross- posted this in the BleachBit (BB) forum.

I'm new to BB, but have done 3 successful runs, on WinVista and Kubuntu (KB) 13.10.

Today, I ran it, with supervisor privileges, on one of my several KB boxes. I held back nothing - checked all boxes, including the "System > Memory" experimental option. At EOJ, I found I could not quit BB. I rebooted.

Then I found that when the account signon screen came up I could not sign in on the one account I've set up. There is also a default guest account, with no password (I just loaded this OS the other day, from scratch, and haven't ditched that yet). I can get into the OS with that of course. But I cannot sign in via my usual account. It accepts my password, blanks the screen for a second, then returns to the sign in screen. Rebooting several times, I always get this experience.

Booting into the KB recovery mode screen, I ran a file system check (OK), checked for broken packages (none), and reinstalled GRUB - all that I know enough about to do. None of it made any difference.

So, while I know I can always reload the OS (which is in its own partition, so it's a relatively painless solution), I'm looking for insight into what's going on, if anyone has any ideas.

[Snowhog]

Reboot into the recovery mode. Once in, check to see if any of your files/directories in your user /home are owned by root. Assuming your username is tomcloyd:

ls -la /home/tomcloyd | grep root

If the result shows any files/directories, then you want to retake ownership:

chown -R tomcloyd:tomcloyd /home/tomcloyd

Logout/reboot:

shutdown -r now

[tomcloyd]

Thanks for your quick response!

When I try "ls -la /home/tomcloyd | grep root" I get "ls: cannot access /home/tomc: No such file or directory:

When I issue just "# ls" all I get is "# " - no response. It's like I can't see the file system.

Can I do anything like this from a LiveDisk? Well, I'll try it.

[kubicle]

I get "ls: cannot access /home/tomc: No such file or directory.

If you have /home on a separate partition, it's likely not mounted at boot in recovery mode (and /home is just an empty mount point).
You can mount it with "mount /home" and then you can work with it (you can also use LiveCD, of course)

Another thing to check (besides checking the ownerships on $HOME) is that the home partition is not full (that can also cause a login loop)

[tomcloyd]

From an NetBootIn USB flash drive, I've booted KB 13.10. I used sudo cfdisk to see all devices. /sda3/ is the hard drive /root and /sda4/ the /home partition. They're mounted. I have no idea how to access them from the command line. "ls" only sees the flashdrive filesystem apparently.

[kubicle]

From an NetBootIn USB flash drive, I've booted KB 13.10. I used sudo cfdisk to see all devices. /sda3/ is the hard drive /root and /sda4/ the /home partition. They're mounted. I have no idea how to access them from the command line. "ls" only sees the flashdrive filesystem apparently.

If using a livemedia, your hard disks (if mounted) should be found under /media

[tomcloyd]

how? "found" with what? I only have a command line. I can access /home on the hard drive via dolphin, but there's no terminal access in dolphin. I'm trying to follow SnowHog's instructions (see above) but all commands are only acting on the flash drive.

Yeah, I'm a Linux dummy. Most of my time I fix people, not broken operating systems.....

[tomcloyd]

$ls /media
apt cdrom kubuntu

huh?

still marooned in the flashdrive's filesystem. Google's not helping me. I cannot get to the hard drive.

[kubicle]

how? "found" with what? I only have a command line. I can access /home on the hard drive via dolphin, but there's no terminal access in dolphin.

There is, hit F4.

but you can also change directories with the cd command:
"cd /media" will get you to /media, then you can use ls to see what's in there...your hard disks may be in "tomc" "kubuntu" subdirectory. (EDIT: sorry, the username for livemedia is of course "kubuntu"...cd /media/kubuntu)


The /home you see in dolphin is not your hard disk, but the /home of the livemedia (the system is running from the live media, not from your hard disks)

[kubicle]

still marooned in the flashdrive's filesystem. Google's not helping me. I cannot get to the hard drive.

See my previous post. "ls /media/kubuntu"

[tomcloyd]

There is, hit F4.

but you can also change directories with the cd command:
"cd /media" will get you to /media, then you can use ls to see what's in there...your hard disks may be in "tomc" "kubuntu" subdirectory. (EDIT: sorry, the username for livemedia is of course "kubuntu"...cd /media/kubuntu)


The /home you see in dolphin is not your hard disk, but the /home of the livemedia (the system is running from the live media, not from your hard disks)

Doing cd /media doesn't get me to /home in any way I can discover, but I understand what I'm seeing in Dolphin, and that F4 trick is perfect.

Onward with The SnowHog Protocol!

[tomcloyd]

See my previous post. "ls /media/kubuntu"

That gives me just a long string of numbers. I've no idea what I might do with that.

[kubicle]

That gives me just a long string of numbers. I've no idea what I might do with that.

These numbers are probably the block ids of your hard drive filesystems, you can open them up in dolphin (browse to /media/kubuntu/XXXX-XXXX-XXXX in dolphin to see which is your home filesystem)

Doing cd /media doesn't get me to /home in any way I can discover

you can go into directories with cd and then check the contents with ls, and then move into the subdirs with another cd command (you can also use bash autocompletion), for example:
1. cd /media
2. ls
3. cd kubuntu
4 ls
etc.

It would be simpler to use the recovery mode and mount your home to work with (then your home partition would actually be in /home and not in /media/kubuntu/whatever since you'd be running the system from your hard disks)

[tomcloyd]

Via a Dolphin terminal screen, I've navigated where I see and recognize the root of /home/tomc/, my user acct on the hard drive. I'm now looking at this:

kubuntu@kubuntu: /media/kubuntu/564163e2-8103-4905-91c3-9d504fe5b5ba/C/ ls -la | grep root                                                
drwxr-xr-x  5 root root  4096 Apr  7 19:09 ..

I can't make sense of what I'm seeing, unfortunately.

[tomcloyd]

I must be awfully close at this point, although that doesn't mean I'll find and fix the problem keeping me from signing in.

It's almost 2:30AM here, and I'm pretty desperate for some sleep, so I'll sign off for now. Thanks for all the great help tonight. Very much appreciated. I'll hope for a bit more tomorrow? Tomorrow holds all possibilities....