Login Screen loop/hang after upgrade from 12.04

[zahtar]

Hello everyone!

I have managed to mess up with my installation and I am in need of help. I decided to upgrade to 14.04. Unfortunately it seems I did it "the wrong way". I used a command that I can't remember or find again in the web:

sudo update-manager -d

Muon asked me to download lots of MB (>700) in order to upgrade. Accepted. Now I get a login screen (new look) I enter username-password and I get three possible results:

a) for a "default" session, I get a black screen with mouse pointer. The pointer moves normally, when I reach the top left of the screen it shows a quarter of a small coloured circle (green blue) at the size of the mouse pointer. Clicking does nothing.
b) for a "kde" session, I get the wallpaper of the login screen (its colourful background I mean), the mouse pointer moving normally, and no clicking or anything, no activity in the top left corner.
c) for a "failsafe" session. I get a black screen for 1-2 seconds and then back to the login screen where I enter password etc

Next step: Ctrl Alt F1 (does it differ from Ctrl Alt F2 or Ctrl Alt F3 ?)
login using my account.

ls

gives me a directory structure and a list of files that makes me realize that my account is still functional and my files are probably there (still haven't booted with a a live cd to make backups...).

I tried the following:

Boot in recovery mode, dpkg (repair broken packages) asked to download 1700 MB, said ok, reboot, no good.

Boot in recovery mode, shell, enable networking, sudo apt-get update & sudo apt-get upgrade, reboot, no good. (btw, repositories were trusty, not precise, which I consider a good sign)

Boot in recovery mode, shell, sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop, asked to download >100MB, said ok, reboot, no good.

More attempts:

startx

gives me an error "The xkeyboard keymap compiler (xkbcomp) reports: Symbol map for key redefined. Using last definition for conflicting fields"

Ctrl Alt F1 and I need to press Alt + \rightarrow if I remember correctly to go to the command line.

sudo restart kdm

gets me to the login screen asking for the username/pass.

Googling around, I found this page http://askubuntu.com/questions/22350...n-a-login-loop and tried this command:

ls -ld tmp

result was:

drwxrwxrwt 16 root 32768 .../tmp

with the tmp being highlighted. I don't know what the "chmod" command does and I am hesitant if using sudo with something I don't know. So no more moves according to these instructions were made.

Also,

sudo dpkg-reconfigure kdm

tried bith lightdm and kdm, let the second as it looks better.

I also found the following page which suggested that proprietary nvidia drivers (I have amd) caused the fuss. Is there a way to purge my amd display drivers for a while and go to open source?
http://askubuntu.com/questions/44960...up-after-login

Finally, according to this page, I tried creating a new user from command line, but no good (I think I probably haven't created the account correctly, "sudo useradd ****" but didn't specify passwd)
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...l=1#post299287

I have a different \home partition in the same ssd as the root.

Already downloaded the kubuntu iso and planning to install (which I don't prefer) if other ways dont work.

Sorry for the long post, any suggestions are welcome.Thanks in advance!

[ronw]

Was "sudo apt-get upgrade" a typo? You want "sudo apt-get dist-upgrade" there.

[zahtar]

Hello, thank you for your reply.

It is not a typo, this is a step where I was already trying to fix things. The distribution upgrade was made by the command sudo update-manager -d (I think that was the one). When I entered sudo apt-get update & sudo apt-get upgrade, all repositories were marked trusty, not precise, so the upgrade to 14.04 was already made. I have the impression that the command sudo apt-get dist-upgrade would upgrade from 12.04 to 12.10 and not to 14.04, or at least I read something about a similar command before I entered sudo update-manager -d. Sad thing is that I didn't see the instructions in the kubuntu website, which suggest other commands. In that case I might have not be in the present place...

[Snowhog]

In the console try:

sudo apt-get install -f
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

You 'might' need to repeat this more than once.

[zahtar]

hello snowhog, thanks for your reply.

may I ask, what does the -f stands for in the sudo apt-get install -f?

[Snowhog]

man apt-get

       -f, --fix-broken
           Fix; attempt to correct a system with broken dependencies in place. This option, when used with install/remove, can omit any packages to permit APT to deduce a likely
           solution. If packages are specified, these have to completely correct the problem. The option is sometimes necessary when running APT for the first time; APT itself does not
           allow broken package dependencies to exist on a system. It is possible that a system's dependency structure can be so corrupt as to require manual intervention (which
           usually means using dpkg --remove to eliminate some of the offending packages). Use of this option together with -m may produce an error in some situations. Configuration
           Item: APT::Get::Fix-Broken.

[zahtar]

thanks, I'll give it a try and let you know how it turned out. Should I be prepared for major downloading again (the entire distro)? Or does it depend on what it finds (therefore unable to estimate)?

[ronw]

The '-f' is for fix. Read all about it with 'man apt-get' at the command line.

You can also read there why you want 'dist-upgrade' instead of just 'upgrade'.

Or the more descriptive command 'sudo apt full-upgrade'.

[zahtar]

thanks ronw :thumbup: I definitely have some reading to do as my knowledge on the matter is superficial to non existent

[mr_raider]

From the command line, delete all your kde configuration directories in your home directory:
.config
.local
.kde
.dmrc

[zahtar]

Hello there. Thanks for your reply.

How do I see those directories? From dolphin I used to press alt . but from the command line?

[mr_raider]

ls -la

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[zahtar]

Thanks for your immediate reply, using tapatalk now as well Just entered ls -a and now ls -la.

I get a list, first line says "total 24". The rest is probably directories colour coded in a different way. Two of them are red, mentioning ksocket and kde-username. And a blue mentioning kdecache. Is it safe to delete these?

Edit: exact paths are:
/var/tmp/kdecache-username
/tmp/ksocket-username
/tmp/kde-username

First one is blue, the other two red.

[mr_raider]

Thanks for your immediate reply, using tapatalk now as well Just entered ls -a and now ls -la.

I get a list, first line says "total 24". The rest is probably directories colour coded in a different way. Two of them are red, mentioning ksocket and kde-username. And a blue mentioning kdecache. Is it safe to delete these?

Are you sure you are in your personal home folder. ~

You should see stuff like .kde .mozilla

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[zahtar]

I am in the .kde folder. Do I need to rm the entire kde folder or just sone parts of it? I have no idea how safe this is, thats why I am asking...