Announcement

**skunk** · Mar 12, 2010, 01:23 PM

Re: Looping login

Check the ownership and permissions of these two critical files.

Code:

-rw------- 1 skunk skunk 994 2010-03-11 17:29 /home/skunk/.Xauthority
-rw------- 1 skunk skunk 994 2010-03-11 17:29 /home/skunk/.ICEauthority

Login will fail if they are owned by root

To fix:

Code:

sudo chown <yourid>:<yourgroup> ~/.ICEauthority
sudo chown <yourid>:<yourgroup> ~/.Xauthority

**Oceanwatcher** · Mar 12, 2010, 02:10 PM

Re: Looping login

On this PC, they are both owned by the logged in user. I have not logged into X as root.

**Telengard** · Mar 12, 2010, 04:13 PM

Re: Looping login

Originally posted by Oceanwatcher

I have a PC that got cut off in an upgrade from 9.04 to 9.10.

Maybe the upgrade was cut off before it finished migrating your sessions to the new version? I am not sure all the things that happen during an upgrade, but some configuration files most likely have to be changed for compatibility with new programs and services.

If I try to log on as a user with admin rights, I see a brief flash of a white page and I am immediately thrown back to the login dialog.

Do you mean a user who is a member of the admin group

If I go to a shell before trying to log in at all, I am able to do that and I can log in at CLI.

Good, that should narrow the problem a bit. At least we know it is fixable now.

I am also getting the loop trying to boot off a live-CD that has worked fine on other systems.

Nonsense. The Kubuntu live CD does not require a log in. If your computer is not properly configured to boot from CD (in the BIOS) then you are actually booting from your internal hard disk.

There is 9% space left on /home.

Maybe, maybe not. If your hard disk is very small then that 9% might make a big difference. The actual amount of free space will be reported when you login on a TTY and enter:

Code:

df -h /home

Once logged it you can use the adduser command to create a new user from scratch with an empty home directory. Add the new user to the admin group so you can login to that account and use the sudo command.

From there I am not sure exactly how to fix things. Maybe one of the following will fix whatever is missing. Though I believe no harm will be done, use them at your own discretion.:

sudo apt-get update ; sudo aptitude full-upgrade
sudo apt-get check
sudo aptitude -f reinstall packagename

**Oceanwatcher** · Mar 12, 2010, 07:12 PM

Re: Looping login

As both the installation I have now and the live CD are looping at the same point during the boot sequence (I guess everyone understood that except the last poster.....), I think I will jump to KDE 4.4.1 and hope that this will fix the problem.

Also, will check the network setup as I sometimes get complaints that it can not resolve host.

**Telengard** · Mar 12, 2010, 08:37 PM

Re: Looping login

Originally posted by Oceanwatcher

As both the installation I have now and the live CD are looping at the same point during the boot sequence (I guess everyone understood that except the last poster.....),

What I don't understand is how you get to a login screen when booting the live CD. None of the Kubuntu live CDs I have boot to a login screen.

**Oceanwatcher** · Mar 13, 2010, 09:22 AM

Re: Looping login

Originally posted by Telengard

What I don't understand is how you get to a login screen when booting the live CD. None of the Kubuntu live CDs I have boot to a login screen.

You really have to get hung up on non-essential information, huh? Guess what? There is no login-screen. Never has been. And as already stated - it does not change anything.

I'll explain it in detail for you:

The installation on the harddisk stops at the login. If I then go on with a normal user login, it continues the boot, shows a harddisk icon, shows a settings icon and as it is about to show the other icons, it kicks back to the login.

The live CD (as it has no login) goes straight to the harddisk icon, then the settings icon and then goes back to the harddisk icon, settings icon etc.

What is so hard to understand?

**Telengard** · Mar 13, 2010, 10:31 AM

Re: Looping login

Originally posted by Oceanwatcher

What is so hard to understand?

Because I don't get the benefit of what you can see right in front of you. That is why it is best to explain everything related to your help request in excruciating detail. The more you explain, the less responders will have to guess about.

I am very sorry you did not find my response helpful. Do not give up though. Even if no one here can solve your problem you can continue your investigation and add more information here as you go. When you do find the cause and possibly the solution, please share it here and mark the thread title "SOLVED".

Good luck.

**Snowhog** · Mar 13, 2010, 12:19 PM

Re: Looping login

Originally posted by Oceanwatcher

If I go to a shell before trying to log in at all, I am able to do that and I can log in at CLI.

In this mode, what is shown in /var/log/kdm.log (tail - 100)?

**Oceanwatcher** · Mar 16, 2010, 10:35 PM

Re: Looping login

Only some warnings from XKEYBOARD keymap compiler (xkbcomp) and that it is not fatal to the x server.

"kdm_greet[5663]: Cannot load /usr/share/kde4/apps/kdm/faces/.default.face: No such file or directory"

comes up if I try to log in and am able to get to a shell after and check syslog.

Is this a folder I can copy from another system? What is it?

One question for all you experts out there:

What is the best way to "repair" an installation? Just install again on top of the old?

/home is on a separate partition, so it should be possible to be fixed... Is there any kind of repair function similar to the one in Windows where it load all system files from the CD?

**Oceanwatcher** · Mar 16, 2010, 11:20 PM

Re: Looping login

Did an upgrade to KDE 4.4.1 today on this system.

Tried logging in as a normal user. I get the harddisk icon, the settings icon, the globe and as soon as the desktop icon show it jumps back to the login screen.

Is there a chance this could be related to the graphics board?

lspci:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN700/P4M800 Pro/P4M800 CE/VN800 [S3 UniChrome Pro] (rev 01)

Some of the information here might indicate that it is related to the graphics controller:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...me/+bug/454128

**Oceanwatcher** · Mar 17, 2010, 10:39 PM

Re: Looping login

In pure desparation I digged out an old Matrox G550 AGP card and put it in this PC just to see if the looping problem was caused by the graphics card.

Yes and no.

I could still not log in with the user that has admin rights, but that could be due to some of the things I have tested earlier. I will try to reset that tomorrow.

BUT - When I tried the normal user login, it actually logged in! I am missing everything on the desktop: icons, panels, widgets etc. (yeah, i know it all might be the same :-) ).

The dialog box stay in the middle of the screen (without the icons), the mouse works (but nothing to click on), right-click don't work, but alt-f2 works and I can get to settings etc. that way. The programs that was running last time this user was logged in comes up with their windows - Skype and Firefox.

If I press ctrl-alt-del I get the shutdown dialog so I get get out in a controlled way.

Ever seen anything like this?

**dibl** · Mar 18, 2010, 04:26 AM

Re: Looping login

Originally posted by Oceanwatcher

I could still not log in with the user that has admin rights

What do you mean "the user that has admin rights"? I think you just revealed a problem with the way you are using your system. Are you trying to do a graphical login as "root"?

**Oceanwatcher** · Mar 18, 2010, 07:16 AM

Re: Looping login

Ok....

For the benefit of everyone reading this thread:

When I refer to admin rights, I mean "the user that is a member of the admin group and has the possibility to use sudo".

I do not log in as root with GUI. I have already stated that earlier in the thread. ;-)

So... No problem with the way I am using the system. But thank you for taking the time to answer.

**skunk** · Mar 18, 2010, 07:46 AM

Re: Looping login

Check that the ownership/permissions of ~/.ICEauthority and ~/.Xauthority in the problem account are not borked

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